Skip to content

Blog

New Partnership with Amenia and Millerton

Teach My Kid to Read is excited to announce a partnership with AmeniaFree Library, NorthEast Millerton Library, and Whole Phonics to provide Summer Reading Program decodable books in support of the ongoing efforts to teach children to read using science-aligned instruction.

First-Ever Literacy Hub

In partnership with the Buffalo Sabres Foundation and WNY Literacy Initiative, Teach My Kid to Read creates in-school literacy hubs providing everyone access to critical literacy resources.

Your Donor Impact

This year has been one of extraordinary growth for Teach My Kid to Read! Thanks to the generosity of our donors and community members, we are raising awareness of the use and value of decodable books as an equitable tool for early and struggling readers, and providing library staff with critical training, resources, and access to bring decodable books to all children. Full Impact Letter

About My Friend Joan

“Spike, right! I got it!” I yelled to my friend Joan. Joan slammed the ball over the net. I don’t remember whether we got the point. It doesn’t matter. I remember that I was the digger, and she was the spiker. That meant I had Joan’s back if she missed, and I was responsible for digging up the spikes from the opposing team and setting them up for a spiker like Joan. Joan and I met when we were five years old. She somehow found her way into our backyard on Harristown Road. Joan lived on Rock Road, two streets down, so she must have cut through a few backyards to find me. At first, I thought she was older. Joan was tall for her age, and I was small for my age. Hence, she grew into a spiker, and I grew into a digger—volleyball lingo. I introduced Joan to our unneutered collie, Jet, and I immediately showed Joan his “baked potatoes.” Nobody ever questioned my anatomical inaccuracies. Joan and I were in some classes together in elementary school. I don’t remember her getting pulled out, but she told me years later about all the time she spent with the reading and, I think, speech teacher. I remember adults explaining that she was “slow.” I don’t think I ever gave… | Read More »About My Friend Joan

New York’s Dyslexia Task Force Act: What Does This Mean to Me?

On May 24, 2022, The New York Senate passed The Dyslexia Task Force Act A.2185-B/S.441-C. Senator Brad Hoylman sponsored the Senate bill. The bill had already passed on the Assembly side, where Assemblymember Robert Carroll sponsored it. The bill’s next stop is with Governor Kathy Hochul. After that, the Governor signs the bill into law. That will be a day of celebration! A few years ago, I wrote about New York’s Guidance Memo on Students with Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, and Dyscalculia when it passed. Any legislation or activity that improves literacy or education for children with dyslexia is favorable, and anything that passes in New York is significant. We owe it to ourselves to celebrate any type of progress. However, as parents and guardians struggling to get children the reading services they need, nothing can happen fast enough. Even the best bills are not the entire solution. However, policy is critical, and policy influences the culture of literacy. This bill is the start of good policy. What’s promising about The Dyslexia Task Force Act is that it provides an opportunity to carve out specific frameworks designed to identify struggling readers and writers due to potential dyslexia/dysgraphia. The Task Force also documents the most appropriate interventions and trainings proven to demonstrate high gains when properly implemented. Additionally, the task force’s work happens… | Read More »New York’s Dyslexia Task Force Act: What Does This Mean to Me?

Diverse Books, Decodable Books & Libraries

Diverse books, decodable books and libraries. They are all part of innovative community literacy solutions! We’re So Much More than Phonics The science of reading, structured literacy, direct instruction, systematic, explicit instruction. It all sounds severe and not that much fun. The fact is, nothing is more thrilling than reading with automaticity. Automaticity happens when a child learns to decode. Some kids will need less instruction on decoding, while others, especially those who struggle with reading issues like dyslexia, will need a ton of practice. There is no love of reading when a child cannot read the words, and that is why teaching decoding is part of the love of reading. Still, all of that work decoding is nil if a child doesn’t understand what they are reading. Diverse Books Here’s the shocker! Those of us advocating for the science of reading advocate for content and context. If children learn to decode and do not understand what they read, they will not become skilled readers. Access to books and content is an important way to help children improve reading. We call it “books that teach, and books that tell.” We are passionate about diverse literature so that children can engage with books that show families and communities that look like our world. According to The Read in Color program, less… | Read More »Diverse Books, Decodable Books & Libraries

Using Decodable Books to Improve Reading Instruction and Interventions: An Interview with Dr. Neena Saha

“Do you carry any of those special books that help kids that aren’t learning to read easily?” I asked this question to our librarian many years ago. It was early in our journey, and I was still getting my arms around why the reading instruction and interventions at school weren’t working. Fortunately, I knew enough to sign our daughter up for reading services at the one center in our region that uses a structured literacy approach to reading interventions. The reading tutor told me about these “special books” that children could use to practice their newly learned phonics skills. I’m from educational publishing, so I was curious about what these magical books were. How come I had never heard about them? If they were so unique, I was sure I could write some and maybe help our daughter get over that hump that I define as decoding. Once I learned more I was perplexed about why there were so few decodable books, and why the decodable books I learned about were hard to find. Fast forward several years, and I’m the Founder of a nonprofit organization, Teach My Kid to Read, initiating our first program, The Road to Decode, that aims to educate librarians about how we learn to read and where resources like decodable books fit in the process.… | Read More »Using Decodable Books to Improve Reading Instruction and Interventions: An Interview with Dr. Neena Saha

Literacy For All!

Literacy is not political or partisan. The right to literacy is as fundamental as the right to a free and appropriate public education, and both are deeply intertwined. Lately, it seems, everything is political, and now there’s a movement to suggest that those parents, teachers, literacy specialists, and advocates spouting about the science of reading are part of the far-right movement. If we weren’t living through a pandemic and one of the most challenging times of our lives, it could almost be funny. It’s not the first time I have personally experienced this attempt to pigeon hole literacy advocacy with politics. When I was brand new to the literacy space, I spun off about schools not embracing the approach to literacy proven to help all kids, especially children with dyslexia, learn to read. I was accused of representing a conservative think tank funded by the far right. Years later, during an advocacy meeting, I was charged with representing a well-oiled and well-funded machine. I wish the latter, at least about the funding, was correct. With all the uncertainty and divisiveness in the world, the last thing we need is to use our children as pawns to maintain the status quo in reading instruction that doesn’t work for all. I have witnessed higher education faculty cut down parents, tutors, and anyone… | Read More »Literacy For All!