I first learned about this training through my EBLI training. What convinced me to try it was listening to developer Leslie Laud and former superintendent Providence, Rhode Island schools, Robert Mitchell, interviewed in a podcast and a short time later hearing a parent speak about it during the Accelerate Literacy summit.

Trained September-December 2024

Overall Rating: 8/10

Training Experience: 6/10

Format: Self-paced online modules along with a textbook. The entire training took me just over 16 hours to complete (this includes the modules as well as the reading from the text). I set out to do one module a week, spending a couple hours most weekends. In reality I missed a couple weekends but it takes time to try the new learnings so I wouldn't recommend a faster pace. Ideal for me would have been one module every two weeks, allowing time to practice, reflect, review content, practice again.

Key messages:

The self-regulation component is critical to this method. For me it has been the most unique and valuable part of the training. I taught just a few think SRSD lessons to my five-year-old son when I witnessed him using positive self-talk with an adult at our local swimming pool. It shocked and impressed me. This piece will impact the way I teach for the long term.

Keep simple structures (what thinkSRSD call their "tools") that you can model and practice together over and over again until students have internalized it and can begin altering to suit more varied needs, more sophisticated styles.

Cost:  $199 (individual, asynchronous)

Implementation: I felt throughout some lack of clarity about where to go next or how to practice what I've learned effectively. The textbook provided often makes references to things that are not familiar or seems to be jumping forward and backward. It wasn't until the end of the book that it outlined what the pacing should look like at different grade-levels. I could have used that information upfront, as I was practicing. For someone who appreciates and clear scope and sequence, this has been challenging for me. Of course, perhaps the writing process doesn't lend itself well to lockstep instruction. The goal of thinkSRSD seems to be to convey a way of teaching writing that still includes a great deal of creativity and fluidity. I value that too but don't feel I can reach it as a novice without some carefully designed practice.

Evidence: July 2024

Suggestions:  What I'd love to see is a set of about 10 lessons that include the initial lessons to launch writing but also a sample week-long cycle for my grade-level. Also, including more training about the differences for teaching students to write fiction or personal narratives, as the training primarily focuses on responding to nonfiction texts. 

I first heard about this from a podcast and promptly signed up for the free, self-paced online training but then got busy with other things. Several months later it was recommended by Nora Chahbazi at EBLI which was the nudge I needed to actually get started. 

Trained July-September 2024

Overall Rating: 9/10

Training Experience: 7/10 

Format: about 4.5 hours of self-paced, online modules. I chose to do the training over two sessions, spaced several weeks apart. Pre-test and post-test included. You only gain access to the immense library of resources if you pass the post-test.

Be ready for straight talk and immense enthusiasm from someone who is clearly dedicating her life to the highest quality reading comprehension instruction. Dr. Kay Wijekumar narrates the modules which take 6-8 hours to complete, ideally over the course of a week or two. Not months. 

Key messages:

• To be clear: Teachers are not the problem. Teachers are working with everything they have. The popular materials and methodologies are absolutely central in the problem. (And also perhaps an obsession with benchmark assessments which absorb precious instructional time and don't inform teachers with usable next steps).

• Not all reading comprehension skills are of equal importance, yet they are often given equal amounts of time in a curriculum scope and sequence. The most important things: main idea, summarizing, inference. The bread and butter of comprehension work. This is what we really want to be able to do with anything we read. It also the foundation that allows us to figure all the other things (like author's purpose).

• Comprehension work from day 1, even as children are learning to decode. It is NOT a next step once decoding and fluency are strong. This is also true for morphology. Teach this at the beginning of lessons with words essential to understanding the text and not likely familiar to students.

• The lesson format is fairly simple and consistent. It should only take 20 minutes of your ELA block. It should be used every single day, in every classroom, in every genre of text. 

• There are basically 6 text structures and 3 of them are extremely similar to each other: Cause and Effect, Problem and Solution, and the hybrid: Cause, Problem and Solution. Then we have Comparison, which is it's own thing. Finally, Description and Sequence, but it is worth noting that these two are embedded in all the others. So primarily the training focuses on the top three.

