Archives for May 2020

Essential Apps That Help You Improve Your Reading Speed

May 27, 2020

Many new readers struggle with reading quickly and smoothly. Being able to improve your reading speed will lead to better reading fluency and reading comprehension. Children often get practice and guidance with improving their reading speed at school. With so many school closures across the country, many children who are struggling with reading are left without any appropriate reading instruction to help them improve.

However, you can still help your child improve their reading skills using reading apps to supplement their learning. These reading apps that help you improve your reading speed are great to use in addition to a regular reading program.

How fast should I be reading?

Reading speed is the number of words you are able to recognize per minute and the percentage of comprehension of the material. The average reader can read 250 words per minute with 60% reading comprehension. The top readers can reach 1,000 words per minute with 85% comprehension.

Improving reading speed can help your child understand reading materials better and faster. It will help them to be able to get through school work faster and more efficiently in the future.

How do you improve reading speed?

Improving reading speed is relatively easy to learn, especially for young children. Children, in general, learn things quicker and better than adults, so improving your child’s reading speed can be done easily at home.

According to a speed-reading instructor, George Stancliffe, there are four key components to speed reading:

Natural vision – being able to see more than one word at once. Natural vision means to extend just seeing three or four words when you look at a passage. You should be able to see lines of words.
Visualization – picturing the story in your mind as if it is a movie.
Relax – being relaxed when reading and visualizing. Many people read with intense concentration, but Stancliffe encourages them to focus on relaxing to get maximum visualization and concentration.
Daily Practice – exercising discipline and practicing speed-reading every day. Practice makes perfect!

These key factors can help your child learn not just to improve their reading speed but also to improve their reading comprehension and learn to read thoughtfully. Of course, discipline alone can make it difficult for children to be motivated to read.

Especially now, children are more distracted than ever and leaning on digital devices. If you find your child has increased their screen time, you can at least make their time on their tablets educational by downloading some reading apps that can help them improve their reading speed and skills.

What apps improve reading speed?

Improving reading speed takes practice, but using some reading apps can help with enhancing the skills needed to speed read.

Readability – Readability is a great app for general reading practice for your child. Most importantly, it will improve reading speed because it essentially works as a private reading tutor for your child. Through A.I. and speech-recognition, the app listens to your child read and gives them instant feedback for error correction. The app also gives you a progress report so you can see your child’s progress.
Sight Words – A huge part of improving reading speed is building vocabulary. Sight Words helps your child increase their vocabulary so that they are able to recognize more words quickly. The app uses word games and fun graphics to keep children engaged and having fun while they learn.
Chicktionary – Chicktionary is another reading app that uses games to help your child learn new words. In the game, your child must arrange the chickens to spell the words correctly. This cheeky, fun game will make your kids laugh as they learn.
Spreeder – Spreeder is a great app to help improve reading speed for both children and adults. You can input any text into the app and set the pace of the reader. The app will then play the text word by word as a video so you can see how quickly you are able to read each word to understand the full sentence.
Read Eye – This app is a similar reading speed app as Spreeder. You can input any text you like and it will play it across the screen so you can see how slow or quickly you are able to read the text.
Reading Trainer – This speed reading app works by first measuring your current reading speed. The app gives you a text to read and times you while you read it, then you must answer a short quiz about the reading to see how much you understand the reading. This is a great app to not only measure how quickly your child recognizes words but also their reading comprehension.

Improving your child’s reading speed during this time can be a simple way to keep them on track with their learning. Using these reading apps like Readability, they can learn to be a better reader while having fun at the same time. Reading has never been more fun and easy!

What Is Reading Comprehension?

May 26, 2020

Your child’s teacher may have told you that your child struggles with reading comprehension. What is reading comprehension? This refers to the ability to understand what we read, and comprehension impacts how we relate to a story and its characters.

Reading comprehension is how we interpret a story and understand its meaning. When a child has a mastery of the comprehension element of reading, then all the ‘wh’ questions can be answered. The who, what, when, where, why (and how) questions all tie into character motivations and the story’s unique plot twists.

Why is Reading Comprehension So Important?

Some parents may find that their child can decode with ease. They can read anything, so they must have a wonderful grasp of reading, right? Yes, and no. We have to master all the components of reading before we truly become proficient. Decoding and understanding the sounds of words is essential to reading.

Yet, if a child reads a page but cannot describe what happened or why then comprehension could be an issue. Or maybe the child just became distracted and wasn’t fully engrossed.

