The Reading Challenge:
Did you know that an estimated 15%-20% of the entire US population has some type of learning disability, and as many as 80% of those with learning disabilities have reading related problems? As you know, reading is a fundamental skill not only for academic and professional success, but simply to make it through our daily lives. Learning disabilities cannot be “fixed,” however, they can be greatly improved with better instructional reading tools.

Another challenge we face is that school systems across the country are under increasing pressure to demonstrate students’ academic competence. The need for tools that help students succeed despite reading disabilities continues to grow. Moreover, recent government legislation requires that students with disabilities be mainstreamed into regular classrooms. Now, teachers face the challenge of accomplishing specific academic goals with students who have a wide variety of skills and backgrounds.

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How We Can Help:
While there are many reading programs and software-based reading products on the market today, most of these programs are complex systems that provide a substitute for the school’s reading curriculum. Snapters is different.

• Snapters accompanies chapter books used in most 3rd-8th grade reading curricula. No other program supports teaching of authentic literature.
  
  
• The program can be used by teachers instructing an entire class, in a reading lab setting for special education students, or by individual students at home who struggle with independent reading.
  
  
• While many reading programs attempt to do the job of the teacher in the classroom, Snapters is used by skilled teachers to help a wide variety of skill levels move through a traditional reading curriculum at the same pace.
  
  
• Snapters’ simple web-based format is flexible and easy to integrate into teachers’ current reading curricula.

Ready to start a new chapter on reading training that works?

About Susan Elliott, Founder

Ms. Elliott began her work in education in 1996, teaching children with autism at Bear Creek Elementary School in Boulder, Colorado. A year later, Ms. Elliott began volunteering at a migrant farming tutoring center in Longmont, Colorado, where she tutored Spanish-speaking children in grades 3-8 in reading and basic math.

In 2001, Ms. Elliott started teaching at Milwee Middle School, a Title 1 school in Longwood, Florida, as a Specific Learning Disabilities teacher. Challenged to teach reading to largely illiterate children, Ms. Elliott began using pictures as interpretive tools to help her students understand the content and vocabulary of stories she read aloud to them in class. Before long, this group of children, who had been regularly pegged as under-achievers and thus assigned basal readers, were actively participating in class discussions about social and economic issues as they related to the grade-level story being read. Inspired by the children’s thoughts and their courage to engage for the first time in grade level books, Ms. Elliott made it her goal to find a way to help all children read age appropriate books. This experience was the inspiration for Ms. Elliott to create the Snapters Reading Comprehension Software program.

Having built a reputation in the local community as a successful SLD teacher, Lake Highland Preparatory School, in Orlando, Florida, recruited Susan in 2005 to work as a tutor in their Academic Learning Lab with students who had diagnosed learning disabilities. As the Learning Disability Specialist for the Upper School Edison program, Susan was responsible not only for assisting learning disabled students in grades 9-12, but also for aligning the goals of the program with the standards of the school. To achieve that end, Susan met regularly with the faculty to educate them on the unique needs of SLD students, successful strategies for teaching SLD students, and new laws and legislation regarding SLD students. In addition, Susan consulted parents of SLD children on homework and test preparation strategies.

Ms. Elliott has a BS in Exceptional Education and is a Certified SLD Teacher.

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