FAQs

After sign up, you will be asked what grade your child is currently and whether they are above grade level, at grade level, or below grade level by 1-3 years in their reading skills.

Give your best estimate. If the material you choose is too easy or too hard, contact us and we'll adjust your account.

Additionally, you can choose a couple of sample reading passages at the grade level you think your child is capable of reading proficiently.

Have them read aloud to you. Make a note of any repetitions, substitutions, omissions, or mispronunciations they make. Then ask them at least five comprehension questions.

Instructional level is reading without mistakes with a 93% accuracy and a minimum of 75% comprehension.

The program materials and teaching videos are delivered and accessed online. Each day you will print out a few pages of handouts to use with your kids. Most of the lessons and activities are done offline at a table or outside.

There are a lot of fun activities and games. With grades K-3, most of the activities are done with the parent and child together. For grades 4 and above, there are a couple of activities done with the parent and child together, and the rest the child can do independently.

The short answer is yes!

Each day there are a few handouts to print out and instructional videos to watch. Each day's actual activities should only take 45-60 minutes of actual work.

The first week takes a little bit of time and prep to get up to speed, but by the second week, the activities become second nature.

We often suggest breaking up some of the activities to different parts of the day.

1. Print out the handouts
2. Watch the short videos either by yourself or with your kids to know what to do (about 5 minutes)
3. Do the fluency training with your kids (5 minutes)
4. Activities for comprehension, phonics, brain-body, and executive function rotate throughout the week (20 – 40 minutes)

Executive function is your ability to plan and organize. It’s also your ability to strategize and pay attention to and remember details. Executive function also involves flexible thinking. When we read, we also use our executive function skills.

There is a direct correlation between executive function and reading skills. Your ability to comprehend depends on your ability to retrieving word meaning and integrate that with prior knowledge. That specific skill involves executive function. When executive function skills improve, overall reading and learning skills improve.

In this reading program, your child will learn through seeing, hearing, and doing. Learning to read through multiple senses builds stronger associations, improves retention and speeds up recall skills.

In other words, learning to read in this way makes reading easier and automatic. This at-home and online reading program is specifically designed with short activities that integrate hearing, seeing, and doing.

Research on teaching reading and spelling dates back to the early 1930s, first with Samuel Orton and then later with Anna Gillingham. They developed a teaching approach, the Orton-Gillingham method (OG), to help struggling readers and spellers. Their teaching methods include what is currently considered best practices: sequential, phonics-based systems that teach the basics of word formation before whole meanings.

Learning through all three senses (auditory, visual, and tactile-kinesthetic) is essential. This multisensory approach has been proven effective for students of all abilities, including those with dyslexia and other learning challenges. 

The Scholar Within Reading Program incorporates these OG principles and strategies along with the latest research on learning. 

Orton-Gillingham Instructional Components for Optimal Learning:

• Multisensory: Uses all of the senses (auditory, visual, and tactile-kinesthetic)
• Sequential: Proceeds step-by-step in a logical sequence
• Incremental: Each lesson builds upon prior learning
• Cumulative: Constantly and consistently reviews previously taught concepts
• Individualized: Meets each student’s individual needs
• Phonogram-Based: Words are based on combining letters and letter combinations known as phonograms (the sound-symbol relationship, also known as the Alphabetic Principle)
• Explicit: Stated clearly and in a detailed manner

Our at-home and online reading program integrates research-proven multisensory learning with the Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching reading in a way that will finally work for your child.

We accomplish this with a bite-sized, activity-based approach. Our short activities ensure all children’s success. It's perfect for struggling readers and those with dyslexia, ADHD, or other learning challenges.

This program has been designed by learning disabilities expert and board-certified educational therapist Bonnie Terry, M.Ed., BCET. Bonnie has worked with children and adults of all abilities for over 30 years and has discovered the code for the best way to teach reading and spelling.

In addition to improving reading skills, your children will also improve their overall auditory, visual, and tactile-kinesthetic processing skills to make overall learning easier.

The mind-body connection is critical to reading and overall learning as the vestibular system helps us to focus our perception of objects and words.

The vestibular system is the sensory system that sends signals to the neural structures that control eye movement. Because we learn and read through eye movements, the vestibular system is a critical piece of the mind-body connection. It helps us focus on and perceive both objects and words, take in and analyze shapes, sizes, and directions of objects, words, sentences, and passages. It helps us interact with our environment every day.

It allows us to see the shapes, sizes, and positions of letters in space. Additionally, this system helps you to visually scan words across a page to read fluently and accurately.

Learn more about the mind-body connection and learning skills.

The National Reading Panel has made it clear that the best approach to reading instruction is one that incorporates:

• Explicit instruction in phonemic awareness
• Systematic phonics instruction
• Methods to improve fluency
• Vocabulary instruction
• Ways to enhance comprehension

Our At-Home and Online Reading Program includes these reading components in a variety of ways since the National Reading Panel also stresses including a combination of methods.

Reading comprehension is the ability to understand, analyze, synthesize, and use what you have read.

Your child will learn specific reading comprehension strategies to improve their comprehension skills. We have custom-designed graphic organizers that your child will learn to take notes even at a young age.

When you incorporate multiple senses (hearing, seeing, doing) while reading and use specific strategies, remembering what you have read becomes that much easier.

Phonics is sometimes referred to as a method to teach reading. Phonics is the ability to pair individual sounds with a visual symbol (letters).

Phonics teaches the sounds that letters or groups of letters make when spoken. Phonics is the process of matching sounds to letters.

Reading experts refer to this as the alphabetic principle. This process is where the auditory (sounds) are integrated with the visual symbols. This is known as auditory-visual integration.

Reading fluency is the ability to retrieve words automatically and easily, almost without thought.

Our reading programs have reading fluency training built-in. Our reading fluency drills work on strengthening your eye muscles so you can more fluidly read a line of text from left to right. The drills also improve visual discrimination skills and your ability to decode words quickly and accurately.

With our reading fluency training, students compete against themselves and chart their progress every day. They'll see their words-per-minute go up and their mistakes-per-minute go down.

You can try the first reading fluency drill here, or sign up to get started with the complete reading program with new fluency drills each week.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz, the author of Overcoming Dyslexia, states, “Fluency Training is one of the most important things a parent can do to help their child improve their reading skills.”

Vocabulary is the group or body of words known by an individual. Your ability to improve and expand your vocabulary correlates to your ability to understand and comprehend text at higher and higher levels.

To be able to understand and comprehend what you have read, you need to know the meaning of the words that you are reading. Research tells us that vocabulary knowledge, including both oral and written vocabulary, is critically important for a child’s success in school (Kamil et al., 2008).

The bigger vocabulary that a person has, the easier it is to read and comprehend what it is that they are reading.