RAISING READERS:
WHAT PARENTS CAN DO

Is Your Child on Track to Become a Reader?
Here's How to Find Out!

A Success Story: Becoming an Effective Advocate (Wrightslaw)
A mother explains the steps she took to ensure her children would learn to read.

The screenings and assessments on this page are not intended to be comprehensive evaluations of your child's reading skills. Poor performance indicates a need for professional assessment.

Target the Problem A tool to help parents and teachers understand the specific problems a child may be having with reading. Start the "Target the Problem" Activity

Proactive Parent Through this site, Susan Hall and researcher, Louisa Moats, are working to meet parents' and children's needs for reading education and other parenting resources.

Diagnosing Dyslexia
Recommended Books by Grade Level
"Book recommendations by Susan Hall can help you build an age appropriate child's library or book list using the best's children's literature. The more than 170 children's books on this site are recommended only after having been carefully screened and evaluated by the Authors of Straight Talk About Reading. Book recommendations are organized by the child's age/school grade and by Lexile Score."

“Give your child a “Red Flag Reading Screening” to gain a quick, informal measure of reading fluency on grade level material.”
“Many parents have concerns about their child's reading performance, but are getting mixed messages from schools and inflated report cards. They think there's a problem, but don't have any set of guidelines by which they can judge for themselves exactly how severe the problem might be. Our screening is designed to provide parents with a tool that can help confirm or negate their suspicions, through the use of objective & widely accepted standards as applied to state approved grade level material. The results of the screening can then be used as one more piece of the puzzle in determining whether to seek further help or testing.”

Free Online "Get Ready to Read" Screening Tool for 4-Year-Olds. Take this 20-question research-based screening tool with your child. The score will show if your child's pre-reading skills are weak, strong, or somewhere in between. And you'll receive activities and resources to improve those skills.

Fry's Readability Graph: Directions for Use

Grade Levels of Reading Books: How Can You Tell?"

How to use your Computer to Find the Reading Level of a Book or Article.

You can monitor your child's reading fluency by asking your child to read graded reading passages for one minute. Click on the following sites to learn why fluency is important and how you can measure your child's progress at home. If your child is not progressing well, talk to your child's teacher and/or request an evaluation or IEP meeting to revise goals, objectives and specially designed instruction.

What is Fluency?

Why is Fluency Important?

Assessing Your Child's Reading Fluency Using Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM). This page also includes CBM for writing and math.

  1. To obtain graded reading passages, see "Reading Fluency Probes"; also see OKAPI! (The Internet Application for Creating Curriculum-Based Assessment Reading Probes) under "CBM Tools on the Internet"
  2. For "Directions for Administering and Scoring", click on "Reading: Oral Reading Fluency"
  3. To create your own progress-monitoring charts, see: "Graphing Solutions for Progress-Monitoring ("Graphing by Computers" and "Graphing by Hand").
  4. To find out if your child is closing the gap in his/her reading skills, see Oral Reading Fluency Norms (Hasbrouck and Tindal, 2006). This document requires the Adobe Reader which can be downloaded at no cost from the Adobe Web Site.

CBM Now
As a parent, you can individually read with your child and chart their progress in reading. Math, written expression, and spelling can also be used, but reading is used most often.

Determining Who Needs Fluency Training Using 2006 Fluency Norms (Printable Version)

The San Diego Quick Reading Assessment. Referenced at the National Institute for Literacy

Mindplay Free Online Reading Assessment
"Are you worried about your child's phonics and reading comprehension? Are you limiting your own opportunities due to poor reading skills? This free aptitude test will detect specific reading deficiencies. Then we'll give you recommendations to help you or your child read or read better!"

The Abecedarian Reading Assessment
The Abecedarian Reading Assessment was designed to test what research has shown to be the most essential knowledge domains for developing reading skills. Written by two researchers, Sebastian Wren and Jennifer Watts, this assessment is available for you to download and use for free.

Many Children with Dyslexia also have difficulty with math calculations and grammar. Go to Math is Fun for online games to help your child master basic math facts.

MATH IS FUN!



OTHER READING RESOURCES FOR PARENTS.

 "Ten Tenets for Parents" International Dyslexia Association, Perspectives, Summer 2003

One More Story is an online library where children can choose a book - complete with naration, highlighted text, and the book's original illustrations - and listen as they read along on the computer. (fee-based)

"Reading - Rx for Success " by Linda Schrock Taylor
"If your child, your grandchild, your neighbor’s child, even your neighbor, cannot read well enough to meet potential, I would encourage you to become informed about the reading process and prepare to teach reading. Study the books: Speech to Print by Louisa Cook Moats, and The Writing Road to Reading by Romalda Spalding – Edited by Dr. Mary North.... Gather items for your own ‘First Aid Kit’ and begin teaching children and adults to read. You do not have to be a teacher – certified or otherwise! The more you practice, the more skills you will develop, and the more life-changing instruction you will give."

"Phonetic Support" by Linda Schrock Taylor
Automatic decoding of the code, in which the language and speech of English are recorded into print, is vitally important for success in reading comprehension. When these skills are developed to automaticity, the brain need no longer worry about decoding, and can focus totally on comprehension of the text being read. The invention of the alphabet was a remarkable achievement. With this alphabetic code, mankind can record its history, discuss its present, and plan its future. To quote Rudolf Flesch (Why Johnny Can’t Read) – "it flies in the face of common sense" that teachers of reading; that college instructors of teachers of reading; would cast aside the marvelous invention that the alphabet is, and turn generations of students into word-guessing illiterates."