Learning Support

It’s an all-too-common experience at Sterne for families to wait until 6th grade to switch schools. 

Unfortunately, by this point, many students have developed anxiety about reading aloud or writing in class; their self-esteem may be suffering, and some students may even withdraw or attempt to avoid school altogether. 

4th grade presents a crucial shift from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.”  At this level, children begin synthesizing information across texts and the curriculum, and the amount of reading and writing at school greatly increases.  

Often, parents are the first to identify a reading problem.  And you can play an active role in your child’s reading development by getting help as early as possible.  Here are a few things to look for that may indicate a reading problem:

• My child doesn’t recognize common “sight words” when they read
• My child struggles to “sound out” words phonetically
• My child doesn’t do well on spelling tests and/or demonstrates inconsistent spelling of common words
• When my child reads aloud, they read very slowly, skip over words and/or invent words
• My child avoids reading and writing

On the flipside, many struggling readers and writers demonstrate strengths in these areas:

• Oral comprehension (when a text is read aloud)
• Oral vocabulary
• Artistic or musical abilities
• Making and engineering
• Interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence

Some students come to Sterne having been through other reading intervention programs, and they may have experienced only minimal success. There are several different types of dyslexia, and each of these presents differently from child to child. 

This is why effective reading intervention programs must be based on the precise nature of the reading challenge. Sterne’s Tattum Reading program is the only reading intervention program out there that can be tailored to your student’s exact learning needs.