Stairway to Reading Testimonials

I love your reading program. I have been using it with three of my four children, and the gains have been most encouraging. They are actually looking forward to their reading times now.

Christina Walsh, Shelburne, ON

Thank you very much for your reading program. I have successfully used it with my now 10 year old daughter, who had difficulty in grasping reading with other programs. Now we have a child we care for over the summer who is in public school, and we are using it also to teach her to read. She’s very excited as she will be ahead of her class when she goes back to school in the fall.
Angela Webster, Boone, NC

I provide this testimonial with great pleasure since Stairway to Reading has made a big difference for us. My only concern is that some parents, starved for time and intoxicated by a steady diet of “everything can be easy and fun” would expect a magic bullet and would just give it a “let’s do a bit of this” try. And then say the program has not lived up to their expectations. The program is clear, it yields results, it has games and silly-sounding sentences to enjoy along the way, but one still needs to commit and do the work.
Rodica Mihaita, Toronto, ON

We have been using Stairway to Reading since August 20 of this year. My daughter, 7, was struggling with reading, hated it and stumbled on 1st-grade reading level, despite having 4th-grade level phonics skills. She has dyslexia and ocular motor dysfunction. So I spent the summer researching various programs, trying to figure what would work for her and was a sound and complete reading program.  When I stumbled upon Stairway to Reading, I thought this really could be it. The program works going from the sound to the print, something we had not done before. There are ample exercises and practice for each lesson to ensure the material is retained. It is very structured and the child never has to read a word that he can’t decode. Within 2 months, Marie became a competent reader. She now reads easily 3rd- and 4th-grade level books.  She enjoys tremendously the games (Bingo and Crazy letters) and gets such a sense of accomplishment when she reads the story at the end of the lessons. I also really like the sound-sorting exercises, as well as the underlining ones. I feel it has been very helpful for my daughter. We started at Lesson 5, flew until Lesson 12, and then progressed steadily. We are now at Lesson 32 and we have considerably slowed down the pace, going down to 1 lesson per week. This program will take you to a 5th- or 6th-grade reading level and my daughter is only 7. The author has been amazingly kind and prompt to answer my questions when I had some, making also some very helpful suggestions as well. I highly recommend it. It has changed the world for my daughter.  She understands the logic behind the act of reading.  Reading has become fun and interesting.
Dominique Guerin, Plano, TX

I have had the opportunity to try Stairway to Reading with a number of my students. It is a program that teaches towards a variety of learning styles. This means that children have activities that teaches towards their strong learning style, but at the same time gives them opportunities to practice and improve their less dominant learning style. For the person who is unsure how to teach reading or what to exactly to present, this program is well thought out in both sequence and rate of introducing new concepts. There is constant review so concepts learned are not lost.  The activities are such that if a lesson needs repeating, in order to obtain mastery, they are not ‘boring’.  It is also quite easy to expand these activities to give more opportunities to practice  On the other hand, should a student be already fluent in a concept, it is easy to do a subset of the activities. Caution however. Unless one is very certain the student has mastered the concept, it is prudent to complete a lesson to the full and let the student feel the delight of mastery.
An Ontario teacher

One month later (one half hour per day) and my son has come a LONG way with his reading. The only problem is that I see how simple it is, and it makes me angry that they can’t do this during the six-seven hours he spends at school every day.
Tym Barker, Sault Ste Marie, ON

We taught Stairway to Reading to our kids last summer and in the fall when we could. At Christmas, we pulled our kids out of school and have been homeschooling ever since. I’m not a professional, but even I can see the drastic change in my kids’ reading skills. Last summer, they both failed the first level of th S&R test; now they are at levels 3 and 4 respectively. The biggest surprise is how well my daughter is doing. She had an IAP certifying her as a “slow learner” and tested lower than average IQ. We were told by one special education teacher to teach her life skills. In the short time we have been teaching her and with her hard work, my daughter is now reading the “Secrets of Droon” book series, a half to a full book a day, with excellent comprehension and retention.
Mark Henry, Port Hope, ON

I saw great improvement in one of the children I was using your reading program with. He is 11, and his reading level was less than Grade 1 in September when we started. I worked with this child twice a week for an hour at a time, and another adult worked with him 10-30 minutes three days a week. This lasted for two months, after which he was encouraged to read aloud or on his own for 15 minutes a day. Around Christmas time, his reading took off and he is now reading Louis L’Amour novels on his own! I am so proud of him.
Candace Phelps, Lacombe, AB