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Topic: Reading

Reversing Declines in Reading Scores in Middle and High School

January 22, 2018

It’s a common concern that only one-third of fourth graders’ reading scores are at grade level. A lesser known statistic is that despite remediation and intervention, 66% of students aren’t reading at grade level in 8th grade. This latter statistic suggests two crucial problems: For many, when students receive reading remediation in elementary school it’s not lasting after the support ends; Students who are good readers in elementary school aren’t continuing to develop they way they should The implications of poor reading skills are well-known and well-documented, affecting all aspects of career success. So if you are concerned, don’t wait and hope it fixes itself. Why do reading scores decline in middle and high school (even if they are fine elementary readers)? A strikingly… Read More

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Exclusive Mindprint Guide: Ideas for Reluctant Readers

June 26, 2016

  This is one of many exclusive Mindprint guides found in the FREE Parent & Teacher Resources section of the Mindprint website. Independent reading is so important for students of all ages. We hope this list enables you to successfully foster a love of reading. If your child is reading below grade level consider audio books to help keep him engaged. But be sure to get to the root cause of a learning struggle. Early intervention can make all the difference. You can learn more about the potential causes of reading difficulties here.

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Now You See it, Now You Don’t: Cognitive Blindness

October 25, 2014

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff A few days ago, my six-year-old brought home a book from school that was considered a “right-fit”. Her assignment was to read the book to me out loud. We’ve been doing this since the start of the school year. It was a routine assignment and from what I could tell from the book’s jacket, a routine kind of book for a typical first grader. But this was not routine. A few pages into the story, she lost much of the fluency I would have expected given the book’s vocabulary. And why? Because she was distracted by the pictures. “That man is not wearing a helmet,” she said, looking at a man on a motorcycle depicted… Read More

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5 Tips to Help them Finish their Summer Reading (and math)

August 15, 2014

By Sarah Vander Schaaff Perhaps you, too, once had a weekend in college when you realized you had two days to read 700 pages of Dostoyevsky. I planted myself in a coffee shop and inhaled The Brothers Karamazov, along with the fumes of java, until I got the job done, my own form of crime and punishment. With a few weeks left of summer, I can’t send my kids to a coffee shop, not without a hefty Starbucks bill and some raised eyebrows. But we have work to do! Sure, we’ve been reading, and yes, we’ve been doing math, but there are papers to fill out and more math to be done. How are we going to get it all… Read More

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How Did You Learn to Read?

April 4, 2014

By Sarah Vander Schaaff Editor’s Note: This was originally written in 2015 and edited by Mindprint staff in 2019. Structured phonics is proven to be the most effective instruction for all students, particularly struggling readers. If your student needs help to learn to read, our learning specialists recommend these reading strategies. Erika Bird was standing in front of a table ready to demonstrate The Reading Game at the Toy Fair in New York when I first met her. With my five-year-old in mind, I stopped. Her system was an alternative to BOB, she said, when I told her of my daughter’s devotion to the early reader books created by a teacher named Bobby Lynn Maslen. The Reading Game was invented by Bird’s father, Kenneth Hodkinson, known… Read More

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Summer Reading Advice to Avoid the Summer Slide

May 14, 2013

Summer Reading: Why It Matters Thanks to a few tips from the National Summer Learning Association summer reading can be a bit less stressful and a lot more effective. If there is one tip I inferred from looking at their 2009 Research Brief, “How to Make Summer Reading Effective” it is this. If you want to increase your child’s reading comprehension, spend less time on quantity and more time on quality. The quality of the book (is it a right fit) and your discussions afterwards count most. While it’s true that low-income students lose two months in reading achievement over the summer, all students regress if they don’t read. According to the NSLA, students “typically score lower on standardized tests at the… Read More

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