How would a parent know if reading comprehension is a struggle? Reading with your child can help you to better gauge their understanding of a story. Ask questions throughout the story and encourage your child to try to explain the actions and feelings of a character. The more questions you ask, the better you can ascertain your child’s mastery of reading comprehension.

How Can Parents Improve Their Child’s Reading Comprehension?

If you discover that your child is struggling to understand a story, there are a few ways to help boost reading comprehension. However, if your child is really struggling, you may wish to facilitate a dialogue with your child’s teacher.

Additional support may be available in the classroom setting, or your child’s teacher may have unique resources to send home for enrichment. Open communication between parents and educators is essential because it really does take a village to raise a child.

What can parents do at home to help children who struggle with comprehension? The best advice is to read with a child and ask them questions. Parents also can utilize reading apps to help provide additional support at home; Readability features integrated AI technology that assists children throughout their reading journey. Stories are leveled to fit each child’s individual needs and to ensure that text is neither too difficult nor too easy.

What More Can Parents Do To Boost Reading Comprehension?

The best ways that parents can help boost a child’s reading comprehension is by reading with a child, asking questions during storytime, using enrichment materials from school, or downloading a reading app for additional instruction. Special reading programs also may be available during class instruction.

Yet, reading is so much more than just decoding and interpreting words. Reading opens up new worlds and experiences. Reading enriches our minds. The act of reading should be fun!

A great way for parents to ensure that all reading is enjoyable is to help a child embrace the adventure. While educational tools are essential to boost reading comprehension, parents can certainly think outside the box to create a remarkable and wonderful reading environment for their children.

Instead of sitting at a table, on a bed or the couch, take the reading adventure elsewhere. Here are outdoor reading spaces to bring stories to life:

In your backyard by a tree
In the garden (for fairytale adventures!)
Under the stars with a flashlight (for stories related to space and the universe)
By a campfire or a fireplace (for scary stories!)

Where we read may help us visualize the setting and backdrop for the stories. A unique environment also may help children relate more to characters or to the plot. Sometimes reading in a new space also helps reset the mind and helps make reading feel not so much like homework.

Take a Story Field Trip

When you’re reading a story or book with your child, consider taking a reading field trip related to the adventure. Every book has unique and fun adventures, and many can be safely recreated to help step into the minds of the characters.

In “From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” the characters ran away from home to live (for a brief time) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Those living near the Big Apple can pay the museum a visit to retrace some of the adventures of the book. Not a New Yorker? Take kids to your city’s art museum or any museum. Talk about the book, too! Find a fun or unique plot point and create a related field trip for your child. If the book takes place in outer space, consider visiting a science museum or planetarium.

Reading comprehension is essential for a child to become fully proficient in reading. Decoding may help children identify individual words and read simple sentences, but comprehension is necessary to fully understand the story and a character’s motivations.

Help children at home with enrichment activities, reading apps, and by reading together and discussing the book. Take field trips to help children develop a deeper appreciation for the story by experiencing pivotal plot elements and exploring paths similar to the characters.

If your child needs additional instruction and enrichment to help boost reading comprehension, download Readability to see if the app works for your child’s needs. Parents can sign up for a free 7-day trial to test drive this unique program!

9 Unique Strategies for Helping Kids Learn How to Read

May 25, 2020

Helping kids learn how to read is a dynamic process that’s different for each child, but keeping your kids on track can be done with just a few minutes each day.

In fact, it’s easier than ever to incorporate reading into anyone’s daily routine, especially with all of the time we’re spending at home. Did you know that you can use your favorite mobile devices to enhance the lesson with cutting-edge learning tools like Interactive Voice-based Questions & Answers (IVQA™) and artificial intelligence?

Here are some tips and activities that anyone can use to improve the learning process for early-stage readers.

1. Set a Consistent Study Schedule

More than most of us, children are creatures of habit. They enjoy routine and feel comfortable with things they can expect and understand. The same can be said for activities like studying and doing homework.

While there will surely be days when your child does not want to sit for a reading session, sticking to the same schedule will get them used to reading being a part of their daily routine.

If they’re using a reading app, you can determine the best time to study by looking at their usage reports. Experiment with the time of day and duration of each lesson, then take a look at the data to see their progress.

2. Communicate Throughout the Story

As you’re reading with your children, be sure to talk about the key points in the story to keep them engaged. Discuss the characters, such as who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist.

Some other topics to talk about might include:

What settings are discussed in the story?
What is the main goal of the primary character?
What is the child’s favorite part of the story?
How does the child infer that the story will end?

