How can we help those students who have not attended preschool and/or do not possess the same school-readiness skills as their peers? Read more
Learning to decode words is a difficult skill in its own right. ELL students have the added challenge of learning this skill in a nonnative language. It goes without saying that these students need lots of extra support. What should this support look like? Read more
A new study published in the Journal of Pediatrics shows that students with dyslexia are underperforming their peers at an earlier age than previously thought. The study asserts that the achievement gap between typical readers and students with dyslexia is evident as early as first grade. Read more
Phonological awareness is an umbrella term that includes four developmental levels: word awareness, syllable awareness, onset-rime awareness, and phoneme awareness. Our Phonological Awareness Skills table shows how specific phonological awareness skills fall into the four developmental levels. The table provides an example for each skill. We hope you will download, use, and share this free resource! Read more
Are you looking for high-quality, research-based reading curricula at an affordable price… or even for free? Chances are, Read Naturally offers just what you need. Our highly effective tools target all aspects of reading development. Educator favorites include: Read more
Our teacher’s manuals are packed full of useful information about how to implement our programs effectively. They’re extraordinarily well researched and include hundreds of helpful suggestions. Have you read them recently? Cover to cover?
Don’t worry if the answer is no. We know how busy teachers are, and we want to make it easy on you to implement our programs with fidelity. That’s why we’ve created Fidelity Checklists. Download as many as you’d like—they’re free on our website! Read more
Last month, Read Naturally attended an early-learning conference to promote Funēmics, our phonemic awareness program. Many attendees were surprised to see us there. They expressed that early childhood educators should not be teaching reading to students before they’re ready. When we explained that Funēmics is a pre-reading curriculum that does not incorporate letters or written words, they were shocked. “But you’re a reading company,” they said. Read more
When it comes to language, young children have a distinct advantage over the rest of the population. Their brains are far more receptive to it. Researchers believe that people are most able to easily learn their native language—as well as other languages—in the time before adolescence. How can educators support this window? Read more
We’re pleased to announce that Funēmics®, our popular new phonemic awareness program, is a recent winner of the National Parenting Center’s Seal of Approval! This prestigious award is given seasonally to the highest quality products in the parent/child consumer market. Read more
I've spent the past five years obsessed with the creation of Funēmics, and I've talked about it quite a bit with my family members, who collectively speak five languages and have lived in six different countries on four continents.
I grew up as an American in Saudi Arabia, and my family was part of a global community called ex-patriots—whatever that means. For us, it meant that when my sister Erica graduated from college, she moved to Florence, Italy; when my brother Patrick fell in love, it was with a Swedish girl in Rome; and when my Dad remarried, it was to a beautiful woman from Ecuador. More conventionally, I found a hockey player from northern Minnesota, but he happened to live in Aschaffenburg, Germany. Read more