Blog

The way we teach and educate children is constantly evolving. Curriculums change as what we know changes, what’s acceptable in one era may not be as acceptable in another. Of course, technology helps lead the development of new teaching methods; while in-classroom face-to-face interactions offer real and tangible benefits to students, educators are recognizing the value inherent in online learning platforms and cutting-edge educational software for schools.

Developing solid reading proficiency at an early age and maintaining those skills throughout their school-age years is vital to the success of every student. Raising proficiency in reading improves the chances for successful graduation. Finding ways to ensure your students make the critical reading gains they need is the goal of a successful reading intervention program.

Remedial education is focused on those students that simply need to “catch up.” It usually targets students who have fallen below minimum standards in a particular skill, quite often reading skills. Teaching phonemic awareness to remedial students is a proven strategy that dramatically improves reading ability for many struggling readers. Incorporating Essential Skills online reading intervention software into your lessons will help students master this important skill with hundreds of phonemic awareness activities.

Teaching requires many different tools. New technology is forever upgrading the tools available to educators and schools. Families and early educators now have access to a variety of teaching tools that continue to change the way students are being taught, including apps, digital books, games, video chatting software, and of course, educational software for schools.

Throughout centuries of structured and non-structured educational instruction, teachers and educators have been focused on developing strong reading skills in students. This has involved a variety of instructional phonics lessons or incorporating “sight word” instruction as a primary tool for teaching and learning. The truth is, there are many different strategies involved in the most successful elementary reading programs.

In a school environment, whenever a student is struggling with any part of the curriculum, it’s important to take positive action to improve the situation – in other words, to intervene. Putting the best interest of a student first is the goal of all elementary reading intervention programs.

The value of reading to children is well known. Reading sharpens the mind and helps develop cognitive thinking. It helps in self-discovery, as books contain relatable stories, characters, situations, and varying degrees of good and bad that help readers grow and develop analytical thinking. Reading also helps students develop stronger writing skills and expand their vocabulary. One way to foster a love of reading in children is through the use of elementary reading programs.

In the battle of the sensory biases, researchers have shown that the eyes win out over the ears when it comes to seeing which one the brain believes more. That’s good news for teachers and educators who are tasked with teaching young students how to read and recognize words by simply seeing them. Research shows that in addition to phonemic awareness and phonics, vocabulary is a key component of teaching children to read. The best way to build vocabulary at an early level is by teaching sight words for grade 1 and kindergarten.

The use of educational software was rising long before the pandemic. However, the pandemic has resulted in the accelerated adoption of educational software for schools across different grades.

It is important for children to have a strong understanding of spoken language, especially how sounds work, before they can understand written language. By having a strong foundation of how sounds work and how these relate to words, reading and writing get easier as children grow older.