It's Not Too Late
How to repair your child's reading skills---in spite of public school malfeasance
The NAEP results on reading remain grim: just 25% of 4th graders were at or above reading proficiency in 2022. We’ve published before on these low statistics, but it’s not too late to help your kids improve their reading—and by proxy comprehension skills—significantly.
Is your child falling behind?
Take the free online phonics test from Spencer Learning, to assess where they are.
Remedial Phonics recommendations
There’s a plethora of resources under the “remedial phonics” umbrella. We’ve curated a few of them here. If you can’t homeschool your child, there are plenty of ways to help them excel against the tsunami of public school’s DEI and gender-bending distractions.
The CTL Conduit is not sponsored by any company nor author featured below.
Phonics Pathways: Clear Steps to Easy Reading and Perfect Spelling (2011)
Grades: K - 2
“These sounds and patterns are introduced one at a time, and slowly built into words, syllables, phrases, and sentences. Simple step-by-step directions begin every lesson. Although originally designed for K-2 emergent readers, this award-winning book is also successfully being used with adolescent and adult learners, as well as second language learners and students with learning disabilities.”
The Science of Reading Decodable Curriculum (2024)
Grades: 1 - 5
This curriculum demystifies reading by focusing on what truly works:
Phonics & Phonemic Awareness: Step-by-step, systematic lessons that help children understand the relationship between letters and sounds.
Decodable Books & Reading Practice: Engaging, purpose-written texts to reinforce new skills so kids can practice with success, not frustration.
Proven Structured Literacy Methods: Embraced by educators and special interventionists, including those working with dyslexia.
Resources for Middle School students
The nice thing about “Teachers Pay Teachers” (TPT) is that reliable resources are at your fingertips - you really can’t go wrong. The site has filters that will help you narrow down choices tailored to your student’s particular needs.
Ultimate Phonics Reading Program
“For students who never learned phonics due to poor instruction in the early grades, Ultimate Phonics provides a thorough, solid foundation for better reading. Without strong phonics skills it is impossible to be a good reader. Now you can thoroughly teach your children or students those critical phonics skills with just a few hours per week using our program.”
What to look for—-and avoid
I’m old enough to remember being taught phonics in grade school; I was an “early reader” and was decoding, so to speak, language before most of my peers. The resources above are designed to get you started.
Look for 2 and 3-letter combinations, and sounding these out. Look for consistent repetition and less “cookie cutter” approach.
Avoid books that lean toward “sight words” or mastering the “shape” of a word—phonics is NOT about visual-only cues.
It is visual decoding of letters into their correct, corresponding sounds—starting with those pairings and combining with other letters, to build reading skills.
Here’s to reading, comprehension, critical thinking; to a more literate, confident society.
