Intervention Programs

It has been such a fabulous journey thus far to watch my readers become confident, faster readers because of Read Naturally Live! I am a reading specialist and have been teaching reading to Kg-4th grade students for ten years now. Before implementing the Read Naturally Live program, I was just not seeing the gains in fluency and reading accuracy that I'd hoped for despite using a variety of strategies. Since implementing this program, however, I have seen the greatest number of gains in my career. With the new emphasis on speed in most all state-wide assessments for determination of overall success, the daily practice of accuracy, speed and comprehension has shown remarkable results there as well. I wholeheartedly recommend Read Naturally Live as a primary source for students who struggle with fluency, accuracy, and comprehension, especially grades 2-4. Additionally, there are several teachers in my district who have successfully implemented the program as a supplement for their middle school students with IEPs. Because of its built in data collection feature, it really gives a clear picture for parents, administration, and students to monitor progress. I can honestly say Read Naturally Live is an awesome program!

I became acquainted with Read Naturally back when it was just paper, pencil and cassette tapes!! I thought it was great then and even better now that it's computerized. It's so much easier to help more students during the same time, but I wouldn't have more than 6 students at a time per educator.

Great program for ESL/EFL young learners.

Read Live has aided in the increased fluency of at least 85% of my students this year, ranging from 20 to 35 wpm since Sept. That's been a great confidence booster for my students, but that's been just one benefit. The variety and depth of the comprehension questions are so much more advanced and beneficial to my student's comprehension skills. The program gives them great tools to go back and find the answers and they're given incentives for having 100% correct the first time I check them. The open ended questions and summary are great opportunities to reinforce correct writing mechanics and sentence structure. The students get excited telling me about something they've learned in their story......"Mrs. Harlan, did you know that....." So, Read Live benefits the students in so many areas and skills.....fluency, vocabulary..... (synonym/antonym practice is super!), comprehension and composing sentences/summaries. They also love working the crossword puzzles.

I have used Read Naturally for 20 years now and I strongly recommend it. This year I am at a new school and we use the Read Naturally Live Program. At my former site we used the paper version. I have seen students move up two grade levels when the program is implemented at least 3 days a week and monitored closely. The stories are very interesting and I have learned a lot from listening to the students read them. I firmly believe in this program for improving reading fluency.

I sent the message on a Friday late afternoon and received a response on the same day. I was very impressed that the issue was taken care of so quickly. I was able to get this new student ready to begin on Monday. Joel was able to look more into my issue and told me that there was an extra license not being used. I got it!! That worked for me. A new student is beginning today and I wanted to use Read Naturally live. It is so hard to determine this late in the year who will be using the read live program. I cannot alway determine the exact number of licenses would need. I am very pleased. Thank you
Laura Kuker Special Education Teacher MTS Elementary

This program is so amazing that I requested a grant from the Wal Mart Foundation to purchase it for our Special Education students at my school. Our district would not buy it for us. Walmart granted me $1,000 to purchase the program. It not only focuses on fluency, but has comprehension, writing, and vocabulary practice. The students are engaged with the Ipad app for the program and improving their skills. I would recommend it to everyone!

Excellent service.

Read Naturally Live helps students improve their reading fluency using research-based, proven effective techniques like repeated reading and neurological impress. But the best thing about Read Live, and the reason it is so effective for struggling readers, is that students are intrinsically motivated to read, read and read some more. I love the way the nonfiction passages build background knowledge and I love watching students' reading ability increase exponentially.

I use the Read Naturally Live with my Title 1students for reading interventions. They love the program and are making great gains in their reading skills!! I would highly recommend this program to anyone!!! It is worth every cent!!

This is our first year using Read Live, and we have seen great results! The stories are engaging and our students are excited to participate. I wish we could get all of our students on Read Live!

We really like Read Live because students can start at their level and work at their own pace. It works well for us because we can give more students interventions using Read Live than trying to work with them in groups, and they get more actual reading practice time. Our students are making good progress using Read Live.

