It’s all about the Reading Relationship.
Choose the right reading mentor.
They need to be patient and treat errors as treasures! (What is this?)
How this online, tailored reading tool works:
Levels the reader
Uses the reader’s errors to generate training exercises
Teaches phonics with voice prompts
Teaches vocabulary and comprehension
Uses repeated reading for fluency
Uses a Safari theme with rewards
Uses a patient reading partner who can be a parent, sibling, friend, volunteer, teacher, learning support teacher or therapist
MRG Safari can be used:
as part of a peer/parent mentorship programme at schools (email us for ideas)
at schools or at home
at reading practices
at Non-profits (email us for ideas)
Watch how to do the levelling assessment
Play Video
It has strong theoretical underpinnings
Content, sequencing, format and structure is based on academic literature relating to literacy, language and learning.
Researchers have found that explicit links between language and literacy are essential in literacy interventions (Stackhouse and Wells, 2001; Duke & Cartwright, 2020). MRG has a heavy focus on building vocabulary and making links with phonology, orthography and syntax so that word representations can be stored and remembered.
The association between letters and sounds is fundamental to decoding unfamiliar words (Ehri, 2020). The program focusses on decoding and how to pronounce letters and letter patterns, but always in the context of meaning.
Children need repeated opportunities and exposure to texts to improve their reading comprehension and fluency. They need to be encouraged to be ‘active readers.’ Language comprehension is essential for reading comprehension (Silverman et al, 2020). MRG insists on a reading partner and having a ‘pause’ button to allow for active reading strategies. The partner can translate, explain and even look up information or images on the internet to deepen understanding.
When readers struggle to read, they do so for many different reasons. MRG looks at different subtypes of reading challenges: rate, accuracy and language comprehension; or a mix of all three. In the journal, ‘Annals of Dyslexia, 2024’, researcher Maryanne Wolf and colleagues have reviewed the major conceptualisations of specific reading disorders / dyslexia: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11881-023-00297-1. They note that dyslexia subtypes “…may depend on an individuals’ unique neurodevelopmental profile, language system, social-emotional and environmental factors, strengths, and preventative factors.” MRG aligns with this by encouraging a trained and compassionate reading partner to treat ‘errors as treasures” while targeting the reader’s unique areas of challenge.
MRG uses a pre-intervention assessment to determine a child’s strengths and difficulties. This ensures that intervention starts at the appropriate level and with the right balance between accuracy, rate and comprehension. It also draws heavily on a child’s own specific reading errors, so that children learn exactly what is relevant.
MRG has been used successfully in Elizabeth Nadler-Nir’s Practice for over 10 years with speech language therapists for readers with dyslexia and language delays.
Clinical case studies were presented at the British Dyslexia Conference in Oxford in 2016.
MRG (then called VRG) won the International Excellence Award at the London Book Show in 2019.