Struggling Readers

Teaching the Older Student Who Needs a Little Extra Help

At Zoo-phonics, we have found that when an older child is still struggling with the reading, spelling and writing process, it is primarily because the student still doesn’t get the “code” to the English language. That’s the phonics aspect of it. S/he doesn’t know that “ai” makes 5 different sounds in words (for example), or that “ea” makes three different sounds. So, what does s/he do? She reads and spells by his/her ear – and the words are often incorrect.

What does Zoo-phonics do? We start by building the foundation, from simple to more complex – by helping the student to learn to “break the code” of the English language. We teach the various graphemes (the letter combinations that we see) and phonemes (the letter combinations we hear) directly and systematically. We work with them on the entire process of reading, which includes comprehension. We work on spelling skills and writing skills (capitalization, punctuation, grammar, sentence structure), etc.

We have the materials, games, and instructions to help you and your child master this wonderful language process. We recommend that you use the Deluxe Program. Your older child will move very quickly through the beginning stages of the program so that you can get into the more advanced levels. It is very important to start at the beginning, however quickly they may move through it, so that your child completely understands the Zoo-phonics animals and signals, the foundation of our teaching methodology.