A Teacher’s Recommendation for Children Struggling with Reading
Beth Zuschlag, a literacy specialist at Anser Charter School in Garden City, Idaho, works with challenged readers who have been diagnosed with a reading disability and qualify for IEP (Individual Education Program). Beth shares her experience using Nardagani in her classroom with notable results.
Nardagani: Can you speak about your experience with Nardagani and working with children struggling to read?
Beth Zuschlag: Many of the students that I work with, of course, are challenged readers. They have been struggling and striving for years, some of them, and they have tried many other different programs, and I have tried other programs with them—to limited success sometimes.
The Nardagani approach is effective in that it offers a different way. It’s not just memorizing and learning different phonics patterns. It has those symbols that allows the students to make a connection between what the symbol is telling them and how to pronounce and the letters. By doing that it allows them to read words that are more complex, words that are more challenging, and then they feel like they have really accomplished something, which they have.
Nardagani: What would you say to a school that wants to implement Nardagani in the classroom?
Beth Zuschlag: If a school took on the Nardagani program, and implemented their five week program, I think it could be a huge benefit. It’s five weeks, as so it’s not as time consuming or labor intensive as some of the other programs are. To have multiple resources, and having yet another tool, in your toolbox, has been shown to be very effective.
Nardagani is also fun to implement. The kids enjoy the games, the success they see with it, and I think it would be a real positive thing for schools.
Nardagani: Why do you think Nardagani is more successful than other programs in helping struggling readers?
Beth Zuschlag: Even though the Nardagani course is very short, it ends up being more effective than some of the other courses, because the students can jump into reading right away. They can jump into their stories right away. When it comes to other sorts of programs, those stories are very short, their sentence structure is very simple, there is not a lot of complexity, and just feels like it’s not real reading. However, with the Nardagani method, they can just jump in, they can read, and they are successful.
Nardagni: Does Nardagani help struggling readers?
Beth Zuschlag: I have talked up the Nardagani program to many other teachers, because I think it’s a really easy program to use and it’s one that works. Whenever I talk to other teachers about the struggles they are having, trying to reach striving learners and striving readers, I always bring up the Nardagani mentor because it works.
Nardagni: How do your kids feel about Nardagani?
Beth Zuschlag: The cool thing about Nardagani is that the kids love it and they are successful.
