Teacher shortages are a growing problem that impacts communities across the globe. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that 69 million new teachers are needed globally to provide basic universal education by 2030.

We cannot continue to put the amount of stress and the amount of kids in classrooms at the rate that we have the past several years on a single elementary school teacher. They're not superheros and the districts are not setting them up for success. Even more, districts are, at this point, just hiring bodies to fill classrooms. They don't pay quality dollar for quality teachers, so what happens? They're hiring the people who need a job - any job. Not people who have spent their lives studying education, neurology, behavior, disabilities, PLUS their specialty.

How many of your kindergarteners and first graders are brave enough to raise their hand in a full classroom and say, "I don't get it. Will you slow down for me to catch up?"

I can tell you from experience teaching THOUSANDS of students in this age group - if I ask a question with the expectation of getting a specific answer and the child does not know... they say, "Yes." every. single. time.

Don't hate me... But hear me out...

Most native English speaking parents do not teach phonics correctly. There, I said it.
The majority of you are very likely teaching and helping your child incorrectly.
Why?

Simple. Because you weren't taught properly either. The science of reading is fairly new and even then, a lot of teachers in the U.S. were never taught how to teach it!
There is this idea that if you can read, then you can teach reading. a is for apple. a-a-apple. B is for ball. b-b-ball. And so on... But we need to be teaching synthetic phonics. Essentially, take out all of the 'uh's and 'ah's from the sound you're working on. For example, STOP teaching m sounds like 'muh-muh-muh'.

The average American reads at the 7th- to 8th-grade level, according to The Literacy Project. It isn't because we're dumb... It's because the teaching was never there.

I've worked with thousands of students in a range of countries on several continents. I've worked with kids who learned English as a second language and I can tell you from experience over and over again, probably THE biggest mistake is not getting help fast enough. Thinking, "They'll get it. It is a process." "One day it will click." "It only because... when they ____ it will get better."

No it won't. It won't get better until they know what they're doing. And if the teacher at school doesn't have the time or resources for every kid and parents are literally teaching it wrong at home... how is it going to get better?

Reading is not an innate ability. It is a scientific process using statistics and repetition to learn written language. For most of your kids it will never "just come".

If you have a 3, 4, or 5 year old child who is just now learning to read and is at the beginner stages...

Reading Can Be Puzzling: BEGINNER is for you! I show them (and you) how to read properly and teach them the skillset needed to read independently in the future.

Maybe your child isn't a strong reader or you're not sure where to go after they learn how to blend letters together.

Reading Can Be Puzzling: ADVANCED is for you! I bridge that gap between sounding out CVC words and full on blending by learning the most used sight and high frequency words in a way that they not only remember and can read, but are taught the definition and how to use the words in the future. This class will bring them from sounding out c-a-t to full on reading at a level E (middle first grade level) on their own.

If you are a parent whose first language is not English, this class is extremely helpful because we work on those skillsets that build independent reading abilities.

Therefore, you don't have to stress at home about not being able to help them since they will be set up to put the pieces together on their own.