"On a mission to inspire every child to read, learn, and find joy in books. To achieve this, we must stop making learning to read so difficult for so many."

The Reading Hut Ltd: Empowering Parents and Teachers to Immerse Neurodiverse Learners in Spoken and Written Word Mapping for Easier, Purpose-Driven Reading & Spelling
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Mission

 

At The Reading Hut Ltd, our mission is to train and empower teachers to ensure that every child can learn to read and spell proficiently. We address a crucial gap in literacy education: many teachers struggle to map words due to orthographic interference and lack the phonemic awareness needed to teach reading effectively. Our goal is to equip teachers with the skills and tools necessary to guide every child toward literacy success.

 

The Problem

• Teacher Knowledge Gaps: Many educators face challenges when mapping words for their students, due to orthographic interference—where their understanding of spelling patterns interferes with their ability to focus on phonemes (speech sounds) in words.

• Lack of Phonemic Awareness: 1 in 4 children lack the phonemic awareness on school entry necessary to learn to read, and most adults—teachers included—are unaware of their own limitations in this area.

• The current literacy crisis in the UK is alarming, with 25% of children unable to read proficiently by the end of primary school. This affects their future education and life opportunities.

• Challenges for Neurodivergent Students: Children with learning difficulties, particularly those with dyslexia, struggle significantly when educators aren't equipped with the right tools to support their phonemic awareness development.

Our Solution

The Reading Hut Ltd offers a comprehensive solution by training teachers to:

• Map Words Effectively: Our training programmes help educators understand the phonemic structure of language and overcome orthographic interference.

• Build Phonemic Awareness: We provide teachers with tools and resources to enhance their own phonemic awareness, allowing them to teach reading with greater confidence.

• Use Innovative Screeners:

  • Word Mapping Screener for Teachers: This tool evaluates educators' ability to map phonemes to graphemes and offers targeted training to improve this essential skill.

  • Phonemic Awareness Screener for Students: Used alongside the teacher screener, this tool helps identify children at risk of reading difficulties before formal phonics instruction begins.

Focus on Teacher Training

Our programmes are practical, research-driven, and designed to meet the needs of modern educators. We focus on:

• Overcoming Orthographic Interference: We teach educators how to set aside their knowledge of spelling to focus on the sounds in words—key to teaching children to read.

• Phonemic Awareness Mastery: Our training ensures that teachers build strong phonemic awareness, helping them support all students, especially neurodivergent or struggling learners.

Though my doctoral research is ongoing, it directly informs our approach. I’m focused on understanding how orthographic interference affects teachers' ability to map words, which is a critical factor in teaching reading, particularly for children with dyslexia.