• I (finally) know how to write a really strong main idea and summary after this training. I'm serious. I'm shocked by how much I improved in a short amount of time. The key: simple, consistent sentence starters that you can use over and over again until it becomes second nature.

Cost: None; funded by several Dept. of Education grants

Implementation: For now I will only be using the strategy orally with my children, ages 5 and 2, any time we read. That will look like previewing vocabulary words (requires a bit of prep on my part), and asking questions as we read that draw their attention to text structure: Is there a problem here? Why did it happen? Will there be a solution? or Is something being compared here? 

Evidence: Appears to be very strong. (Search ITSS on What Works Clearinghouse). ITSS is the computer software version of KAT. 

Weak spot: the resource library you gain access to after completed the training are a nightmare to navigate. I have yet to find the things I am looking for nor have I fortuitously stumbled upon something I can use. I wish them much more funding to go toward building this resource into something usable. 

NOTE: This approach appears to "play nice" with EBLI and ThinkSRSD. Which is to say they all leverage evidence for high impact. My current thinking is that if I ever worked at a district or admin position I'd emphasize ThinkSRSD, KAT and EBLI for our literacy instruction.

Trained June 2024- February 2025

Overall Rating: 9/10 So far it's the best method I've used for teaching reading in terms of increasing teacher knowledge, gradual release for the teacher learning, and clear next steps for instruction. Results below are from my training period. I will need to add some data from my current students now that I am fully certified. One thing not well demonstrated in the graphs is the increased confidence and willingness to read that I've observed in students. 

Training Experience: 9/10 (so far)

June 8: Currently 2 days (just 4.75 hours) into my training but I already have some things to mention:

• big win for me: few materials, light on prep work

• some materials are mailed to you (printed, bound)

• application of teacher learning includes gradual release of teaching responsibility

• training is made of many small, digestible segments

June 9: now 6.25 hours of training completed

• my longtime challenge with where to start and where to go next with students appears to be resolved with EBLI method. The sequence is clearly laid out.

June 10: now have completed a total of 7 hour 41 minutes (time in training until practice first practice with students)

Today included my completion of the orientation as well as preparations for Lesson 1. Another 30 minutes or so to prepare 4 folders.

June 11: Lesson 1 with students

Cost: $2,594 total (so far)

• $2447: initial training $3000, minus a 20% discount, plus the cost of the conference to access the discount. 

• $26: for 6 binders

• $101.87: to print a couple hundred pages of training and instruction materials at Kinkos (double sided, B&W)

• $18.95: markers and whiteboard erasers from Markerboard People

Intervention Period: June 11-July 29 (4-8 weeks, 3-4 sessions a week, 40-60 minute sessions)

• Student Highlights: A student told me, "I surprised myself!" after working on writing multi-syllable words, using syllable and sound lines and saying each sound as they wrote (this is key in the EBLI process and will forever become a core part of my own practice). While syllable and sound lines were familiar to me from my Orton Gillingham training, the "say as you write" practice was not as emphasized.  

  • Another student was very reluctant to participate and would just flat out refuse to do certain activities. This is not unique to me or the content, this is an ongoing challenge in their school work. Then they saw a bit of success and they pulled a 180, being an absolute eager and enthusiastic student. It was a reminder that many times behavior challenges arise out of a child trying to hide their academic challenges.

• Challenges: The assessments were the only aspect of EBLI that I found dizzying. Great news there is I've heard from the folks at EBLI that they've retooled their approach to assessments and I'm looking forward to learning how to do this better. I also have some perfectionist tendencies that cause me to obsess over the details of instruction and I really want to deliver the lessons as they were designed. To that end I needed to develop some slides with prompts to help me stay on track and not miss any key steps in the learning activities. 

