“Systematic phonics instruction produces significant benefits for students in kindergarten through sixth grade and for children who are having difficulty learning to read.”

A study by New Horizons for Learning identifies these common components of effective reading programs:

1. Phonics Instruction

The July 2009 Johns Hopkins study, Effective Programs for Struggling Readers concludes that an emphasis on phonics greatly improves tutoring outcomes, particularly in a one-on-one setting with a professional teacher. The phonics method of reading instruction breaks language down into its simplest components to help readers understand how letters are linked to sounds (phonemes) and spelling patterns.

2. Listening Comprehension

To help students improve comprehension, tutors and parents can intentionally teach listening skills by showing students how to figure out unknown words and stopping to ask questions about a passage (What do you think will happen next?, Why was that boy so excited?). Like reading comprehension, listening comprehension requires background knowledge on the content being presented.

3. Reading Comprehension

Current research shows that readers often struggle with reading comprehension due to lack of familiarity with the content. For example, a child who has never been to an amusement park may not understand a story about a roller coaster ride. On the other hand, cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham writes, “If you take kids who score poorly on a reading test and ask them to read on a topic they know something about (baseball, say, or dinosaurs), all of a sudden their comprehension is terrific better than kids who score well on reading tests but who don’t know a lot about baseball or dinosaurs.”

4. Tutoring Opportunities

Every one of the programs studied by New Horizons for at-risk readers places a high value on private tutoring, agreeing that concentrated, individualized attention is critical to an effective reading program.

5. Extending Reading into the Home

According to those interviewed, the final critical component for students to acquire successful reading skills is to read at home every day.