Our school utilizes this fantastic program daily! Even our parents get involved and help their own kids at home. We love the fluency progress and the ability to teach the necessary comprehension skills needed with the nonfiction passages! High interest stories with a wide variety!

We are madly in love with READ NATURALLY!!! I am currently teaching RtI grades kg-5, and use it with grades 1-5. My team teacher and I both agree that when we move back to a traditional classroom, READ LIVE will be a major component of our reading program! EVERY classroom should have this program. The results we have seen are AMAZING!! Student engagement and motivation are simply exciting to watch. Do what you have to do...just get this program!

I have been using Read Naturally paper and computer based version for over 10 years and it is the most valuable tool I have in my tool box. I am able to service more students with the computer version and they can be fully independent. The Word-tastic piece is a great addition. I am able to track goals, have the students work independently, and see huge gains...but the most valuable is to see the self-confidence that the students have when they read 10 words in a cold read and then read 62 by their hot read. They love it and I praise them. It is the easiest praise to give....Such Rewards! Thank you.

I really like Read Live for my special education students. I don't feel it is something they can do completely independently, as the cold and hot readings should be monitored, in my opinion. I also have found that my students like to complete their own graphs---it seems to give them satisfaction to color in their cold and hot reading levels. We enjoy doing this program together and I see improvement in my student's reading fluency and comprehension. Great Program that I would recommend! :)

This program has been great for me to use as Title I tutoring. We get wonderful results with the students, but also it's a way for us to work with as many as 14 students at one time. We have two to three teachers floating around the computer lab and all the students are Fully engaged. It's fabulous. I love the reports it generates as well. The reports help explain their improvement to the parents. I highly recommend it. P.S. Boys who are struggling readers love the nonfiction content.

As a special ed teacher, I have used Read Naturally for over 15 years. It has made a big difference in my students fluency and overall reading skills. I like Read Naturally Live because of the added vocabulary component in the form of a game. I have found that being on the computer has added to the motivation of my students and enabled me to manage more students and larger groups during the school day. It is exciting to see each student engaged at their own level and their own pace while they make progress they can see. They love watching the graph go higher and higher as their reading skills improve. In my opinion, this is one of the most successful reading programs available for students of all ages,and abilities.

My students come in each day and ask me if we are doing Read Naturally today. They all love it. One student said it was his favorite part of the day. All the while, they are all making huge improvements with their fluency!

I have used Read Naturally since the CD days and I have found the program to be outstanding. The Read Live version helps me provide individualized reading intervention to students in a way that I have not found in other products. As a resource room teacher, intervention coordinator and reading intervention teacher I have not found a better product for the price. I have used super expensive, super fancy programs, but they simply don't have your student read as much. The students read like crazy and obtain so much vocabulary from repeated reading and the quizzes. I highly recommend the product for 10 student or less reading intervention 2 stories passed a week and outstanding for a resource room.

My students love Read Live. They rush into the computer lab and stay focused on the expository reading lessons. This program puts them in the "driver's seat" because they get to choose the stories and work at their pace. Several students told me their reading has improved. Read Live is great for the third grade students who need reading intervention.

The intermediate students are loving the program. Boys who were previously reluctant to practice reading are anxiously asking if it is their reading time - and very disappointed when it isn't. I can't believe the growth, and improved confidence, I see in the students.

This program is WONDERFUL!! Highly engaging and student outcomes are awesome!! I wouldn't teach without it!!

This program is AMAZING! What it has done for my struggling readers is beyond belief. I love the fact that students have even noticed how helpful the program is and have even asked to be on it! I sing this program's praises to anyone who will listen!!!!!

please make your app compatible with Voice Over.

I talked to a parent this fall and she sang the praises of the Read Live program. This is what she had to say, "Read Live has helped my daughter the most. She has been in school since she was 3 years old and she started Read Live last year. She is now in 9th grade and it's the BEST program we have had her enrolled in."
Colleen Geisen, Reading Specialist at iForward Wisconsin ( a charter school of the Grantsburg School District).