• Personal Preferences: At the end of the day, everything comes down to efficacy. Does this method effectively and efficiently teach someone to read and write? I have preliminary data to suggests it does. So having passed that major hurdle, how does it work for teachers? Speaking just for myself, EBLI has a straightforward, no frills approach that really works for me. I'm a no-nonsense teacher so cuteness wins no points with me. EBLI is to the point and cuts out anything that is not essential to learning the code. Reading, writing, spelling, phonological awareness are intertwined brilliantly within a handful of activities, so that my instructional time can have an unprecedented impact. I'm really looking forward to using EBLI with additional students and following their progress over the years. Among my favorite things about EBLI: They are hyper responsive to feedback. If you share what is challenging you, they will get back to you promptly and kindly.

Results: 

I worked with 5 students while I complete my training in EBLI. One of those is my 5 year old son. Photos below are from his progress.

• Timed Task: Write the alphabet in lowercase letters (for just 1 minute). (July-August 2024)

Trained 2024

Overall Rating: TBD

Who is this intervention for? students in grade 1-4, but also potentially kids who are outside those grades, yet reading within those grade levels. Students in tier 2 or tier 3 instruction. Multi-lingual learners and special education students.

Training Experience: TBD

Format: less than 5 hours of self-paced, online modules followed by 5 hours of live, Zoom training.

Lingering question: 

• What does the research say about teaching decoding through rimes (word families)? 

My impression from Diane McGuinness is that this is not the way to teach an alphabetic writing system, but perhaps newer research suggests otherwise.

Deeply impressed by:

• The way semantics and multiple meaning words are taught in RAVE-O seems brilliant. This vocabulary instruction is particularly vital for multi-lingual learners and I'd love to learn more about Maryanne's research.

Utilized in June 2024

Overall Rating: 7/10

Major respect for the emphasis on preventing reading difficulties. Promising tool for homeschooling parents. Some reservations about use in classrooms.

I would be so excited to use this assessment if they ever make a version available to tutors. As a parent, the assessment process has been excellent. As a teacher, I have a hard time imagining administering this assessment to every child in my class. It just takes too long. I know at least one school uses this as a part of their Kindergarten assessments before the school year starts which is perhaps a perfect application.

Assessment Experience: 7/10

My almost 5 year old son completed the assessment on June 5, 2024. We had a 1 hour appointment scheduled with a literacy specialist and it took just 43 minutes in the end. The end of year preschool assessment which my son was taking had 8 components: naming objects (checking vocabulary), letter names, initial sounds (which word starts with the same sounds as...), letter sounds, rhyming (choose the two pictures of rhyming words), rapid naming of familiar images, blending sounds (syllable level, onset-rime, and individual phonemes), select the object that matches the description.

We conducted the assessment on my laptop, all that was required was a Chrome browser. The specialist sent the needed links, my son indicated his answers, speaking for some and pointing to images for the others, I clicked the appropriate buttons for the sake of time.

My son took a break after about 21 minutes, walked around the room, checked on his sister, and came back to finish. He seemed motivated to complete the activities and understood the directions, even if he didn't get all the right answers.

Cost: $84.15, so far

It costs $99/month (I used this 15% discount code, valid for your first month only: SN15. Feel free to use. I receive no benefits from you using it, except the satisfaction of saving you about $15.)

• You also need an iPad if you want to use the Pip School app.  We realized too late that our iPad minis are generation 2 and the oldest one compatible is 4th generation. So we likely won't be able to use the PipSchool component, which is the instructional piece, which currently focuses on phonemic awareness (a foundational reading skill) with more new content planned for Fall 2024.

• If you're wondering if you have a compatible device, at the time of writing: School App is supported on iOS: iOS 16.1, 6th Gen iPad, iPad Air 3, iPad mini 4, iPad Pro (all)

Time to Administer: about 35-40 minutes for the assessment itself and the instructions along the way. A few minutes for set up at the beginning and follow-up at the end.

Results:

June 17: Today we talked with the specialist about my son's results which showed solid strengths in phonological awareness, vocabulary, and oral language comprehension. His lowest score, by a lot was his RAN score, which essentially assesses his processing time. I got some helpful next steps to support my son, for instance, putting greater emphasis on lowercase letters, working toward more advanced phonological manipulation, such as deletions (what is cupcake without the cup? what is plum with out the /l/?)

