About
Little Readers and Early Reading
Our Mission: Help you guide your child to reading excellence
BEFORE they begin Grade 1!
Phonics or Word Naming?
Reading ability that becomes stuck at a basic or below level is now a world-wide concern. Ironically, since the
mid-1800s, experts have debated
whether phonics or single word naming
is the key to successful reading development. The debate continues in the 21st Century!
Lessons from
Self-Taught Readers
Since the 1960s,
education scientists have known
that about 1 percent of children ages 4 to 6 each year figure out how to read on their own. They have no formal instruction in either decoding or single word naming--the prescribed approach used in most schools. Exposed to children's books from an early age, these "precocious readers" simply turn up reading. Surprised parents typically say they have no idea how they did it!
Well, thanks to 40+ years of work by learning theory and reading expert Dee Tadlock, Ph.D.,
we at Little Readers Members Only do!
Meet Our Reading Expert
In the late 1970s, Dee Tadlock was a young mother just completing her Ph.D. in education (emphasis: reading) when her own 6-year-old son developed a severe reading problem. Despite access to the best-known reading instruction to fix the problem, nothing worked. Baffled, she spent the next 3 years diving deeply into every area of brain science and learning theory associated with reading development. When she finally emerged with a new theory of how excellent reading ability develops (aided by what is known about self-taught readers), she was shocked at how quickly new methods she later named
Read Right totally eliminated her son's reading problem. Since then her reading intervention methods have been used successfully by thousands!
Meet Your Site Host
Rhonda Stone has been a fan of Dr. Dee's work with early reading development and reading remediation since the early 2000s. That's when Dr. Dee's
Read Right methods helped her own kids overcome severe reading problems. Impressed with
the science underlying the methods, Rhonda helped Dr. Dee write the book, Read Right!
Coaching Your Child to Excellence in Reading (2005, New York: McGraw-Hill). A decade later, that book helped Rhonda's first grandchild become a self-taught reader at age 5--before he even started kindergarten. Rhonda was inspired to collaborate with Dr. Tadlock on Little Readers Members Only in 2026, after all of her grandchildren became successful readers by age 6. Rhonda is a trained Read Right tutor and trainer, with a Master's in Public Administration (MPA) specific to education policy associated with reading development.
