Literacy skills for children in Sydney, NSW

I Can Read, Sydney:
We at I Can Read are literacy specialists based in Sydney NSW. We work with children and adults who would like to read confidently and develop all of their literacy skills. Our tailored classes can be structured to work with individuals or small groups of students and are based on individual needs. Qualified teachers perform a free diagnostic assessment with every student to ensure that their specific needs are met. We have six centres around Sydney in Brookvale, Pittwater, Chatswood, Burwood, Bondi Junction and Castle Hill; and three centres outside the metropolitan area at Bowral, Erina and Orange.

The I CAN READ® system, incorporating the reading program, has been developed over several years by registered psychologists and came about through research conducted between 1995 and 2000 by Antony Earnshaw and Annabel Seargeant. It is structured, cumulative and hierarchical, and is the first system in the world to direct students how to link clusters of letters to single sounds in a unique manner.

The I CAN READ reading program enables the student to seehow letters combine to create invariant sounds, empowers the student to take control of his or her own reading progress and is fun and easy for children and adults. I CAN READ created the approach to reading which teaches students to analyse single sounds (phonemes) and more importantly theorised the neural linkages between the left inferior frontal gyrus and the left parieo-temporal area.

Subsequent research has shown enables beginning readers to phonologically link sounds and letter(s) and to assemble the sequence of sound-letter correspondences. Recent evidence using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) supports the I CAN READ approach.

Total Literacy includes reading, comprehension, spelling, creative writing, public speaking, drama and all aspects of written and verbal communication, all available at I Can Read Centres. I Can Read is not a system only for students with reading difficulties. It is a total literacy system addressing all aspects of English literacy and available to all ages and all abilities.

Pre-school Programs; Learning to read programs; Advanced literacy skills Programs and English as a second language programs. Topics include reading, writing, comprehension, spelling, public speaking, grammar, punctuation, drama.

I CAN READ is amazingly successful in teaching reading and overcoming reading difficulties. This is no idle promotional boast! Since 2000, data has been collected in primary schools showing a significant pre-post test difference between children’s ability to decode regular unfamiliar words. Every child who has completed the program has learned to read.

The keys to its success lie in its structured simplicity and research-based development as well as its unique new method of providing students with the means to work out every word for themselves and learn to read easily. The system is successful because, taught correctly, every student understands the alphabetic principle and the connection between the phoneme and the grapheme.

It is successful, and it really works! However, our success is also hugely dependent upon our teachers, all of whom are reading and literacy specialists who have been thoroughly trained and accredited in the I Can Read® method. We gratefully acknowledge their loyalty and contribution to our success.