The offerings in their child-facing app are focused on the parts of language that my son has mostly mastered, and while more content is being developed, it didn't make sense to continue with the service. We cancelled the same day. The assessment was quite interesting and I would recommend to anyone who has concerns about their child's early reading development or if they have a family history of reading difficulties.

Training currently (2024) 

Overall Rating: (TBD)

Two things Reading Simplified does better than any other training I've experienced. 1) A very short amount of training time before you are ready to practice with a student and reflect on that practice.

2) A very active online community including Teaching Assistants that will answer your questions within 24 hours.

A NOTE OF CAUTION regarding the subscription: It appeared to me that I could pause/cancel your subscription (to prevent being charged for the next month) within the Reading Simplified Academy online portal. This does not work. You will get charged UNLESS you email Reading Simplified directly at admin@readingsimplified.com and I would do it a couple days before the next billing cycle to be safe.

Greatest features: An effective and efficient method of teaching kids to read AND a highly active online community with teacher assistants at the ready to answer your specific questions.

Biggest challenges:  The tech hang-up. I basically got locked out of the the RS academy for a while where I couldn't progress in my training even though I was enjoying it and eager to move on. The loss of momentum was hard to recover from. 

If it's important to you: Reading Simplified provides an abundance of ideas about centers as well as printable resources (games or activities) for students to do while you work with small groups. This was less relevant to me as a reading specialist, interventionist and tutor. I also prefer simple, very low prep options, so this aspect overwhelmed me a bit. But it's not essential and you can teach Reading Simplified without ever setting up a center activity.

Training Experience: 7/10 

"Time until Practice": 3 hours of initial training and prep required before starting intervention (with real students)

About 12 hours of training (advertised) in total for the essential program (many more hours of advanced training available, for those interested)

Marnie is clearly an experienced teacher because she has put the same thought and intention into her teacher training materials as she put into the materials and exercises for the reading students. 

The training materials, available online, provide information just as soon as you needed it. This builds in time to practice new information, thus avoiding overwhelm from cognitive overload.

The biggest drawback to the Reading Simplified Academy is that there is some technical clunkiness. Sometimes the modules wouldn't let me advance until I had logged out and then logged back in. When I tried to use the chatbot/virtual assistant for tech support the chat bot wasn't working either! 

Notably, the online community is shockingly active and helpful. The response time on questions is very short. Where some online communities are a community in name only, Reading Simplified seems to have amassed an engaged group of educators and it feels like I've joined something truly significant when I see the buzz of activity happening online.

Update on 6/8/24: I came to update this post as the Reading Simplified Academy gives me another HTTP error 400. I'll say this comes up frequently, often when I go to take a quiz. I find it disruptive to my time management and mildly irritating. I know they're aware of it and likely working on it. I've bumped the training score down from an 8 to a 7 out of 10. Another update is that I was able to attend office hours which are offered regularly by Marnie and Reading Simplified teaching assistants. This was a great way for me to get my specific questions or challenges addressed directly by the experts. Highly recommend taking advantage of this service.

Cost:  $166 total 

(about as inexpensive as great training get...as long as you remember to cancel your membership via email. Otherwise you'll get charged monthly FOREVER and that adds up!)  

After attending a free webinar I chose to sign up for a monthly membership ($29/month) to Reading Simplified (annual subscriptions are available as well). The online "Academy" includes all the training videos and PDFs as well as an online community. My plan is to get as much info in just a month or two and then duck out of the community, for cost savings.

Additional materials I needed to purchase (because I didn't have them already):

• 3-ring binder ($5)

• 112 B&W copies of printed training materials ($25 at Kinkos)

• magnetic whiteboard ($20)

• magnetic phonics tiles ($24) Careful! Marnie specifically warns against magnet letters...if you love magnets like me, make sure you get tiles where digraphs/vowel teams are on a single tile, and blends are NOT on a single tile. She provides a low cost alternative if you're not deadset on magnets.