3. Ask Questions

Your young reader might breeze through the books they already know, but they might get caught up on new words and characters as more stories are introduced to them. Asking them questions before, during, and after the lesson will prompt them to think about the material more deeply.

Repetition is one of the best ways to engage a child’s memory, and asking your child about the story will give them added exposure to character names, unfamiliar words, and new concepts from a different perspective.

4. Read TO Your Child

Reading aloud is an important part of any reading plan, but reading to your children can also help them sharpen their skills.

Even if your child isn’t an auditory learner, listening to you piece the words and sentences together will help them make sense of what they’re reading. It also gives them an opportunity to take in the meaning of the story since they won’t be focusing on sounding out words.

5. Be a Good Listener

Just like listening to the story will help your kids gain a deeper understanding of the story, listening to your child read will help you to keep track of their progress.

Like anyone, your child wants to feel heard and connected with. When you’re reading together, they might be feeling nervous or vulnerable – especially in the early stages. Let them know that you’re there for them to guide them through the process by showing a sincere interest in their comments, predictions, and questions.

6. Encourage Writing Practice for Reading

Writing is proven to improve reading skills in young children, and it’s another way to add some variety to your lessons.

Start by selecting words and small phrases for early readers, or give your more advanced readers a prompt for an essay reflection or summary. Prompting them to think actively about the story they’re reading will help them gain full immersion, which is likely to speed up the learning process.

7. Use a Reading App to Help Your Children Learn

If your family has been affected by the recent stay-at-home orders amidst COVID-19, your kids have probably been spending more time with technology than ever before. From homeschooling to entertainment, kids are even more glued to their devices. So, why not use this as an opportunity to make learning fun for them?

Reading apps are affordable, easy-to-use platforms that provide your child with a dynamic library of content that’s appropriate for their individual reading level.

Effective reading apps listen to your child’s voice in real-time and respond to their cadence and accuracy to help them identify where improvements can be made.

Not only is your child more likely to WANT to read when they’re using a reading app, but they’ll also get more out of each lesson with the added support and resources available.

8. Incorporate Your Child’s Interests

It’s no secret that children are more likely to do something that’s good for them if they like doing it, not because they know it’s beneficial. Reading is no different and is often seen as a chore like anything else.

Stories that include your kid’s favorite characters, places, or themes will have them looking forward to reading time.

9. Be Flexible

While it’s important to get your kids used to a set schedule for reading practice, it’s also important to understand that some days are going to be better than others. Children are human just like us, and sometimes won’t be as cooperative or enthusiastic about their learning plan.

Understand that your child may become frustrated, bored, or uninterested but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t learning. Go at a pace that’s comfortable for them, and remember to be patient.

Learning how to read is a process full of highs and lows with any child. Help your young reader make the most out of their experience with these helpful tips. To expedite the process, search for their favorite stories using our interactive reading app.

What Are the Best Apps to Teach Reading?

May 22, 2020

Reading is an essential skill that every child needs to master in order to succeed in their academic and professional careers. But unfortunately, one in four children in America grow up without learning how to read, and many others enter adulthood with poor reading skills.

Fortunately, there are a number of tools that parents can use to help their children improve their reading skills. In fact, help is now available at your child’s fingertips thanks to apps that are designed to teach children crucial reading skills. Here’s what parents should know about the best apps to teach reading:

What Are the Six Basic Reading Skills?

Some apps are only designed to teach kids certain reading skills, but it’s important to find an app that will help a child improve all crucial reading skills. The six basic reading skills that every child needs to develop are:

Decoding: This is a child’s ability to sound out words that they are not familiar with. To decode a word, a child must be familiar with the different sounds that each letter in the alphabet makes.
Fluency: This is the skill of being able to read quickly without making any errors. To master this skill, kids must be able to decode and read words rapidly.
Vocabulary: Having a broad vocabulary will help kids understand more of what they are reading. Most kids broaden their vocabularies through everyday experiences and conversations with others.
Sentence Construction and Cohesion: This is the skill of understanding how sentences are built and how two or more sentences can connect ideas and build meaning.
Reasoning and Background Knowledge: Kids should be able to relate what they are reading to their own experiences in order to read between the lines and fully understand the text.
Working Memory and Attention: Kids need to be able to take in information and hold onto it in order to extract meaning from the text. To master this skill, kids must know how to self-monitor, which means they must recognize when they don’t know what a word or sentence means.

The best reading apps will help a child improve all six of these skills so they can become stronger, well-rounded readers.

What is the Best App to Teach A Child to Read?

