Early Reading Skills

The course is full of useful information with practical hands-on examples to target various skills. The links to videos are great for people to see the skills being taught. Excellent resources of evidenced-based practice provided throughout the course. I really liked the summary at the end as it ties everything together nicely.

The course "Early Reading Skills " by Adina Soclof and Leo Christie is a thorough course especially designed to support SLP clinicians working with clients developing reading skills while growing their language skills. The role of the SLP teaching for these student needs is clearly discussed and supported. Assessment and diagnosis are thoroughly discussed with specific tests presented. Preschool and School age methods and techniques are presented for teaching reading and for developing language skills. Strong support is provided for those working in the classroom for these students. This is a strong evidence-based practice course clearly timely for school based clinicians as well as others. 

The style of the course was conducive to understanding by both new and seasoned therapists. Good examples given in all areas. The authors made the information easy to understand, particularly for new clinicians.

Enjoyed the course and will share many of the strategies with my students. Section 1 started with a nice review of the three stages of reading development which flowed nicely into the next section on the neuroscience of reading. It was also good to have a little history on whole language versus phonics as novice clinicians might not be aware of the impact these two approaches have played over the years. I liked the section that defined the different reading disorders. The section on reading assessment was thorough if a little bit daunting when you read through all the things to consider in a reading assessment. It makes a good reference though. The introduction to section 2 with strategies/techniques of growth mindset, zones, etc. was a bit of overlap from the Reading Comprehension course but the examples were age appropriate for the early reading stage. The rest of this section was full of great family reading strategies and teaching children the basics of books. I like that you divided family strategies in section 2 from preschool classroom strategies in section 3. I like that you devoted a whole section to vocabulary with many specific examples that related back to story and book use. The youtube videos that showed teachers in direct teaching added a lot to this section. I also liked that you separated out phonological awareness from teaching phonics with each having their own section. There were many great teaching strategies and visual examples in both these sections. The phonological awareness developmental chart was a great addition. Section 7 on reading fluency had many different strategies that I think teacher, clinician and parent could employ. Ending with digital media covered all the ways in which we are exposing young children to reading. There were good guidelines for digital use and great suggestions for educational apps. The references with all the links embedded will give any clinician or teacher a wealth of resources for continued exploration and learning. I think this course is a collection of comprehensive teaching strategies and resources that will be invaluable to a teacher, clinician or parent guiding a young child along to becoming a successful reader. 

This is a great course! It is wonderful to have all of this information put together in such an organized and cohesive way, and the addition of links to youtube video demonstrating specific strategies is priceless. I will be referencing this for years to come.

I really liked the manner in which this course was organized and presented. The many examples exemplifying the concepts were helpful. Thank you.

My job has been changing to include teaching early reading skills to kindergarteners and first graders. This course was incredibly helpful and worthwhile.

This was one of the BEST courses I've taken through PDR! Within my private practice, my two areas of specialty are: early auditory processing disorders and dyslexia. The course reinforced what I do within the scope and sequence of treating my clients (and gave me some fun new activity ideas), and why I do it. Thanks So Much!

Very interesting and I learned a great deal.

Great refresher

Excellent information! Great tips!

This course was an excellent review of how the SLP can assist with timely interventions to help the teacher in the classroom. It is too bad that the schools are not aware of what a valuable resource we are! I also thought that the You Tube video references were a valuable resource.

Great information!

It was good to refresh on the strategies that parents can use at home to encourage an improved environment to learn proper reading skills.

I thought the article was excellent

Great amount of information!

This was a good course and I recommend it for all SLPs that work with the early stages of literacy.

Excellent content.

This course is a nice reminder of the complexity of reading skills and their importance to overall adjustment in children.

Excellent course!

This course refreshed my knowledge base for early emergent reading strategies and resources.  The examples with use of you-tube will help me provide to my parents which want to help their children.

I enjoyed learning more about early reading skills and getting reacquainted with the information.

I appreciated the practicality of the course, providing apps, sites, etc. that might be helpful to future clients.

This was a very informative and helpful course. I only wish I had courses like this when I worked in the public schools, instead of the jargon and nonsense they made us take  every summer.

Excellent course. Well presented and educationally informative to me as an SLP working with children in an elementary school. Highly recommend to SLPs WORKING IN SCHOOLS.

Thank you for lots of real life examples and links!

The course emphasized the link between the attainment of early literacy and academic achievement. Testing and literacy strategies/techniques were clearly provided in the areas of vocabulary, phonological awareness, encoding, decoding and fluency. Balanced literacy approach was applied to the 3 stages of reading development with ample examples, strategies, techniques, activities, and material options.

This was a good course and I recommend it for all SLPs that work with the early stages of literacy.

The up-to-date terminology and specific exercises to assist poor readers was very helpful.

Very well organized. Great strategies given  to assist students with reading challenges

Clear presentation; very useful and user-friendly. Presentation of encouragement styles useful.

Much of the information presented will be very helpful and useful for me in my position as a 2nd grade teacher.

Easy-to-read. Well laid out. Liked the tables and examples.

This course was an excellent review of early reading skills and the importance of early intervention. The strategies discussed were explained in detail to help clinicians, teachers and families. I would highly recommend.

I enjoyed the presentation of the course material. The information was easy to follow and the strategies are helpful for intervention planning!

This course was very beneficial when working with children and teaching the fundamentals of learning when learning how to read.

I will use the information as a reference tool in my SLP work in school and with my Pre-K, K, and 1st grade students. Thank you!

This course does a great job of explaining how SLPs can use their unique training to partner with other educators to facilitate literacy development. I found the specific examples of lessons and intervention techniques to be very practical and helpful.

I enjoyed this course! Very interesting and organized.