After School Reading

Delivering Science of Reading lessons in an After-School Program

The Startup Reading after-school program is designed to accelerate the acquisition of essential reading skills for students in grades K-3. A key factor in the program’s success is using digital reading lessons to deliver lesson content for each page in first six student workbooks. The digital lessons are in a self-paced tutoring style format. The curriculum is aligned with the Science of Reading principles and has been designed from evidence-based research over the past six years.

A Personalized Reading Plan and Support from a Reading Coach

Each student receives a personalized lesson plan determined from their reading skill assessment. A major part of the success of this program lies in the role of a supportive reading coach who spends individual time with the student once the digital lesson is completed. A reading coach will review the lesson notations in the student’s workbook and review the student’s reading of the lesson content. The reading coach then recognizes the student’s efforts, and progress, providing encouragement, and boosting their confidence and their self-esteem.

Startup Reading accelerates student reading skills.

Students intuitively engage in digital lessons

Benefits of a Tutoring Style Digital Lesson

Young students are surprisingly comfortable engaging in recorded video lessons as part of an after-school program. Digital technology has become more familiar to this generation, thanks to the increased use of smartphones and video games. This comfort level with virtual learning allows students to benefit from digital lessons involving reading and comprehension. This generation recognizes and prefers the autonomy to control their pace, pause, replay, and review lessons offsite.

Imprinting a Learning Experience with Words, Images and Actions

Digital reading lessons are especially beneficial since they’re specifically designed to connect images and actions with the learning of a new word, representing an imprinted learning experience easily recallable from memory.

The Role of the Reading Coach in developing student confidence

The Reading Coach establishes a supportive and tutoring-type relationship with the student, setting and outlining assigned lessons and helping students accelerate their acquisition of reading skills. Once a student completes the assigned digital lesson, they will review the student’s workbook notations and ask them to read words, phrases, and sentences to ensure understanding of the content. Reading coaches are trained to listen carefully to ensure solutions are not guessing but rather correctly applying reading strategies. At the end of the coaching session, approximately 4-6 minutes, they will recognize the student’s efforts and accomplishments, building up the student’s confidence and helping foster the correct attitude of becoming a ‘Super Reader’

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In the adjacent video, you can see the student engagement with a digital lesson and how the reading coach reviews the words in the lesson. We provide online training for your teachers, assistants, and teaching aids to be effective reading coaches.

As the student advances in reading skills, the reading coach develops a mentoring relationship with each student, providing guidance and feedback. The coach always recognizes the student’s efforts and expresses their confidence in their ability to become a ‘Super Reader.’

Individual Student Progress over a One Month Period

Accountability is built into the Startup Reading program

A placement process determines the optimum starting point for each student. The reading coach session indicates the quality of the student’s knowledge and use of the reading skills in the lesson. At the end of each workbook, an assessment is conducted to ensure the student is ready to move to the next book. Student progress in reading skills can be reviewed by the graph showing student proogress and accoridinng to the grade level.

A grandfather comments on the effectiveness of the reading coach in the learning experience.

A family member comments on the value of the reading coach sessions. The reading coach provides the validation and the human mentorship important to each student.

Parent engagement and support and is important in the after-school relationship. Family members can watch the digital lessons and understand their child’s engagement and progress. in learning to read.