Brilliant? Or just Successful?

I was always a good student in school. So was my husband. Our four very-different-from-each- other children were also. And now, amazingly, my six grandchildren who are school age and in public schools are very good students.

Are we just a smart family? No. We are a family of readers. We have figured out that the secret to school success is to be an excellent reader. We teach our children to read when they are young because we want to ensure that each one of them will love to read and will be good readers. In doing so, we are ensuring school success for them.

A child can be highly distractible, can be unorganized, can be hyperactive, can be slow to get written work completed and handed in, can have learning disabilities. can be disruptive, can have health problems, can talk too much, (and on and on and on), but will still be a success in school if that child is a good reader.

Wow! That sounds just too good to be true, doesn't it? But believe me, it is true. The children in our family have their fair share of the above traits. But all are good readers and all are doing well in school.

I have three more (almost four!) grandchildren who are too young for school. I can promise you they will be good students. They are all learning to read at various stages and ages. All will be reading before they start school. All will be good students. It is a gift we give our children in our family.

I wish to give that gift to your child too.

Jodi Heaton Hurst

NEW Reading Program

This last year has been one of exhilaration and passion and one of long hours and little sleep. It has been a time of putting all my years of teaching together and creating a specialized reading program that teaches ALL children to read!

I now find myself in a bind. I have a website, a great website, put together for me by my son. I have a reading program, a great reading program that really, really works. I have this terrific reading program in a preschool and tutoring center where it is proving itself every day. But now how do I get the word out to other people?

After all, I am an educator. I have been all my life. My children might argue that I have been more of a teacher than a mother to them! I have never been a marketer or salesperson. Yet since I believe so firmly in my reading program, and since my lifelong goal has been to help children survive the school system (their inevitable fate), I must teach myself how to market.

Any ideas?

Jodi Heaton Hurst