Teaching Reading One-on-One With the Learner

My Reading Coach Gold continues the tradition of ground-breaking educational software for actually teaching reading. It incorporates all five key components for reading instruction from the National Reading Panel's findings.

There is a unique combination of features found in the My Reading Coach educational software:

One-on-one instruction
My Reading Coach tailors itself to each individual learner, adjusting for each student's ability and pace. When the student sits at the computer, it is just the learner and the program (acting as a teacher).

Veteran teacher and speech pathologist
My Reading Coach is the digitized form of a veteran reading specialist. It gives the parent or teacher access to a resource that would be beyond the financial means of most families and schools.

Self-paced
The learner can progress through the program at a pace that makes sure they have mastered the topics. (Note: The Single Student version of My Reading Coach limits a student to 1 year. This limit is imposed because the program must be completed within that time frame in order for it to be the most effective.)

Phonics/Phonemic Awareness Lessons
61 lessons provide a comprehensive learning experience going from single sounds to multi-syllable words (up to 5 syllables), including tongue placement, sound/symbol association, blends and rules.

Grammar Instruction
24 grammar lessons cover all eight parts of speech, basic sentence structure, punctuation, pause points, and inflection—all of which support writing and reading comprehension.

Reading Comprehension Activity
Over 180 stories covering 20 reading levels are included. The program monitors comprehension ability and improvement with both literal and inferential questions on the stories presented. The program will automatically adjust the reading level depending on student performance.

Specific remediation
Using teacher infused intelligence™, the program is able to provide immediate, specific feedback for identifying and correcting a large range of student errors in all phonics and grammar activities. For example, the program can identify if the student has confused the sounds for "i" and "e", used "b" instead of "d", or selected the subject of a sentence instead of the object. It will then provide specific feedback to address the specific point—even if multiple mistakes are made in the same answer.

Optional offline worksheets
Included within the program are worksheets that supplement the improved word decoding skills with skills that improve overall reading comprehension. Also, there are worksheets that can be used for students that are having particular difficulty with a topic.

Embarrassment-free environment
Since instruction is primarily done one-on-one between the computer and the learner, there is less fear of making mistakes (especially in the area of teen and adult reading education).

No negative feedback
In addition to the above, great care was taken so that there is no negative feedback given by the program. The virtual instructor will encourage the learner to try again, but it will not tell then their answer is "wrong" or other phrasing that may cause additional frustration or intimidation.

Positive feedback
The virtual instructor will say positive statements such as "Good job!" or "Great!" when the learner gives correct answer during an activity.

Limitless patience
Since it's a virtual instructor on a computer, he will not get impatient—no matter how many times a student asks him to repeat a lesson or word.

Optional student recordings
The program includes the ability to record the learner saying a word or letter sound. (This option requires the computer be equipped with a microphone.)

Class and student reports
The program includes the ability to view and print out reports on improvement, performance, and errors made. Teachers can also print daily lesson plans to see which lessons the students are on currently.

Common rules for a grade
One of the things discovered in the course of the Myers-Ganoung study was that My Reading Coach gives the teachers a common set of rules (and rule names) to use with all the classes in a grade and potentially between grades. With all teachers using the same rules and names for rules, there is less student confusion.