• black dry erase markers ($5)

Intervention Period: 12.5 hours of instruction (scheduled)

June 8, 2024 -August 28, 2024 (meeting for 30 minutes, 2 times/week)

Results: (coming September 2024)

Would you like read more about RS from a data perspective? Pedagogy Non Grata

I first leared about Bookworms because it was in consideration as a curriculum when I was serving on a selection committee in the 2018-2019 school year. I learned about it in greater detail after watching The Right to Read documentary.

Started using in February of 2024

Overall Rating: 4/10

Good choice for self-motivated teacher looking for a very lost cost solution.

At the intersection of low cost and self-directed training, this method requires you to be willing to closely read the book in order to implement the intervention successfully. 

Each lesson is designed to be just 15 minutes long. That said it likely works best as a daily intervention, otherwise the dosage will be too low.

My biggest qualm is how long is spent on each focus area with little flexibility to move students on from their track if they reach mastery prior to the end of the 15 or 30 lessons that have been pre-portioned out.

Training Experience: 3/10 (entirely self-directed)

At least 3 hours of reading required before beginning implementation.

An hour or so of preparing copies to be ready for 15 lessons for each of my 6 groups.

This is simply a book that is used as the small group companion resource to the Bookworms Curriculum. I learned about Bookworms first as part of a curriculum selection committee and again in the documentary The Right to Read. I decided to give it a try for myself.

Cost: $15 for the book, plus cost of printing student copies

Intervention Period: February 29, 2024-May 9, 2024

2nd and 3rd grade students received between 60 minutes and 260 minutes, with an average of almost 3 hours of instruction (15-20 minutes, 2x/week in most cases).

I met with students primarily in groups of 2-6 students. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: It's been pointed out to me that the dosage of instruction provided was quite low and to get a real sense for any program's effectiveness more time is needed. Probably at least 10 hours of instruction to see measurable impact. I wonder if this true.

Results: 5/10

My gut told me this was an improvement on Orton Gillingham and I can see the data is bearing that out. The failure may once again be human error. I think there is likely value here, as other schools have had phenomenal results. I will give this another look if I don't find something better before then.

Trained in 2023

Overall Rating: 3/10

Orton Gillingham (OG) deserves more investigation. I didn't implement with fidelity because that was not possible in my setting (a reading specialist seeing students just two times a week). So I developed custom lessons using those routines I was told were highest leverage. It didn't work. Maybe if the other interventions I am testing fall short I will circle back to OG if and if I am in a setting that allows proper implementation.
I do not recommend this training to interventionists who see students for just a short time (20-30 minutes, 2 or 3 times/week).

Training Experience: 6/10

At the time I did my Orton Gillingham training (OG) it seemed as though this was the absolute gold standard in reading instruction. I became convinced through multiple sources that I had to have this training. So I paid for it out-of-pocket. There were many options for the training, but I chose a full day virtual option that took place once a week for 4 weeks. Each Saturday for one month, we met online with the same instructor and same cohort of trainees for about 8 hours. It was excruciating. To be clear, it started out rather exciting and engaging but by the last day when we broke into break-out groups we were ready to talk about anything EXCEPT the training we were in. Most of us felt fairly overwhelmed by the pace and amount of information or bored stiff from the repetition. It just wasn't a particularly great use or distribution of the time.

Cost: $1500

Intervention Period: November 2, 2023 - February 6, 2024

2nd and 3rd grade students received between 80 minutes and 380 minutes, with an average of 4 hours of instruction (20 minutes, 2x/week in most cases).

I met with students primarily in groups of 4 students. 

Results: 2/10

I must hedge my results with a major disclaimer which is the average intervention time received in this group was about 4 hours, provided in 20 minute lessons across several weeks. There was also a 3-week long winter break right in the middle of the intervention. I still expected the intervention to show some impact within that time, which is why I no longer use OG with my most vulnerable students. That doesn't negate the positive effects others have found with this method. Perhaps it was user error. I'm continuing my search for an intervention that can provide significant impact in as little as 4 hours, AND has less room for user error.