By Reading Horizons Director of Teacher Training, Shantell Berrett

The New Year brings with it the opportunity to reflect back on the previous year and to look at what went well and what we hope to do differently in the coming year. For many of us, it is easy to get caught up in the negative thought pattern that things can’t really change. We may have experienced a hope for change and may have made efforts to change something only to have it not “stick.” While every effort for positive change is beneficial, we may have the best intentions but may not have the best resources for effective and lasting change.

When I was teaching English to 8th graders, I remember the strong desire to call in sick on the day I had to teach concepts like adding inflectional suffixes or the pronunciations and spellings when using y as a vowel. There was no structure or systematic way to present the information. It felt like I was given a bucket of information that I just dumped in front of my students for them to sort through and pick and choose what they could understand and use.

However, as I have learned and trained teachers in the Reading Horizons methodology, I have learned:

The way a concept is instructed and practiced determines whether it creates an effective and sustainable habit. (Tweet!)

Here are some videos highlighting specific processes taught in the Reading Horizons methodology that help struggling readers receive the instruction and practice that allow them to develop positive reading habits:

The Process of Dictation

Crucial Steps in the Process of Teaching Struggling Readers

Five Phonetic Skills

Two Decoding Skills

Reading Horizons is a proven resource that produces effective and lasting change for both teachers and students. The strategies that teachers learn in the Reading Horizons methodology will change the way they teach reading. Teachers gain an understanding of the structure of English that empowers them to teach numerous aspects of language arts.

Because struggling readers have a history of struggling, they can be very closed off and resistant to working on their reading skills. Not because they don’t want to succeed, but because they don’t believe they will succeed. As a result of this, it is very important when working with a struggling reader to that you are very confident in the effectiveness of your approach. You should always do your best to use research-based best practices that are explicit, systematic, and multi-sensory. If you can’t deliver quality reading instruction that is simple for a struggling reader to understand, you can leave the student feeling even more resistant and closed off to working on their reading skills in the future.

Once you are confident you have an effective approach for teaching struggling readers, here are some additional tips from Reading Horizons Director of Teacher Training, Shantell Berrett, about how to get started with working with a struggling reader.



Key Takeaways:

The best place to start with struggling readers is letting them know reading is not out of reach. (Tweet!)

Struggling readers need two things: understanding and a safe environment. (Tweet!)

Reading problems rarely have anything to do with intelligence. (Tweet!)

Reading problems are usually the result of the way the brain is wired or gaps in reading instruction. (Tweet!)

Make it safe for struggling readers to struggle while learning to read. (Tweet!)

I’ll never forget being in my 4th grade classroom when out of nowhere one of my peers started yelling, shoved his desk to the floor, and then hit at my teacher as she tried to escort him out of the classroom. Our sweet teacher came back a few minutes later in tears and said: “you guys don’t deserve that!”

Our teacher truly was one of the nicest ladies in the world - and - remembering the scene, not only did we not deserve to be scared, she didn’t deserve that either. She didn’t deserve to have a student yell and hit at her.

None of us deserve to experience threatening situations. But in every classroom are students that are prone to get upset, angry, hyper, or disruptive on occasion. So… what can you do? How can you better preserve the safety of your classroom? How can you help students with behavior issues adapt and cooperate in the classroom in a way that doesn’t distract or cause problems?

Although many of these problems need to be addressed by a certified professional, there are some things that you can do to help minimize behavior issues in the classroom.

Here is Reading Horizons Director of Training, Shantell Berrett, discussing what she has found to be effective when working with students with behavior problems through her experiences working with teachers and students as well as through working with her own son.



Where is the disruptive behavior coming from?

As Shantell pointed out, behavior issues can be very difficult to address because they are all case sensitive. Every student comes from a different background and there are different reasons that underlie problematic behavior. It could be their family life, problems with friends, learning disabilities, etc…

There is a reason for every behavior. And although many bad behaviors can be the result of a student’s family life or peers, often bad behavior is the result of a student struggling in school. Whether they are struggling with reading, or math, or science… students are embarrassed to struggle and fall behind. And so… they act out to cover up the fact that they are struggling.

“It is a whole lot easier to be the bully or the class clown than it is to be the kid that can’t read.” – Shantell Berrett

“When it comes to students that struggle with reading, the older the student is, the more likely they are to have behavior problems.” – Shantell Berrett 

If you can get to the core of why a student has behavior problems and remediate that issue, a lot of times the student’s behavior issues will go away. 

4 things you can do to minimize disruptive behavior in the classroom.

The same deficits in the executive functioning of the brain that causes students to struggle with tasks such as reading and math are the same deficits that make them subject to disruptive behavior. These deficits result in poor impulse control and a difficult time switching from task to task.   

Here are four things that Shantell suggests you do to help students with behavior issues smoothly transition from task to task without eliciting negative behavior:

1. Remediate learning difficulties. Because many behavior issues are the result of students trying to cover up their academic weaknesses, one of the most effective ways to eliminate problematic behavior is to get students the help they need to succeed in school. Pulling out students in small groups or one-on-one to get them the reading, math, or science help they need.

