Every Child Reading – Super Star Summer Camp

Every Child Reading – Super Star Summer Camp is a powerful way to support struggling readers and students with dyslexia. Summer is the perfect, less stressful time to focus on one challenge – reading. Do kids resist? Sometimes, but they quickly relent and thrive in a community who “gets” who they are and meets their needs. Let me tell you what inspired me to start and continue this camp.

I will never forget the day I was invited to a meeting for my 1 st grade son. I walked into the room and the teacher, learning specialist and the head of school at his small private school were present. I wondered what the deal was and felt some discomfort. What followed changed the trajectory of my life and the life of my son. They identified that he had some signs that he might struggle to learn to read. None of us realized that he would be identified as profoundly dyslexic. Little did I know that that meeting would be the impetus for my delving into the world of reading and dyslexia.

The learning curve for me was long and I made every mistake there was to make but somewhere along the way what I figured out was that what was missing was teachers who had the skills to effectively teach reading to the broad range of students that needed simple foundations or those who were challenged by dyslexia. I learned and became a skilled and highly qualified tutor. I worked to change legislation both in Colorado and nationally.

However, what I realized was one of the ways to make the biggest impact was to find a method that would work well for all students and ensure teachers were getting that training so that we could impact the most students. So, after much research I met and partnered with Ron Yoshimoto, Fellow in the Academy of Orton-Gillingham (OGA) to establish Orton-Gillingham International which would become CO READ act approved provider.

The other need that became clear to me as I struggled to find quality instruction, private or public for my profoundly dyslexic son was that I was not alone. He went to Durango Mtn Camp as a 6 th grader and it changed his life. After 5 years of various kinds of tutoring the Orton- Gillingham tutor actually taught him to read. I tutored at DMC and it changed my life as well.

So, with the encouragement of the Founder of DMC , Joyce Bilgrave, I started Every Child Reading – Super Star Summer Camp in the Denver area. We will celebrate our 10 th year this summer and are thrilled to provide the best quality reading intervention for all students whether identified with dyslexia or not, as, the quality and instruction is the same for all students and some kids don’t have the luxury of getting a diagnosis.

Our team is an amazing group of teachers trained in the Yoshimoto Orton-Gillingham approach. They are passionate individuals who love what they do and especially love having the opportunity to spend 5 weeks of their summer focusing on the kids who need the them most. These kids who struggle in reading and in school quickly realize they are part of a larger, supportive community and in many cases for the first time realize that they are not alone.

Other kids learn differently and thrive when given the instruction that they need to learn to read.

The ½ Day camp is broken down into 3 parts:
Yoshimoto ORTON-GILLINGHAM READING INTERVENTION: Groups will be a maximum of 4 students who are well-matched in skill level, personality, and focus. Small group teaching allows students to support each other and feel more confident. There also is an opportunity for one-on-one instruction if that best fits the student.

Math/ Writing STEAM/Entrepreneurship:  STEAM is an educational approach that focuses on Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. Students are free to wonder, investigate, explore, discuss, design, and “think outside the box.”  Each week there will be a new area of STEAM; including, science, technology, engineering, entrepreneurship, and art where the Super Star campers will complete various hands-on projects. Do you think designing a robot would be fun?

What are your thoughts on building a catapult? Does a nature scavenger hunt sound exciting? These activities and many more are all a part of our new STEAM/Entrepreneurship block. Join us and show us your personality, be creative, problem-solve, collaborate with other campers, and have loads of fun doing it!  At the same time, we will explore what it means entrepreneur.  How cool is that?

REHEARSAL HALL:  This hour is effectively a 2nd hour of intervention as the students go into depth with hands-on work provided by their tutor.  This reinforces skills that have been taught and solidifies knowledge. Students have lots of assistance and support often provided by older students with dyslexia who are amazing role models.

For details please check out our website: www.EveryChildReading.org

Our locations are:
Denver
1800 N Pontiac St.
(St. Elizabeth School; Montview & Quebec)
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Littleton/Lakewood
4000 S Wadsworth Blvd
Littleton, CO 80123
Greeley, CO – Location to be announced