Welcome to the OnTrack Reading Website
Hello. My name is Rodney Everson. For over a decade, I provided private phonics instruction to hundreds of struggling readers many of whom, despite their difficulties learning to read, were quite intelligent individuals. Over that time I developed a comprehensive advanced code phonics program that I then used with every child, regardless of age. I also drew some conclusions that you might find both surprising and encouraging if you are a parent of a child who is having difficulty reading for no apparent reason.
The phonics program is wholly contained in a single workbook, plus an instruction manual, and is is suitable for a child of any age and even adults. The only requirement of the OnTrack Reading Advanced Code Phonics Program is that your child be reasonably familiar with the sounds represented by single consonant letters, like "t," "v," and "m" (the basic code.)
The workbook covers the phonics your child should know while simultaneously building the particular skills needed for reading, such as efficient blending, segmenting, and testing of alternative sounds. In addition, the workbook contains a unique multisyllable curriculum that will quickly have your child accurately decoding longer words rather than guessing at them based on their beginnings, endings, and word length. You will not find a better method to teach a child to efficiently decode multisyllable words.
But What If Your Child Has Already Had Phonics Instruction?
Frankly, the advanced code workbook described above is so inexpensive that it's probably worth trying it out anyway, especially if your child does poorly on the phonics tests described on the page Phonics Workbook Expectations.
However, if you've tried one or more of the popular phonics programs and your child is still struggling with learning to read, or just can't seem to be able to read fluently and easily then your child's problem might not lie with the phonics instruction at all.
After more than a decade of working with children with obvious reading problems, whether they were diagnosed as dyslexic or not, I found that many children who struggle with reading are fighting undiagnosed vision problems that cannot be corrected with eyeglasses. Also, some nutritional issues might even play a role in triggering those vision problems. These issues are covered here under the Understanding the Dyslexia Puzzle tab. In particular, be sure to read The Vision Piece of the Dyslexia Puzzle.
But first, if your child just doesn't seem to "get" reading, take a quick look at David's Story, a page nested in the middle of The OnTrack Reading Story, and see if your child's reading behavior is similar in any way.
An Added Bonus on This Site: Free Word Lists Galore
During the design of the OnTrack Reading Advanced Code Workbook, I developed a database that I could use to locate words that contained specific sounds and spellings so that the word lists in the workbook could be efficiently structured. I've made those word lists available, free, on this website.
So, if you're a parent, tutor, or teacher looking for lists of kid-level words for whatever purpose, take a look at the 101-word lists constructed from a 7,000-word database based on a children's dictionary, and organized by either vowel sounds or consonant spellings. You can find them under the Comprehensive Word Lists tab.