Video interview
Grace enrolled in our 12 month program to improve cognitive and reading skills. She has completed 7 months of training on the reading programs, first on Fast ForWord, then on the Reading Boost program, and now she’s working on the Reading Assistant program.
Every student has learning strengths and weaknesses
“Maths is my favourite subject. The most tricky thing for me is actually writing,” she says.
“Before we started last year, towards the end of year two, [Grace] could barely read a year 1 book and barely write anything … her year two teacher recommended I take her to a speech pathologist. I made a booking in a waiting list and in the meantime I was very worried that her year was going forward but her level was still the same.” said Grace’s mother Trang.
“I found [the Sonic Learning program] while googling a program for her to do for school holidays. I read through … and I really liked everything and I found that everything on that list is what Grace had. She can hear what we are saying but she doesn’t understand what we are talking about. I had to slow down and tell her one task at a time but she [still] couldn’t remember.
“So I signed up. At the start I was feeling quite worried whether it was going to work or not.
Reading Assistant online reading tutor
“By the time she finishes her recording, she wants to record another one. She sees the scores and it shows how well or how much effort or which other parts she needs to work on.
“Her favourite part is when she clicks on the word, it explains to her what the word is which is really good because a lot of words I don’t know what they mean or another way to explain it to her, but the program has all of the explanations.
“From the time we stared, the start of year 2 term 3 … to when we came back to start in the new year … I knew that it was an improvement already compared to her last term just before the Christmas holidays. I knew it was a big improvement already that she managed to write five or six sentences and her reading level was on a low year two-ish level which is an improvement.
“Up until now, every 5 or 6 weeks (half a term) the teacher would say to me that she has improved and gone up a level in her reading and her spelling list has reduced because there are more words now that she can spell.
“The improvement is really fast compared to what we have tried before … now she is getting more and more confident and she is very happy when it comes to doing homework.
