The ability to read and comprehend the written word is vital to the success of every student. With attention spans being drastically reduced by an overload of external stimulus, teaching students to read successfully is a challenge for all teachers and educators. This isn’t about trying to encourage a “passion for reading.” It’s about ensuring children develop a fundamental skill critical to their education. It’s one of the primary reasons why many schools are incorporating an online reading intervention program.
Why a Reading Intervention Program Is Often Necessary
Students are under pressure. Teachers are under pressure. School and district administrators are under pressure. Success in reading has to be more than just “test scores.” The goal of elementary reading intervention programs is to address problems early so the impact can be mitigated and students with slow reading skills can receive the help they need. Incorporating an online reading intervention program into your curriculum will identify individual student skill gaps and tailor instruction for different learning styles. It’s a proactive step designed to help students before bad reading habits develop. Boosting the skills of slow and reluctant readers is critical to the development of all students; without intervention their literacy skills may suffer, and that will present a myriad of issues for students (and society) if students are graduating without proficient reading skills. This is a critical issue in the modern educational system. It’s also important to help non-native English speakers learn how to master the language.
Developing comprehensive phonics programs is one part of the solution when implementing key intervention strategies. There are other strategies that can be employed when integrating an online reading intervention program to help students develop their reading ability. For example, here are some easy to incorporate strategies and programs:
- Peer assisted learning strategies or PALS ensure weak readers are paired with a stronger mentor who can encourage them to overcome their reading challenges.
- Teacher reading or audiobook lessons. A teacher demonstrating proper reading is a great way to improve student comprehension. Listening to an audiobook can also help with fluency.
- Shared reading: often referred to as modeling, is where students read aloud while others follow in their own books. This is a great way to demonstrate ability.
- Echo reading, choral reading, and fluency-oriented reading instruction are all methods to ensure students are gaining familiarity with text and revisiting it many times over the course of a school week.
Incorporate Software into Elementary Reading Intervention Programs
Reading to learn is much different than learning to read. By the time students get into later grades they will need to have developed strong reading skills in order to learn at a solid pace and keep up with their fellow students. Literacy skills become even more important as students progress. For slow readers or those that continue to struggle with literacy skills it can be daunting. Incorporating an online reading intervention program that includes software from Essential Skills is the best way to target skill deficits and accelerate student learning.