HI!

I watched the webinar (Foundational Reading Skills) today. 'Just want to thank you for such an excellent presentation. I am Orton-Gillingham certified, so couldn't help but notice that EVERYTHING presented was clearly research-based and considered the most effective way to work with struggling readers. ~ The more I get to know about the Read Live program, which I use with several students, the more I love it! Thank you to you and the Read Live staff for creating such an amazingly complete program! It's perfect for our Tier 2 interventions.

Thank you so much for taking the time to give the tutors an overview of the Read Live program and how to help the kids with their lessons. We started working with the students afterwards and they really like how they are now engaging with the kids and felt rewarded as much as the kids when passing a story. The program inherently provides structured learning and they can both feel good about the measured success and reward in a way that you don't see from just reading a book.

Thanks for answering my question. Your directions we easy to follow.
melinda

it really works good.

My students that are enrolled enjoy reading the stories. I like that it has vocabulary, fluency practice, and comprehension to go along with each story.

Read Naturally Live has several improvements over SE. It is handy that I can access student's settings from their account so that while I am working with them I can adjust their goal quickly. The look of Read Nat. Live has been updated and just seems a little sharper. Simple access to the multiple choice questions right while I am working with a student is efficient and access to the suggested correct answer when reviewing answers to open ended questions is quite nice. It might be better if those answers were written in complete sentences since that is how I ask my students to answer the questions.

I still struggle with the user interface. Adding students, making groups and other tasks sometimes takes more effort and clicking around to find the correct screen than I like.

Joel, at Read Naturally ground zero has been a big help. Competent people to help me makes any problems that I face much less of a negative.

Read Live is an excellent program for increasing reading fluency. My kids ( adolescents in middle and high school) also enjoy the program and it helps increase accuracy, comprehension, and critical thinking skills. I also like the vocabulary drills and how the program emphasizes vocabulary in context. Progress is consistent and is a successful experience for many learners who have only experienced failure in the past. I schedule my kids 2x per day for my therapy services with one session on Read Live and one session for their other language therapy work. It is programming that high risk adolescents in foster care and in the juvenile justice system are receptive to using. I highly recommend the Read Live program for at risk adolescents who have a language-literacy impairment.

I teach self-contained Jr. High students. Many of my students come to me in 7th grade only reading on a first or second grade level. They struggle with many issues that distract them. The stories in the Read Naturally program combined with the use of the I-Pads has proven to be a useful tool increasing their level each year at least 2 grade levels. The parents love the usefulness of being able to practice at home with the student. The students love to read the stories.

Some of my moderate to severe special needs middle school students use Read Naturally Live. The students are motivated by the nonfiction reading topics and the fact that they are working on reading skills on a computer or iPad. I had one student ask if he could use the Read Live program during his free choice time! That is certainly an indicator of how well students like the program. I see gains in students' reading fluency and comprehension skills while using the program. We love Read Naturally Live!

I think this program is a great tier 2 or 3 intervention for students who struggle with fluency and who need their comprehension monitored. It's been a good way for me to see more than one student at a time who may be at different reading levels.

I LOVE this program! It is great for all ages and I love that students can work at their own pace. The students can instantly see their progress by looking at their cold and hot timings.

We love your program! We are using it as an intervention for struggling readers. My students (mostly middle school) enjoy working with the program and love the variation of the different stories.

I used Read Naturally as an intervention problem for my lowest students. I found the program to be extremely engaging for my students. The stories peaked many of my students interest and they could hardly wait each day to get to work! The students were also motivated to improve each reading! I also found the format of typing comprehension responses very similar to our state standardized test. The benefits to the Read Naturally program are endless!

This program is wonderful it covers comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency,

Thanks for everything, Ben! Read Live has made such a difference in the lives of my middle school students who have struggled with reading. We see very good increases in all areas of reading including decoding, reading rate, prosody and comprehension. Test taking skills are supported as well. Best of all the students are really engaged and reading is no longer a dreaded chore while using Read Live. I appreciate your support over the last four years!

