Summer Reading Programs for kids....

[Mishetta]

Anyone ever heard of the Institute of Reading Development program? It's offered through several local Universities & it's supposed to increase your child's reading comprehension by more than one grade level.

I'm looking into sending my child to this program this summer. I would like to know if anyone has sent their child & what your thoughts were. It's a little expensive ($330 for 4 Sunday's ~ 2 hours per Sunday) for a total of 8 hours in class. Looking for some input/info.

Several Universities throughout the U.S. offer this program. This one would be thru the University of Detroit Mercy.

Thanks so much!

 

[Mishetta]

Bumping up for the Monday crowd......

 

[Toby'sFriend]

I signed my son up for that one summer, I think he was probably in about 2nd or 3rd grade. He was speech delayed and because of some of his hearing problems, was not able to learn reading through phonics. Pretty much every word for him was a sight word that he had to memorize.

The method they taught was to try and train the eye to take in words faster. They also seemed to emphasize just kind of skipping over unknown words and using context clues to get the gist of the passage. I think that is great if you can already read most of what is on the page. But if the reading level is way above the reader, taking in the words faster just means that you --- still don't understand it. It wasn't so much that it was a bad program I guess, but it just wasn't what he needed that summer.

What he really needed was me sitting down with him and reading with him, helping him learn new words and increasing his vocabulary.

Plus, I observed the for about 30 minutes one afternoon. There were about 25 kids all sitting at desks staring blankly at the wall while the Teacher stood at the front and droned on about the technique. He pretty much put me to sleep and from what I could see, none of the kids were engaged or paying attention.

 

[Mishetta]

Thanks for posting! I was thinking that no one had ever tried this program & that I was going to be a guinea pig!

Hmm.....after what you said, I'm not sure if we will sign him up for this afterall...

Thanks again!