There are many apps that claim to teach a child how to read, but none that can compare to Readability. The Readability app sets itself apart with these unique features:

Responsive speech recognition technology: The app will read a passage to your child then ask your child to read the passage back. Using responsive speech recognition technology, the app will listen and identify errors as your child reads.
Real-time correction: The app will instantly correct your child’s pronunciation errors as they read aloud so they can learn from their mistakes.
Interactive questions and answers: The voice-based interactive Q&A feature will keep your child engaged by asking them questions about the text they are reading and listening to their answers. Talking to the app is just like talking to a tutor thanks to this innovative feature.
Parent dashboard: Parents can track their child’s progress using the app’s dashboard, which measures your child’s accuracy, comprehension, and daily time spent reading.

These are some of the features that make Readability the best app for children who are struggling readers. By using this app regularly, kids can drastically improve their reading skills.

How Can I Help My Child Learn to Read?

Kids can work on their reading skills independently using the Readability app, but there are some things that parents can do to supplement this instruction. Here are simple ways that parents can help children improve their reading skills:

Talk to them—a lot. Talking to your kids will expose them to a wider range of words and sentence structures so they can build their vocabulary and develop stronger sentence construction skills.
Ask them to tell you a story. Ask your child to tell you about a specific event in their life or make up a story.
Make reading a priority. Practice makes perfect, so encourage your child to read on a daily basis. If your child isn’t motivated to read, you should practice what you preach by reading every day so you can lead by example.
Have resources available. Make sure you have magazines, books, newspapers, and other reading materials available in your home at all times.

By following these simple tips, parents can do their part to help their children improve their reading skills.

Download the Readability App Today

Take the first step toward helping your child become a better reader by downloading the Readability app on your smartphone or tablet today. Start your free 7-day trial and watch as your child becomes a more confident, proficient reader!

Fun 2nd Grade Reading Comprehension Activities

May 21, 2020

Helping with 2nd grade reading comprehension can be challenging, especially with those juggling employment and family. Almost all parents want the best for their children, but with reading comprehension, it isn’t only about the time spent helping them.

In order to keep things interesting, it often falls on carers to find additional reading comprehension activities, stories, and games. After all, when the kids get back from a day at school, they will only focus well if reading is fun.

During this period, many of us are also in a homeschooling situation due to COVID-19, and so it is even more important to keep reading interesting while also checking their level of comprehension.

Simply being able to read the words doesn’t mean they have understood the sentence, paragraph, or story.

Second Grade Reading – What to Expect

2nd grade is an important time for reading skill development. Children are generally required to reach a certain ability level, to enable them to continue learning effectively.

Here we look at some of the skills that should be developed by the end of the second grade, although earlier is obviously better.

Reading – They should be able to read words and texts of a grade 2 level
Decoding – They should be able to sound out words that they don’t recognize
Comprehension – They should be able to understand what they read, find information, and understand numerous forms of written texts
Punctuation – They should understand punctuation and how to read the text correctly without reading the punctuation aloud (such as by using tone or pausing)
Speed – By the end of the grade, they should be able to read most texts at about 100 words per minute
Understand Syllabification – Including breaking words into syllables, vowels, combinations, spelling rules, and plurals.

If all is going well, you should also see that your little one starts to enjoy the activity of reading. This can show up in different ways, from them hiding away with their favorite books, to trying to read almost everything they see while out and about.

Second Grade Reading Comprehension Checking

Comprehension checking activities are the only way to really increase second-grade reading comprehension levels. By having to talk about the story, the learner needs to make more of an effort to understand what they read.

Comprehension checking can be performed in numerous ways. The idea of most techniques is to push the learner to think about and relate to what they are reading. Here are a few of the approaches:

Reading Aloud Slowly – This gives them more time to process the meanings of words. It also allows them to hear the words and that often helps to associate words with their meanings.
Re-Read Favorite Stories – By re-reading stories, learners get more exposure to words they know or have recently learned. This helps to deepen their understanding of the story and the words. They also often find it easier to re-read stories they like and being able to read them can increase confidence.
Talk About the Story – Discussing the story and asking what they liked, how they felt, etc. can help to force the learner to think about the story more or in different ways that required to simply read it.
Summarize the Story – By asking them to summarize a story using their own words, the learner has to think about what happened, select the ‘key facts’ as they see them, and then retell it. This can be both a challenging activity and an interesting one, as children often see things differently to adults.
Fact-Finding Questions – Although this is a more basic form of comprehension, it is also a useful study skill that’s worth developing for later life. Being able to recall or scan a text for facts is useful in almost all areas of study. For these kinds of questions, you would ask something such as “why did the dog bark?”, or “what color was the car?”.
Moral of the Story or Opinion Based Questions – Discussing what the lesson of the story was or what they think about the situation can greatly help compassion and empathy, as well as provide a deeper understanding of the story.
Relate to the Readers Life Experiences – This one is brilliant for teaching understanding and also how to relate to other people’s feelings. Relating the story events to experiences the reader has had can help them to understand the characters and emotions involved in the story.