Often times, when you help a student that struggles with reading (or any subject) and the student improves to the point that he is confident in his reading skills, that student’s behavior problems will vanish.

2. Keep your class schedule very consistent. Because sudden changes can throw students with learning disabilities off – often times eliciting a negative reaction, it is important to keep your class schedule very consistent. These students often have processing issues which make anything that is out of routine overwhelming for these students.

Give students warnings before switching tasks so they can start to transition and know that change is coming. A 5 minute warning, 3 minute warning, 1 minute warning that you are about to move on is very helpful for these students. 

3. Create a calming environment that isn’t over stimulating. Overstimulation is going to increase the likelihood that a student will get upset or hyper in your classroom. Don’t place students with behavior issues under bright lights or by active students. It is wise to place these students in quiet, darker places in the classroom.

4. Compliment them on every success. Students with behavior problems are used to being scolded and often struggle academically. Their self-esteem is rarely in a healthy state. It is important to compliment these students and celebrate their successes. Positive reward systems are very helpful for boosting these students in their efforts to improve both academically and behaviorally.

What has worked for you? What strategies have you found effective as a teacher?

Have you ever asked someone a question or started discussing a topic and were shocked by the level of passion that comes out of the other person? You think you are asking a basic question or talking about a neutral topic but all of sudden the conversation takes a passionate twist?

When I asked our Director of Teacher Training, Shantell Berrett, to discuss student pacing… I was surprised by the level of passion that came out around the topic. I wasn’t expecting that topic to elicit such a passionate response. In fact, I thought it was one of the boring-er questions I was asking her. It ended up being the most interesting!

Seeing her passion and the stand she has developed as she has worked with teachers made me realize that the question hit on some controversy in the field of education. Where there’s smoke there’s fire. And nothing intrigues me like a good controversy.

So… even though this video was only going to be posted on our customer website (since it is primarily geared towards our program) I had to post it where every teacher could see it. Because even though Shantell is talking about Reading Horizons… her answer should be practiced in every subject and in every classroom. It’s not just a good teaching practice for using Reading Horizons… it’s a good teaching practice for everything.

Without further ado, here is what Shantell says is the best way to pace student instruction:



“The pacing of this program is based on student proficiency NOT a calendar.” – Shantell Berrett

Or… to adapt it to every subject:

So… how should you pace your instruction? According to the needs of your students. It makes perfect sense. I love how Shantell said: “this is both freeing and frightening for teachers…”

When you think about it, it really is bizarre that pacing ISN’T always based on student proficiency. 

As Shantell explained, if we are moving too fast for students in an effort to meet benchmarks – they aren’t going to meet those benchmarks anyways… they are going to fail the test we are using to test those benchmarks.

But that doesn’t just mean slowing down to meet student proficiency. Sometimes that means speeding up. Usually when students are bored and you feel like it’s taking too long to teach a concept… you probably are. Speed up! You don’t have to go from the beginning of a lesson to the end of the lesson. Cut out additional practice if students understand a concept.

Here’s another great one-liner:

“Look for a level of mastery NOT perfection!” – Shantell Berrett

If there is a mix of students that are getting it and ready to move on with students that are struggling to understand: pull out the students that are struggling. Work with them in a small group. Not all of your students need the same amount of instruction to understand a concept. Match the proficiency level of the majority of your students with the core of your instruction and pull out or pre-teach the ones that need additional help.

Hear more of Shantell’s wisdom in her other teaching tip videos! >

Sometimes all it takes to help your struggling readers make dramatic improvements in their reading skills are simple tweaks to the way things are presented.

Here is Reading Horizons Teacher Trainer, Shantell Berrett, discussing best practices in the process that reading is taught to beginning and struggling readers:

Here are Shantell’s tips for teaching various aspects of reading:

Letter Instruction

1. Teach upper and lower case forms of each letter, name of letter, and sound of letter.
2. Put the letter into a slide.
3. Put the slide into a word.
4. Put the slide into a nonsense word.

Learn more & earn PD credit in Reading Horizons free webinar: Helping Students Transfer & Retain Decoding Skills >

Blend Instruction

1. Introduce blend and it’s sound.
2. Put blend into a slide.
3. Put slide into a word.
4. Put slide into a nonsense word.

Phonetic Skills

1. Mark vowels and blends left to right underneath the word.
2. Mark consonants working back to the vowels to figure out if it’s long or short.

Decoding Skills

1. Mark vowels and blends left to right underneath.
2. Use decoding skills to work through the word to divide the word into syllables.
3. Mark consonants working back to the vowels to figure out if it’s long or short.

These processes and sequences are important because what most struggling readers lack is processing and sequence ability. The way they see words is from more of a spatial perspective. The sequence that information is presented is vital to help them rewire their brains to see words in a way that will allow them to improve their reading skills.