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In order to know whether a student has made enough progress to exit a Read Naturally program, you need to assess the student with grade-level material. It is important to celebrate your student’s daily growth from cold to hot timings in a story, the student’s goal being increased and the student moving up a level. It is also exciting to see a student’s cold-timing scores increase from story to story. These are all indications that the student’s reading skills are improving and that he or she is making progress in the program. But it is essential to keep the long-term goal in mind. Read more

​​​​​​​Congrats to our April Star of the Month, Katie, who has made great progress in reading this year! Katie is a fifth grader at Brookside Elementary in Nicholasville, KY. Here is what Katie's teacher, Ms. Schulz, had to say about her: Read more

As a mother of four young children who are drawn to the iPad like moths to a flame, it’s a little hard for me to write a blog post about the upside of screen time. Mostly I see the iPad as a frequent source of conflict in my house. My kids want to play games or watch shows on it, and I want them to do things I’ve deemed more meaningful—read books, play outside, build with Legos, or, dare I even dream it, pick up their room. Indeed, plenty of research confirms the negative consequences of too much screen time, which is why so many parents find themselves fighting this battle with their children day after day. Read more

Innovations and developments over more than three decades have continuously enhanced the quality of the tools Read Naturally offers for teachers and students. In addition, Read Naturally remains dedicated to doing right by teachers and students. Our founder, Candyce Ihnot, still works tirelessly along with the rest of the Read Naturally team to strengthen its reading instruction tools and training. Read more

Back when Read Naturally founder Candyce Ihnot would present at full-day seminars, she would often start by telling a story about her youngest child, Tommy. One day, Tommy came home from elementary school and angrily declared, “I hate school.” Tommy was the son of two schoolteachers—his declaration was basically blasphemous! When Candyce asked him to explain why he hated school, his lip started to quiver. He told his mom about independent reading time. “She doesn’t even know,” he said of his teacher, “I can’t read.” Read more

Congrats to our March Star of the Month, Fernando, who has made great progress in reading this year! Fernando is a fifth grader at Carver Elementary School in Maplewood, MN. Here is what Fernando's teacher, Ms. Oberding, has to say about him: Read more

​​​​​​​National Reading Awareness Month is an annual event held in the United States during the month of March. The purpose of this event is to promote the importance of reading and literacy, and to encourage people to make reading a part of their daily lives. Read more

Read Naturally founder Candyce Ihnot likes to tell the story of a little boy who went from struggling to fluent using the Read Naturally program. When Candyce asked the boy how he got to be such a good reader, he said with a smirk, “It was nothing you did.” Rather than be offended by his brutal honesty, Candyce was delighted. The boy was taking due credit for his own accomplishment. He had come to understand that he’d possessed the tools for success all along. Having found the confidence and fortitude to master a huge challenge, he could now draw on those qualities again and again—without his teacher’s help. Read more

Our teacher’s manuals are packed full of useful information about how to implement our programs effectively. They’re extraordinarily well researched and include hundreds of helpful suggestions. Have you read them recently? Cover to cover?

Don’t worry if the answer is no. We know how busy teachers are, and we want to make it easy on you to implement our programs with fidelity. That’s why we’ve created Fidelity Checklists. Download as many as you’d like—they’re free on our website! Read more

Congrats to our February Star of the Month, Axel, who has made great progress in reading this year! Axel is a fifth grader at St. John Bosco Catholic School in Phoenix, AZ. Here is what Axel's teacher, Ms. Iniguez, has to say about him: Read more