Reading Development In Pennsylvania
Reading development begins in infancy as children begin to explore letters, words and the world around them. When children near preschool and kindergarten, they begin to fine-tune these pre-reading skills and move into early reading skills.
Children from kindergarten through third grade move quickly through several language stages, including letter and syllable recognition, word decoding and increasing vocabulary development. For some students, however, reading becomes an arduous process. Children may confuse letters and sounds, lack comprehension skills or become fidgety and frustrated while looking through a book. Parents who witness a child's ongoing battle with reading should have her evaluated for a learning disability.
Language and comprehension difficulties typically stem from a neurobiological-development problem that causes an informational short circuit. Students may have trouble with information intake, processing or output, depending on the nature of their disabilities. While reading disabilities cannot be cured or outgrown, children can develop strategies for decoding words and sentences, comprehending passages of text and improving spelling and punctuation. With the help of attentive, creative teachers and educational specialists, learning-disabled children can learn to succeed and thrive in school and in life.
Reading-Development Specialists at Pennsylvania's Center School
The Center School is a non-profit, co-educational day program for elementary and middle school students dealing with language-development and comprehension issues. Certified instructors and reading specialists at the Center School desire to help children break the frustrating cycle of reading failure in order to achieve success in all school subjects. Applications may be sent to 2450 Hamilton Avenue, Abington, PA 19001 or faxed to (215) 657-2646. Administrators are available via email at centerschool@centerschoolpa.org, or parents can call (215) 657-2200 for more information.
