Early Readers Program
Reading is the gateway to learning, making the world new and magical, and all students deserve to feel confident and positive about reading.
Sometimes, early readers need additional and more focused support as they’re learning how to read, despite the best efforts of teachers, parents, and caregivers. It is important for children and adults to remember that difficulty with reading is not an indication of a student’s intelligence. There are any number of reasons why a child may struggle with reading, and Engaging Minds can help.
Our Program
Engaging Minds Early Readers program is a research-based, multi-sensory, and skills-based approach to reading instruction that will help early readers (grades K-3) build a solid foundation in literacy while fostering a love of reading.
Incorporating nationally renowned Wilson Reading Fundations program as the foundation of our reading support, we encompass six essential components of effective reading instruction identified by the National Reading Panel:
- Phonemic awareness
- Phonics
- Fluency
- Guided oral reading
- Vocabulary
- Comprehension
Our early education reading instructors start with the basic building blocks of our language and present them in an explicit, systematic, and multi-sensory manner. We introduce appropriate leveled readers throughout our work together (via Learning A-Z) to help your child practice their new skills. And because students learn through multiple modalities, we engage students in a conversation about their reading to help strengthen comprehension, and spend some time writing about their reading, as well.
Executive Function Skills and Reading
Research has shown that executive function skills play an important role in a child’s success in reading, as it does in all aspects of their learning. We incorporate executive function skill practice into all of our reading sessions with students. We practice strategies to support working memory, flexibility, and self-monitoring, while also integrating organization, planning, and time management strategies.
Ongoing Communication
We believe it’s important to keep parents 100% in the loop and up-to-date with the work we’re doing with your child. From your child’s very first session, we open a direct line of communication between you and your child’s instructor via EMChat, our proprietary communication portal. Each week we will identify ways that adults in the home can best support their child in practicing various skills.
Getting Started
We begin every Engaging Minds Early Readers partnership with an intake process. Our goal is to gain insight into how your child learns so we can develop a personalized plan.
- To understand your child’s reading profile we begin with a parent assessment and intake interview.
- We request and review a brief reading assessment from your child’s teacher.
- When we begin working with your child, we will conduct an interactive assessment of their reading strengths and weaknesses.
We gather as much information as possible and develop a learning plan designed to meet your child’s specific needs.
Please contact us here to learn more.