Kind regards,

Sheri Schroeder

This is an excellent resource for teachers. Students find the stories interesting. Students have improved their reading fluency and reading comprehension skills.

I was an Instructional Assistant at Monterey Road Elementary School for the 2014-2015 school year. I was responsible for helping groups of children who were below standard in improving their reading skills. Our school used the Read Naturally Live Program. We had a classroom converted to a computer lab and it was great! I saw so many children improve their reading ability that it excited me for my own two boys. I think this program is excellent in that it helps them to improve on their reading speed, comprehension and knowledge of words. I hope that this program can also be used for kids who don't necessarily have reading issues but to help them improve on comprehension or just pick up their speed and reading fluency. I'd like to see this program continue to be a regular part of their curriculum.

very helpful

We use Read Live as a fluency intervention piece for our literacy program. Students enjoy the interesting passages. The Live program allows students to easily get right to work and provides activities for students to do while waiting for teacher help. Read Live is a perfect fit for us!

This program is so easy to get up and running. It is highly motivating with the student choice options, the graphics and the timings. I notice the students really taking ownership of their learning and goals. The Read Along and Read Alone features provide valuable independent practice. I am able to continue with all of my other reading instruction without adding something new that is timely to learn and implement. It also provides good feedback on a weekly basis on what individual comprehension questions need to be addressed. I am very pleased with it.

Read Naturally is perfect for struggling readers. The material is high interest, so high interest in fact that students don't always want to move to the next level because they want to read the stories on the level they just graduated from! The online program makes it easy for students to do the comprehension questions and fix those they've missed. The vocabulary exercise while waiting for the teacher is also excellent. The most important predictor of whether a student will become a successful reader is the time he spends reading, and this program gives ample time and practice to reading, and the students feel rewarded as they improve their fluency. I highly recommend this program!

We have used Read Naturally for years and the students love the stories. We just started using Read Live last spring and it has all of the qualities that we love from Read Naturally but it is so much easier.

I have been using this program for a few months and my students have been making noticeable progress in all areas, especially reading fluency. This is a very motivating program and the progress monitoring is so helpful when discussing with parents and keeping data.

Read Naturally has been a great learning tool for many of our learners that struggle with reading. Not only has this program increased our learners' fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, but also their confidence! The program is learner driven and lets them choose their own stories. For educators, it is so user friendly. Customer service representatives are always helpful. Thank you so much!!!

Service was clear and quick. Thanks.

Excellent service and help.

I have been using Read Live with my ESL students and THEY LOVE IT! It offers them the opportunity to "read independently". The phonics level is an invaluable tool that is easily adapted for my beginner English language learners.

My district has had great success with this program at the middle school level for several years. We use RNL as a daily intervention for students scoring below grade level for reading comprehension and fluency. Includes a great selection of nonfiction texts and the stories are interesting for most students. I do wish that most or all stories would include a short video or a better selection of pictures. Some stories, like the story about Ulama and the Northern Lights story, would be much easier to understand if students could see those events in action. Relating text to multimedia sources is also an important part of testing today. Overall a useful program if implemented in small groups with consistency.

Joel Olson was fantastic in helping me solve an issue with Read Naturally Live. Thanks!

Read Live is an excellent program that truly targets fluency through research-based strategies. It is relatively easy to use and is perfect for use with interventions and special education students with fluency goals. Plus, Read Naturally has excellent customer service; I have never had a bad experience with tech support or any other support staff with whom I've worked. The only thing I would say about Read Live is that, sometimes, the comprehension questions get a bit cumbersome at the end to score, and it's overwhelming to go over ALL of the types of questions with the students. You have to choose a few types to focus on at any given time, or it takes a long time to move students from story to story.

