I Can Read Without You (in the Early Years)
Pilot in Australia 2020.

The Icanreadwithoutyou program is an amazing and helpful program for those wishing to teach their child to read. The videos and resources are fantastic, however what was more helpful was the individual support Miss Emma gave to both myself and my child. She directed me with what steps I needed to support my child as an individual. She really looked at the child and their personalities, creating resources to match. Her mentoring throughout the program helped me to grow as my child's teacher. Alexis really enjoyed the personal messages from Miss Emma and would send her back messages. Alexis really connected with Miss Emma and enjoyed the lessons. She has grown so much (and so have I) over the course of the program. Alexis has gained confidence in her learning and has developed very strong spelling and reading skills for her future. I can not thank Miss Emma enough for her time and patience with me. She was supportive and able to give constructive feedback which helped me so much. Thank you xx

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Oh boy where do I start..

Wow!! What an experience this has been for us, not just myself and Rory but at times the whole family has joined in and learnt many new things along the way. The reason for putting my hand up for the pilot is a very personal one, our eldest son was diagnosed with dyslexia mid 2019, up until then he struggled immensely in the school environment, he was not taught in a way that made sense to him at all and at the time of his diagnosis (age 8.5) his reading age was below 6 years old. His self esteem hit rock bottom, he believed he was dumb crying all the time not wanting to go to school, an experience that was truly heartbreaking to watch as a parent.
I remember sitting in the psychologist's office looking at the SSP speech clouds covering the wall thinking to myself 'wow that just makes sense!'. I couldn't find anyone local to teach my son this approach so I decided to take it on myself. I purchased the resources and sat through many hours of Miss Emma's videos and the results were simply amazing, 6 reading levels in 5 weeks, 14 levels in 12 months!! Life changing.
However having taken part in this pilot I now realise that I only touched on the sides of it, Miss Emma's advice and guidance has proved INVALUABLE!! I have learnt so much more and understand so much more. Lastly Rory's development in such a short time is nothing short of amazing. He started with no desire for literacy based activities and at times completely shut down. With Miss Emma's guidance Rory's confidence has grown so much, it's so hard to believe how far he has come in such a short time. When his teacher pulls you aside and says she was floored when Rory read off eight colours written in black & white (no visuals) on a sheet of paper you know you're on a winner! Given the choice between buying the resources or having Miss Emma personally guide you through it, the second option wins hands down every time! We love you Miss Emma strangely even from so many miles away you have become part of our family 🥰Incredibly grateful to have been a part of the pilot and I'm really going to miss our regular chats even when you call me a 'nut' 😂
Thank you, thank you,
TH/A/N/K Y/OU xx

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The Icanreadwithoutyou project is invaluable for parents wishing to develop literacy skills while also developing a love of learning. Miss Emma not only provides the information and resources you need to get started on the journey to teach your child to read, she also ensures you as the child’s first teacher, have the knowledge, skills and confidence required to build these skills in a fun and engaging way. You will be astounded how quickly your child will acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to start reading without you.

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Well, what can I say? Where to start? I write this because there have been so many highlights, amazing achievements and personal growth for both myself and my daughter on our learning journey, I struggle with what moments to include.
The I can read without you process is a fantastic way to learn to read. I was amazed at how fast my daughter was able to learn sounds, blend sounds together and read words. She surprised me when she began on her own to look at written words and follow the sounds to say the word. My daughter still continues to surprise me with her learning. My daughter just turned 4 when we started the I can read without you approach, she is stubborn and wanted to do it “her way” Miss Emma was very supportive and was able to change things, offer suggestions and try things a little differently for my often head strong daughter. This made a huge difference. Miss Emma is an incredible wealth of knowledge and was available to message whenever we needed her. She is extremely generous with her time, she is with you ever step of the way and the resources are fantastic and easy to use
Miss Emma became part of my family and a friend and I will continue to bombard her with our learning journey
Nadine

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Thank you Miss Emma for including Nicholas and I in the Icanreadwithoutyou pilot. We have enjoyed the last 8 weeks so much! It has been so incredible to see my son learn how to read, letter form, develop his comprehension of a book and WANT to do this. Nicholas is continuing on to prep next year at a school that uses the SSP program. I am beyond relieved that he has learnt so much already to get him confident and 'prep ready'. But honestly, I feel I have grown more then Nicholas! I have learnt so many important teaching skills, parenting skills and I am a better person because of this program. I am excited to continue working with Nicholas and I will post more video's up with our progress. Thank you so much Emma for all your advice, support and for your love of teaching. I honestly could not have gotten Nicholas to where he is without your personal guidance. As a parent you think you know your child, but you Miss Emma are truly child whisper. You know when to offer a new resource, what the child is thinking/ feelings and you continually make it fun!! I am actually going to sign up to become a teacher aide next term :) I have so enjoyed learning with Nicholas, that I want to learn my SSP and help teach other children. I do hope when covid restrictions ease Nicholas can meet you when you're next in Brisbane. You have become a house hold name, like our Auntie Em or friend. xox

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Spencer and I feel extremely fortunate to have been a part of the I Can Read Without You pilot program. We knew about SSP before the pilot commenced because my eldest daughter has learnt to read using this approach in her preparatory year of school. I was amazed at how the monsters caught her imagination and how quickly she was progressing. By the middle of the year, she was reading us bedtime stories!!

