My 16 year old son is beginning his 4th week of Read Right tutoring. He recieved books labeled for the reading levels, tapes and a tape player. Twice a week he calls in and works with his tutor. They read a selection and he reads with the tape. Then he reads aloud alone and if he makes an error, he is coached and repeats the cycle. This is how my son relates his sessions to me. I have not been here to hear for myself, but I will be present for the lessons next week. I have not had my monthly conference with the teacher yet. My son seems to like the lessons even though he says they are a little hard and a little frustrating. I like that he is reading, something it has been hard for me to get him to do. He has had quite a bit of decoding lessons and reading has still been slow and labor intensive. Read Right does not focus on decoding, but on fluency, meaning, predictive skills. My analogy at this point is that if reading were bike riding, my son knows how to pedal and steer, but he is awkward and uncomfortable and unsure. Now with Read Right he is on the bike riding and our hope is that all the skills he has worked for years on will come together. The program does have an eight week money back guarantee, so I still have time to evaluate. So far, so good. www.readright.com
ReadRight program
I’m not sure if I’m the person you mention, but your post caught my eye! I have a student who sounds as if he would benefit from this. I’ll be watching to hear how you like it after observing a lesson. I’m curious to know how they develop inferential thinking skills, especially over the phone!
The big assumption is whether that knowledge of pedaling and steering is there. If it is — wonderful :lol: — time to work on fluency.
However, just as it is a mistake to spend forever enmeshed in decoding if fluency doesn’t happen, when it’s time to focus on the fluency, it is also a mistake to assume that decoding skills are there, lurking, somewhere (or that they will, somehow, just ‘happen’ with practice — yes, for some of us it does but not all).
Sometimes with the practice, you can find the holes in the decoding skills that are tripping him up and focus on those and bring them to automaticity.
The bottom line right now is he’s reading :-) You might want to listen to the errors he makes — that will tell you whether those decoding skills are there.