It is always refreshing to deal with a company that not only provides a stellar product for teachers and students, but who also provides excellent customer service. We have been using the self-study, hands-on training workbooks for Read Live since January, and find them extremely well-done and easy to follow. We needed to order quite a few more as more of our teachers begin to use Read Live, and after a phone call to Christy Baldinger, I had a quote within minutes at a savings of $300 to my district. Can you say "Made My Day!"? Thank you for making your customers feel valued while providing support for our students. We appreciate it!

I have been using Read Naturally for over ten years. My special needs students at both the upper elementary and high school level have all benefited from it. Reading fluency has improved for most students in just a short time. Students like the stories that they have to choose from. RN makes it possible to work with several students at the same time, who are reading at different levels and have different reading needs. Read Live is a nice improvement to the program as well as the ipad app.

Read Live has not only helped build the fluency of my students but it has increased their overall confidence in all areas of study. I have seen student faces light up when the meet their reading goals. I hear them reading with more pride and confidence.

Love this program! My LAP Reading students are so motivated and we are already seeing positive results after 2 months!

I love this program and so do my students. I love how it builds their confidence. I am a special education teacher who teaches 4th and 5th graders who struggle with reading. I was very surprised that their retell comprehension scores for DIBELS went up dramatically after using this program for 3 months. When they come to the retell section I have them tell me three things about the story. They have learned to pay more attention to what is going on in the story. They have also learned about self-correcting and their errors have decreased dramatically. I am so glad we have iPads. It does make a difference using iPads verses the paper version. Last year I had 5th graders on a different reading fluency program. I would have them read a passage for 1 minutes, three times. They complained about reading it 3 times. Now they are doing about 8 rereads and no complaining and I think it is because of the iPads. The only thing I wish that they would have is an option to slow down the read along. For some of my students it is too fast or it confuses them. The first read along I have them listen, the second read along they take the headphones off and read out loud and the third read along I have them read with the reader. Hope this helps give an idea about the benefits of this program. Love it!!

Read Naturally LIve is a fantastic program. The stories are very engaging for my 4th graders. I am using the program with my low readers and they LOVE it.

READ LIVE is the best tool I have for my struggling readers. The process used in each story is highly effective for students with learning and language deficits. It allows me to address reading and speaking goals at the same time. Students find the texts interesting and are empowered as they monitor their own growth. I love READ LIVE and don't believe I could do my job without it.

Ben and Barb were very helpful with the process of purchasing our licenses and merging all our trial licenses into the master account. Ben did an excellent job conducting the webinar with our district principals and some gen ed teachers who have not used Read Naturally in the past. We appreciated all their patience and support throughout the process!!!

Read Naturally is a great product and the company provides excellent technical and educational support for its users. The students love reading the stories and have improved their reading scores tremendously. I would highly recommend it.

The teachers are still figuring out how to manage the program. There are two teachers, one full time and one half time. I come two mornings a week as the RST Since one teacher has 5-8 in the mornings and 1-8 in the afternoon, he's the most challenged. But we are working on it. Unfortunately he's only just now actually started exploring it. )-: The part time primary teacher has had her students working on it and loves it. So, it's a 4 until we are all on board.

We have used Read Naturally as an intervention for approximately five years & we are now in the process of moving to the LIVE version. Features that we appreciate are: passages of high student interest, vocabulary development by way of key words & a blend of comprehension questions that provide students the important opportunity to transfer thoughts to writing~ reflecting best practices in reading comprehension. Both the paper/pencil and LIVE version also include another best practice: student goal setting and tracking of progress. We thank you for a thoughtful product!
-Jennifer H, Principal, Rochester, NH

We use Read Live in before/after school tutoring as well during the day in a section of reading interventions. As a school we believe any student who is having difficulty with the oral reading fluency gets the Read Live instruction during their day at school. We have been seeing students oral reading fluency continue to grow as they read and answer all of the variety of questions and complete the activities in the Read Live computer program. - Jill Darland, Resource Teacher , Durango, Colorado