So, of course, I jumped at the opportunity for my son to have some exposure to the speech, sound pics approach before he started school. I already had some knowledge and resources, but I thought being in the pilot would be a good prompt for me to actually do some learning with Spencer.... I had no idea how valuable it would be to have Miss Emma working personally with us. She is incredible. Her brain is just so in tune with the pre-schoolers. She knows how to spark their interest and exactly when they are ready to introduce a new concept. She challenges them, yet never pressures, which was very important to me. The pilot was very much play based for us. Spencer wakes up every day asking what fun SSP games we have planned for the day. He now loves learning, which just makes me so grateful. He is chomping at the bit now to get to school and sad that he has to wait another whole year!!!

Even more surprising for me, was the learning journey that I have taken during this process. What I knew about SSP had only just touched the sides. Miss Emma has generously dedicated her time to help me work on my accent issues when helping Spencer blend words. She explained the silly schwa to us in a way that made it so simple for us all to understand and; so many little phrases along the way that I know, have sped up Spencer’s development. Never again will I say; “sound it out” or “this letter says....” But most helpful of all, Miss Emma has helped me to discover how my child learns best. How to engage him and what his strengths are. This is so powerful.

Spencer had only just turned 4 years old, a few days before the pilot started. Spencer was fairly shy and very much overshadowed in the reading department by his big sister. After just 7 weeks with Miss Emma, Spencer is building secret cubby houses and reading with her! I must admit his sister was a bit put out by this at first, she was very protective of ‘her’ monsters (haha). Now, it is wonderful to see them bouncing ideas off each other and sharing in this learning journey. Spencer’s speech has even improved! It’s a new way of life for our family.

I actually had trouble writing this. It’s hard trying to put into words, how grateful we are to Miss Emma for what she has done for our children. Spencer has had the best possible start to literacy and will be so ready for school. We will be forever grateful for this gift Miss Emma and we could never have done it without your help. I would definitely say, without hesitation, if you have the opportunity to work with this amazing lady... do it! Be prepared to be busy and receive constructive feedback, but the rewards are priceless.

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Words just cannot express the gratitude I have for being blessed to work with Miss Emma. I am a qualified teacher and early childhood educator. Through my career I have been in charge of many reading intervention programs at school. When I stumbled upon SSP, I knew I had struck a little pot of gold. The Speech Sounds Pics approach to reading makes sense. It is a speech to text approach rather than the traditional text to speech approach. This makes complete sense to me from a learning perspective. As a foetus, a babies sense of hearing is developed before any other senses, children are born into a world where they learn through hearing oral language, children develop their hearing and language before they walk. From a developmental perspective it makes complete sense to teach children to read from a speech to text approach. Children are born to hear; they are not born ready to process print. Learning to read takes an incredible amount of processing, neuron pathways and working memory, segmenting blending sounds and recognising word patterns and print ques. etc. Reading involves a lot more that simply recognising words, it makes sense to teach it from the speech level first. Think about this, teachings and stories were handed down orally for many generations well, before the printed text came along. Over the decades we have evolved, our way of life has evolved, the way we deliver education has evolved. So why are we sticking with the traditional text to speech approach. We need to move with the times and evolve the way we teach reading. Reading should be taught from a speech to text approach as this is how little brains develop. Miss Emma offers a lot of resources through her SSP website for parents and teachers. I could have chosen to purchase the resources and followed Miss Emma’s breadth of knowledge through her media platforms and deliver the SSP way of teaching to my son. However, I was given an opportunity to be part of a pilot group where Miss Emma would mentor my child and deliver differentiated lessons to support his individual learning needs. The gratitude I have to having Miss Emma’s personal support has been invaluable. I thought that Miss Emma would be mentoring my child, which she did very well. However, the invaluable part was the mentoring that I received. I have grown both as a professional educator and a mother. It has been through Miss Emma’s personal guidance that I understand and appreciate more holistically, how the brain works and what it needs for reading. Miss Emma’s personal mentoring has lead to myself having more in-depth knowledge of how ‘letter’s don’t make sounds on their own, they only make sounds in words, and the sounds an look different in different words. Think about that for a moment ‘letters do not make sounds’. Through Miss Emma’s personal mentoring I have learned to understand the significance of learning to read from a speech to text approach. I understand spelling patterns more, I understand the important role that phonological awareness has for reading development. All of this has allowed me to be able to support my 3-year-old child to read far quicker than I could have ever imagined. There have been challenging moments where I have thrown my complete trust into Miss Emma guidance, I listened to her and actioned on her advice. With Miss Emma’s support, in 6 short weeks, my 3-year-old is reading. He is clearly able to segment and blend sounds and much to my surprise he is reading. He his independently exploring written text with the skills that he has grown through Miss Emma’s play-based approach. The children don’t even realise that they are learning to read because the SSP journey is all play based. Children learn best through play and self-discovery. Working directly with Miss Emma has provided me with the skills to support my son to self-teach. He now see’s printed words and he has the strategies to teach himself how to read unfamiliar words. Miss Emma will not only guide you to teach your child to read, she will teach YOU to truly see hoe your child thinks, what their brain needs next to move forward on the learning journey. She is not just ‘the reading whisperer’ She is a child, parent and teacher whisperer’ who is very devoted to helping and supporting everyone in uplifting literacy skills. Everyone benefits from Miss Emma’s direct mentoring. We just can’t thank you enough!!

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In 2000, the National Reading Panel issued a report summarizing the research and evidence on the

best ways to teach children how to read. They found the best approach to teaching reading includes:
 

1. Explicit instruction to teach phonemic awareness

2. Systematic phonics instruction

3. Methods to improve reading fluency

4. Teaching vocabulary and comprehension strategies
   
   Your child will receive all 4 of these elements, when using the I Can Read Without You (ICRWY) Project lessons and resources, and have fun! 
   
   Get the ICRWY Lessons app from the App store or Google Play and start today!
   
   or join a 4 week Getting Started Group to be guided by Miss Emma, as were the parents in the 2020 pilot

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