The Reading RulesⒸ: For Teachers
What does The Yard Duty Lady say? She doesn’t know your name so she says “ay!” when she calls you. She says “ay, freeze!” “ay, slow down!” “ay, stop running!”
In this rule, the bossy “a” just says its name.Try these!
- say
- may
- day
- tray
- play
- stray
Welcome To The Reading RulesⒸ!
As a classroom teacher, I can imagine you are thinking to yourself, “Great, another new reading program.” In my 17 years of teaching I personally have been through the politics of being forced to adopt the districts latest multi-million dollar program time and time again only to discover the new system wasn’t helping students learn to read any faster or better than the old system. But each time a “program adoption” year came about, we would have to throw out the 30 teacher’s manuals we were forced to become familiar with, (I hate manuals) along with all of the student anthologies which had the stories we wrote elaborate lesson plans for, and came to love. Each time we were told, “Yep, can’t use those anymore, they’re all obsolete!” Well, I am here to tell you that you won’t be hearing that from me! Yes, as a classroom teacher you will be successful in using The Reading Rules with any curriculum or reading program you currently use. Oh yeah, and as I previously stated, – I hate manuals. Well, The Reading Rules has only 1 cute little manual, so it is not only the most simplified and concise way of teaching reading, but you can easily hide it amongst the other 30 teaching manuals!
Why I Created The Reading RulesⒸ
In 1993, I was working as a grocery store checker and was a single parent to my, at the time, 3 year-old daughter Johanna. I began using a very well-known system to teach her to read and by age 7 she was assessed and estimated to be at middle-to late 5th grade reading and comprehension level as a first grader. This success lead me to pursue teaching as a career.
In 1998, I began teaching and was assigned to a Kindergarten class. I was not given a reading program to use. At that time, the goal was only to teach the basic letters and sounds. Because of my experience with my daughter my goals were much higher, so I began using the reading program I used with my daughter, only to find out it had many “holes” which didn’t address the many complexities of learning to read English words beyond the 26 letter sounds.From this, came the birth of The Reading Rules – a systematic method of teaching reading which goes beyond the 26 letter sounds and basic digraphs, and is the key to unlocking mastery of reading in English.
In 2012, I graduated from the University of Santa Monica with a master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology. It was in this program, that I was encouraged to pursue my dreams of seeing The Reading Rules to fruition. In my 2 years at USM I worked diligently to develop The Reading Rules with the intention of one day sharing it with the world.
If you are like me, as a teacher you have been cautioned not to teach phonemes or sounds using rules. Well I personally feel it’s the only way to teach reading effectively. Otherwise, you are hoping with fingers crossed, that your students will somehow miraculously and subconsciously figure out and internalize these difficult phonemes. This is not to say that students can’t learn to read without systematic rules, but I personally desire rapid success for all students, and The Reading Rules produces this.
As educators your feedback is one of my most valuable resources and I welcome it.
Thank you, Suzette
