All of our animations were made to help children with letter-by-letter reading (called decoding in the quotes). Dr. Rollanda O'Connor writes that reading letter-by-letter requires kids to (1) "identify the letters," (2) "generate a sound for each letter", and (3) "then blend the sounds together to attempt to pronounce the word" (32).

The research on letter-by-letter reading makes it obvious that learning to do it is the most important goal for children who are starting elementary school. The "advantage of letter-by-letter decoding over other strategies in the early stages of reading has been firmly established… letter-by-letter decoding not only helps children learn the words they are taught, but also enables transfer of decoding skill to words that have not been taught" (O'Connor 63).

Our animated words were made to support continuous stretched blending, and "researchers suggest that stretching the sounds without stopping reduces the short-term memory and sequence problems that plague some children with learning disabilities" (O'Connor 66).

Reading specialists have learned that "because blending relies on auditory memory… strategies that reduce the short-term memory load may be especially important" (O'Connor 62). This makes our rapid letter reading animations the perfect place to get children ready for the blending necessary to read letter-by-letter.

Using the rapid letter reading page will have students more quickly sounding out the next letter in the word, making recognizing the word much less mentally demanding. Click over to the page on our materials to learn more about the word animations and rapid letter reading page, or click here to join and get started now.

All of the above quotes come from O'Connor, Teaching Word Recognition, 2nd Edition, The Guilford Press, 2014.