It is also vital that the learner has access to a diverse library of level-appropriate reading materials. This not only helps to prevent reading from becoming a boring task but helps to promote reading as a hobby.

Reading Comprehension Grade 2 Made Easy

All of the above approaches work well and have been proven effective. However, parents and carers don’t always have the time to work on reading comprehension for grade 2 students. Up until now, they often had to rely mostly on the school and when they had time free to go through such activities.

Fortunately, this is no longer the case. Reading apps are far more advanced and AI developments have allowed for a new form of comprehension checking. We call it “Comprehension with IVQA™”.

This new technology is a part of our Readability app. It means that the learner is asked comprehension questions by an AI at the end of reading a paragraph. They then can answer by speaking directly to the app. So, not only do they get full support while reading, the app actually checks that they understood the texts.

To see it in action, why not take our 7-day free trial for a spin and see how we can make 2nd-grade reading comprehension a lot more fun for children and their parents.

Learn to Read Apps for Kids

May 20, 2020

If you have a struggling reader at home, or if you just want to give your child a head start when it comes to reading readiness, you may have considered downloading learn to read apps for kids.

There are a lot of them available, which can make it difficult to know which one to choose. Plus, you might be wondering if they even work in the first place.

The good news is that these reading apps can work quite well if you choose carefully.

Interactive Learning

One of the main things that makes an app effective for kids is how interactive it is. Reading apps that just sling information at your child and that don’t ask them to participate in any way are a lot less likely to be effective than reading apps that allow them to play games or try things for themselves.

Luckily, when it comes to reading apps, nothing beats Readability in terms of interactiveness!

Using advanced AI technology, this app reads to your child and then “listens” to your child as they read and provides feedback. The app will also ask reading comprehension questions and then listen to and assess your child’s answers.

Because your little one is never just sitting idly by, they’ll be more engaged in what they’re doing and more likely to actually learn something that sticks!

Reading Level Appropriate Content

In addition to choosing a learn to read app that’s interactive, parents should also look for one that offers grade or reading level appropriate content. After all, an app can’t help if its simplest exercises are way above your child’s level.

Readability is good on this front too. It has materials for all the different reading levels and can accommodate your child’s expanding skill level. This allows you to get more use out of the app, rather than trying to find a new one every time your child improves or moves up a reading level or two!

Limited Distractions

Research suggests that effective learning apps for kids also need to have limited distractions.

And, unfortunately, many modern apps are just games disguised as learning tools. They have flashing lights and lots of silly sounds. So, while they might look like they’re engaging your child and having an impact, they’re really just keeping them busy and reducing their chances of retaining anything educational the app might have to offer.

Readability is great because it does feature pictures and a few fun graphics and effects to interest your child. But, it doesn’t go over the top and, at its core, is focused on good, old-fashioned learning!

Do Your Part

While Readability really is a great reading app in many ways, no app, no matter how perfect, can do everything all on its own. If you were just to have your child use Readability and do nothing else, you’d probably still get results. But, you’d get even better results if you put in a little effort too!

One thing you could try, for example, is sometimes helping or sitting with your child as they use the app. You don’t have to take total control, nor should you. But, just being there, watching your child learn, and offering encouragement and support along the way can make a big difference.

You’ll get some insight into your child’s learning style, which can be extremely helpful. You’ll also gain firsthand knowledge of what they’re learning through the app. Not only does this enable you to see for yourself how effective it is, but you’ll also know what your child is learning. That way, you can reinforce the app’s lessons in your daily interactions with your child.

If you’re unsure about how to reinforce these lessons, don’t worry. The simplest solution is to read with your child and to facilitate better comprehension as much and as often as you can! You can do this by spending daily time reading together, discussing what you’ve read, and even practicing real-world reading skills, like reading menus together at a restaurant or having your child read off a recipe to you.

Download Today

The bottom line is that reading apps, when chosen with care and strengthened by your own efforts, can be incredibly beneficial. This is especially true for Readability, which has all the things a learning app needs to be successful.

So, why not give it a try yourself? Download it, let your child use it, and then sit back and watch as their reading skills improve!