During last year’s After School program we had many children who did great in school, but a few stood out from the crowd. With our specialized program, all of the children that we helped improved their grades throughout the year. Each child get individual attention to the areas that they need the most assistance.
We had a kindergarten girl who was very sharp and could do second grade level math with ease, but she struggled immensely with reading. She would get so frustrated with herself that she wouldn’t even apply herself to reading work, so we dedicated all our efforts on making her into a “reading ninja”. With our teachings and her new found motivation we started teaching her to read and recognize basic sight words.
Slowly we began to introduce her to small easy-read books. Occasionally she’d get caught up in her old ways, saying “but I don’t know how to read!”, but we overcame her mental obstacles. Her new goal of becoming the best reader in her class – the “reading ninja” was truly born!
Our kindergarteners are getting off to a great start in school!
She slowly moved up the reading ladder from kindergarten sight word books to slightly more complex first grade books. She loved reading about animals and nature like dolphins, bugs and puppies. After she masted the harder level first grade books we slowly started introducing her to beginner chapter books. At first she was intimidated by the seemingly impossible challenge of a book without pictures, but she did it. She read the entire book – 37 pages a true ninja feat.
The following Friday after her accomplishment she brought the book in to school for show-and-tell. Her teacher was amazed at the progress she made and the other children in the class were awestruck and hardly could believe it.