At the beginning of November, we began a 60-day trial using ReadLive with small groups of students in Grades 6, 7, and 8 whom we identified to be reading two or more grades below their current grade level. We are so thrilled with the progress demonstrated by these students and their increased confidence and engagement with reading that we are now subscribers to the program. We appreciate the individualized nature of the program because it allows each student to work at his/her own reading level. The focus on non-fiction selections provides a wealth of fascinating topics that engage students with a variety of interests. We also find that our middle years students don't question the maturity level of the selections they are reading because they are non-fiction. We have readers at very early stages of their reading development, and it is essential for their engagement that they don't see themselves as reading "baby" books. The required practices that students must do to pass a selection are so important for them to build fluency and confidence. When they meet their reading goals (words correct per minute), they are thrilled. These are students who have not experienced a lot of success in the regular classroom, and they are blossoming as they get to taste success. The program focuses on accuracy, fluency, the development of vocabulary, and comprehension skills... everything that these students need. We are currently looking at ways that we can incorporate ReadLive with more of our middle years students because we can see the potential in this program and the benefit it can have for a much wider range of students.

As a teacher I have seen amazing progress in my classroom with my below grade level readers. The stories are appropriate and inviting and encourages the reading of Non-Fiction.

As a parent I have implemented the free trial with my eighth grader who is not motivated to "read for information" as our standardize tests require. I have seen tremendous improvement on her concentration and her ability to recall the story.

Overall an exciting program that kids seem to love.

Christine Thornton, ESE teacher, Tallahassee, Florida

Read Naturally has been an amazing life changing program. When my son was finishing second grade he was still a struggling reader despite our work with him at home and excellent teachers at school. He was a choppy reader that took a long time to finish a book. He could comprehend books read to him at a high level, we know the potential was there. My brother who taught in Minneapolis shared the Read Naturally program with me and I used it with Kevin for about 3-4 months over that summer and into third grade. He got over the hump and became a reader! He turned into a kid that walked around on the playground and read the Magic Tree House books during third grade! Our son was diagnosed with dyslexia around this same time, but the Read Naturally program helped him become a reader. He is now a successful college student!

Currently the school I teach at is adopting Read Live as an intervention for struggling readers in middle and high school. We're on our third week of using the program and many of the students are starting to show improvements already! The stories are engaging; students have an opportunity to build vocabulary and comprehension while becoming fluent readers.

I was first introduced to Read Naturally via the CDs when I ran a free community-wide after school homework program over 10 years ago. I found it worked well. Later when I began homeschooling my 11 year old niece I used Read Naturally as her reading program. She had great fluency but absolutely no comprehension. I was able to get her to grade level in about 1.5 years (she did one story a day five days a week and all 24 stories in a level). She started at Level 3.5 and was at grade level when she completed Level 5.6.

I am now working as basically the Resource Teacher in a small private school and switched from the CDs to Read Live two years ago. I have students with little to no fluency and/or comprehension. By using Read Live these students have progressed from 1.5 to 3 grade levels in a single school year. I prefer that they do a story at least three times a week and I have students who request more opportunities to read. With the increased ability to read, some of the students with behavioral issues have had a significant reduction in incidents. Most of the students are able to progress to the next level after only 12 stories. I have a small form that the students take back to class (with a second copy to go home) so the classroom teacher can see the title of the story and the cold/practice/hot read timings. The students particularly enjoy this aspect and are very proud of their daily work.

In working with the students, I have found it very useful that I am able to move students between the Phonics and Sequenced formats and to select stories based on the phonemic components. One student did very well in the sequenced series initially but once she started seeing words with long vowels and vowel digraphs she needed to move to the phonics series.

Although the program is geared to school age students, the stories are also very appropriate to adult learners.

Our school district recently moved from the CD version of Read Naturally to Read Naturally Live. We instantly noticed an increase in student engagement, accountability, and productivity. The students are asking their teachers when they get to leave the class to work on Read Naturally Live, they love it and so do we!