Now Is The Time To Seek Help

Now is the perfect time to get a handle on your child’s struggles and get the kind of help he or she needs to succeed!

Many children and adults struggle with an undiagnosed learning disability that can affect reading, spelling, and writing. There are many misconceptions by both parents and teachers regarding reading instruction. Below is list of reading myths that has been adapted from Michael Pressley’s book Reading Instruction that Works. Below are several common reading misconceptions:

• “Learning to read is a natural process.” People will often suggest that children will learn to read if they are immersed in a literacy-rich environment. If reading was natural, everyone would be able to read and we wouldn’t be worried about the “literacy crisis” facing our country. According to the National Institute for Literacy, 40% of 4^th graders lack even the most basic reading skills.
• “Children will eventually read if they are given enough time.” Research has shown that if a child is not reading grade-appropriate materials by the time he is in the 4^th grade, the odds of him ever developing good reading skills are slim. Of course, it is possible to turn that around with proper reading and spelling intervention.
• “Skilled reading involves syntactic and semantic cues to “guess” words, and good readers make many ‘mistakes’ as they read text.” Studies show that only poor readers use context clues to guess at words. Good readers depend upon the visual information in the word, so he can sound out the word successfully.
• “Phonemic Awareness (the ability to hear sounds within words) is a consequence (not a cause) of reading acquisition.” The evidence showing the importance of phonemic awareness as a valuable pre-reading skill is overwhelming. Children who develop phonemic awareness are more likely to develop good word decoding skills and become better readers.

Don’t let your child become a reading statistic – get your son or daughter appropriate help now!