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Picture a struggling reader in your mind. What age is the student? When many people think about struggling readers, they don’t picture teenagers or adults. And yet many middle-school, high-school, and adult learners struggle with reading. To help them achieve literacy, an effective intervention is crucial. Unfortunately, many reading interventions are geared toward younger students. The educators on the Read Naturally team have been aware of this problem since well before the company began in 1991. From the beginning, we have insisted that our programs feature high-interest, nonfiction content. The primary reason for this is so that a Read Naturally intervention can work for a learner of any age. Read more

In her recent blog post All Improvement Is Not Equal!, Read Naturally founder Candyce Ihnot explores the relationship between the number of Read Naturally Live stories her students had read between Fall and Winter and their fluency improvement during that time period. Candyce discovered that the students who had read the most stories had made the greatest gains. Dr. Danielle Dupuis of the University of Minnesota's Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement made the same discovery in her recent analysis of extant data from Read Naturally Live students. Read more

It was the first day of the semester, and my Creative Writing professor asked us to introduce ourselves to the class. As part of the introduction, we were to name the book we were currently reading. I froze. I wasn’t reading a book at the time. It had been a busy month, and I hadn’t taken the time to read anything beyond a few news articles and the back of the cereal box. As my turn approached, I weighed my choices. I could either lie and name a book I had read in the past, or I could tell the truth and risk making a bad first impression. I’m a terrible liar, so I chose the latter. “I’m not actually reading a book at the moment,” I said, nervously. Read more

About 5 million public school students in the United States today are English Language Learners (ELLs). National Public Radio (NPR) recently conducted a robust research project entitled 5 Million Voices, which set out to discover who these students are and how our public schools are serving them. Read more

To align to the requirements for Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), educators must select interventions that are evidenced-based. Read Naturally has done the groundwork for you and provides easy access to the studies that prove that Read Naturally is evidence-based and effective in increasing student achievement. The Read Naturally Strategy is well established as research-based, thanks to the high-quality research that informs the development of our programs and inspires our decisions as an educational publisher. The Read Naturally Strategy also clearly meets the criteria for evidence-based according to ESSA. Read more

Today, we’re thrilled to offer a new training option: The Read Naturally Live Online Course. This course provides interactive training for teachers, helping them gain new skills and understanding independently, at their own pace. And, it’s completely free! Read more

Last week, my second-grade son’s teacher wrote the following in her weekly email to parents: “February is the time of year that we all get a little ‘too comfortable’ with our friends and the routines.” She encouraged us to remind our children to listen to directions and to make kind, respectful choices. It is wonderful that the students are feeling comfortable at school—but when “too comfortable” leads to loss of focus and waning respect for the rules, teachers and parents need to help the students find their way back. Read more

If you work with struggling readers, chances are you’ve encountered a student with dyslexia. Dyslexia is the most common learning disability in the country. Students with dyslexia are smart and competent, but differences in their brains make reading much harder for them. While educators and parents don’t usually make official dyslexia diagnoses, they are often the first ones to spot the symptoms, which include trouble with decoding, spelling, rhyming, and phonological awareness. Read more

Educators today are bombarded with recommendations on the most effective products and strategies. Whether you’re surfing online or talking to a trusted expert, countless others will claim to know what’s best for you and your students. As you know, the only way to truly know what is effective in your classroom is to try the recommended tool or strategy for yourself. Read more

Happy New Year! We’re kicking off 2017 with some great news. Read Naturally Encore was selected as a District Administration Reader’s Choice Top Product of 2016. District Administration is a reputable source of information for K12 leaders in nearly every district across the country. Their annual awards program highlights the best products in the industry according to the superintendents and other school leaders who are using them in their districts. Read Naturally Encore was one of 100 Top Products chosen from over 1,500 nominations. Read more