Read Right® offers these services: The Primary Core Curriculum (K-3); Reading Intervention via Small Group Instruction (Elementary, Secondary, College, and Adult); and Online Tutoring Services for Mild to Severe Reading Problems, including Dyslexia.

Why Do So Many Children, Teens, and Adults Have Reading Problems?

Answer: Reading Is Taught Wrong

The reading field operates on a foundation of erroneous assumptions. These are:

1. Teachers can explicitly tell students what they need to do to read.
2. The foundational skill and main event of reading is decoding and/or individual word identification.

These “assumptions” are wrong. We know with certainty because Read Right methodology transforms struggling readers into excellent readers without ever asking a student to decode a single word.

EXPLICIT TEACHING vs. IMPLICIT PROCEDURAL LEARNING

Neuroscientists have long acknowledged the implicit nature of procedural learning. All processes—anything you can put a “how to” in front of, like how to ride a bicycle or how to read—are learned and operate primarily below the level of conscious awareness. No one has access to or control over what the brain does to make a process happen. That’s why processes cannot be explicitly taught. Instead, an environment must be created that enables, or even compels, the brain to figure out for itself how to make the process happen.

Read Right provides the right environment. That’s why it works rapidly and is impressively effective. Read Right unleashes the power of the brain to do what brains do: make sense of the world—we call that learning.

An iceberg is the perfect metaphor to illustrate the implicit nature of procedural learning: The small portion above the waterline represents the explicit aspects of any process that can and should be explicitly and systematically taught. The gigantic portion beneath the waterline represents the implicit aspects of the process that cannot be explicitly taught.

The brain is a powerful learning machine; it can’t be stopped from learning if the environment is right. The field of education has struggled to easily and efficiently correct reading problems for 160 years because the implicit nature of procedural learning has been ignored. Read Right provides the right theory of how reading excellence develops, as well as the right training for teachers, teaching assistants, instructors, and volunteers to transform struggling readers to excellent readers as evidenced by our consistent success.

FOCUS ON INDIVIDUAL WORD IDENTIFICATION OR MEANING?

Is word identification the foundational skill for reading? Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) suggests otherwise. In recent neuroimaging studies. when subjects read word lists as their brains were scanned, the neural activation pattern was significantly different as compared to the pattern that emerged when subjects read sentences and paragraphs of text. This indicates that identifying individual words and passage reading are separate and distinctly different cognitive acts. This is essential to understand, as virtually all classroom reading instruction today focuses on word identification.

Importantly, the brain is the organ of the body whose function is to make sense of the world. Successful learners continuously search for meaning–even when they are directing the process of reading. As a result, individuals who read proficiently do not care what the words are. Rather, their brains want to know what the message is. The brains of successful readers employ all available resources to figure out the meaning.

Thus, the foundational skill of reading–or, the main event–is not word identification; it is anticipating the author’s intended meaning. Technically, the brain must create “anticipatory sets” relative to the author’s intended meaning to make excellent reading happen. Importantly: an anticipatory set is “a collection of elements assembled to function as a unit to enable a prediction, or anticipation, to occur.” (Learn more) Every time you walk across a room your brain must use a host of information to predict the right objective, pace, balance, steps, etc. Similarly, every time an excellent reader reads, he or she must use all relevant neural systems, acquired knowledge, and visual information to cause the text to make sense. It is highly complex. As such, it cannot be “taught.” It must be “figured out” by every human brain individually.

Could it be that reading instruction is the main cause of reading problems because the instruction causes students to build neural circuitry for identifying individual words? Rather, the student needs to build neural circuitry for passage reading. The years and years of flat reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the dismal reality that two-thirds of our Grade 4, 8, and 12 students read at a basic level or below suggest this is true.

Below, we invite you to compare Main Stream Reading Theory with The Read Right View. Notice how they are significantly different. This difference explains Read Right’s success transforming struggling readers into excellent readers:

Read Right’s methods are rapid and effective. Dozens of educators, school administrators, parents, and students verify its effectiveness in our Written and Video Testimonials.  

We all want the same thing: Reading success for every child, teen, and adult. Read Right delivers! Rather than give educators a manual and set them free to figure out the methods on their own, we provide hundreds of hours of training with students present. Each of our Online Tutors has received the same intensive training. For our Online Reading Intervention Program, see our Online Tutoring Guarantee.

Explore this website to learn more:

• Who is Dee Tadlock, Ph.D., and how was Read Right methodology developed?  
• More on the differences between main-stream reading instruction and Read Right. 
• Quantitative and qualitative results attained by participating in Read Right.  
• Learn more about Read Right Online Tutoring for All Ages as well as Read Right On-Site Small Group Instruction for: K-12,
• College,
• Corrections, and
• Adult Workforce Programs. 

Successful Reading Program

Above: Ten years ago at age 8, Ethan recommended for Special Education classes. Instead, his mother enrolled him in Read Right Online Tutoring. With just 9 months of tutoring, Ethan was reading at grade level. Our reading improvement methods lean on procedural learning associated with complex processes the brain performs, not simplistic decoding and individual word identification. How powerful is this approach? His kindergarten-age sister, Allie, wanted to participate, too–and she was reading chapter books by Grade 1.

Non-Reader Into Successful Reader

Above: This video from our Read Right library will show you the “before” and “after” power of Read Right Tutoring for Reading. Throughout their reading intervention experience, struggling readers focus on comprehension. They are never asked to decode individual words because doing so violates the human brain’s limitations on short-term/working memory.

Young Children Can Learn To Read Easily

Excellent Reader at Age 6: Very young children can learn to read excellently from the beginning when the methodology is right. Ray Nunn’s parents followed Read Right methodology for early reading development from the day he was born (see “Read Right! Coaching Your Child to Excellence in Reading” by Dee Tadlock, Ph.D., New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005). Ray, pictured in the upper right corner, became a successful reader before starting kindergarten. In October of his kindergarten year, he tested at an upper first/lower second grade reading level. He spent Grade 1 at home, due to the COVID Pandemic. Then, in October of his Grade 2 year, testing revealed he was reading at a Grade 4 level. Seven-year-old Ray accomplished this without EVER being asked to decode a single word during his early reading development. Read Right methodology is powerful for both early reading development and elimination of reading problems.