Course Details:
- 2 live classes per week
- 13 weeks
- Live Class Length: 45 minutes
- 4 seats per section
- No homework
- Teacher feedback given during class
- Materials
https://store.voyagersopris.com/s/product/detail/01tG0000002xznIIAQ
4th-6th Grade Reading Rescue: Science-of-Reading Intervention for Struggling Readers & Dyslexia
$36.00 / week for 13 weeks
Live, explicit reading intervention built on Dr. Anita Archer’s REWARDS program, the twenty-five-lesson intervention used by district reading specialists for older struggling readers. Your child will master multisyllabic word decoding, reading fluency, and academic vocabulary under a LETRS-credentialed reading specialist. Small group or 1:1.
Section Options / Enroll:
- Description
- Lesson Schedule
- Class Intro Video
- A Biblical Worldview
- The Lemons-Aid Way
- Teacher Bios
- Outschool
- Request a Section
- Reviews (0)
- Philosophy of Teaching: English Language Arts
Description
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” — Frederick Douglass, 1857
Every child who has ever fought to read a word on a page knows exactly what Douglas meant. The struggle is real, it is honest, and it is not evidence that your child cannot learn. It is evidence that he has been asked to do something hard without ever being given the right tools.
This class gives him the tools.
Who this class is for
This class is for the 4th, 5th, or 6th grader who can read, but not the way his peers can. He guesses at long words. He skips unfamiliar ones. He reads slowly, loses his place, and cannot remember what he just read because every ounce of his attention went toward decoding. He may have been diagnosed with dyslexia, or he may simply be one of the thousands of children who passed through early elementary without ever being taught phonics systematically. Either way, he is behind, he knows it, and the shame of that knowing is often heavier than the academic gap itself.
If this describes your child, keep reading.
What we teach: The REWARDS program
REWARDS, developed by Dr. Anita Archer and published by Voyager Sopris Learning, is a short-term, explicit reading intervention designed specifically for students in grades 4 through 12 who struggle with reading. It is built around one of the most important insights in the Science of Reading, which is that older struggling readers rarely need to start over with babyish phonics. They need to learn how to attack long, multisyllabic words, the kind that dominate fourth-grade and fifth-grade text.
Across 25 explicit, teacher-led lessons, students master a flexible strategy for breaking long words into decodable chunks, recognizing common prefixes and suffixes, building reading fluency, acquiring academic vocabulary, and deepening comprehension. REWARDS is the only reading intervention on the market perfectly aligned to the national IES Practice Guide recommendations for reading interventions in grades 4 through 9, and it has been used in schools worldwide for twenty-five years.
This is not a tutoring gimmick. This is the program that district reading specialists use, taught the way it was designed to be taught.
“Isn’t Orton-Gillingham what I’m supposed to ask for?”
Parents researching dyslexia almost always encounter Orton-Gillingham first, and for younger children, OG-based programs are often the right fit. But REWARDS was engineered for a different student, the older child who needs to unlock multisyllabic academic text rather than relearn letter-sound correspondences. Both approaches are built on the Science of Reading, and both use explicit, systematic instruction. The difference is the design target. For a 4th through 6th grader wrestling with the reading demands of content-area learning, REWARDS is the more efficient tool, and in many cases the more age-appropriate one. A program that begins with cat and dog is going to lose a twelve-year-old within a lesson. REWARDS respects him.
Why our teacher matters
The person who created this course was personally trained by Dr. Anita Archer, the author of REWARDS herself. Our reading specialist holds a Bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, a Master’s degree in educational technology, and a graduate certificate in LETRS, the two-year Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling program. Every teacher on our team has been trained directly by Mrs. Lemons and supplemented with Dr. Archer’s own instructional videos.
These credentials matter because REWARDS, like any structured intervention, lives or dies in the delivery. The pacing, the error correction, the student engagement, and the fidelity to the method are what produce results, and those things cannot be faked.
Does this really work?
Mrs. Lemons first used REWARDS in 1995 with a group of struggling readers, and over the course of two years, those students advanced six to eight grade levels in reading. That is not marketing language. That is what happens when a proven intervention meets a competent teacher meets a child who is finally being taught the way his brain actually learns.
Class format
Offered as small group or 1:1. Both formats follow the full 25-lesson REWARDS Intermediate sequence. (Logistics, meeting schedule, and pricing listed on the enrollment page.)
Prerequisites and fit
REWARDS Intermediate is designed for students who read at approximately a third-grade level or above. In practical terms, your child should be able to decode short, familiar words and read simple sentences, even if slowly or with effort. If your child is reading well below that level, please reach out. We can direct you to an earlier-stage class or assess whether 1:1 is the right starting point.
This intervention requires that your child show up ready to work. The lessons are rapid-paced, interactive, and built around constant teacher-student exchange. This is not a class to watch. It is a class to do.
Biblical worldview
Scripture tells us that the testing of our faith produces perseverance, and that perseverance must finish its work so that we may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:3-4). What is true of faith is true of learning. Your child’s struggle with reading is not a curse. It is ground being plowed. We want your child to read so that he can read the Word of God for himself, hear the voice of his Shepherd in Scripture, and walk faithfully with Christ all his days. Reading is not merely a skill. It is a means of grace.
In class, we pray, we read Scripture alongside our practice passages, and we remind our students that they are made in the image of God, that God gives different kinds of minds on purpose, and that no child who works hard under a competent teacher is beyond help. We hold to the doctrinal statement of The Master’s Seminary.
What this is not
This is not whole-language guessing. This is not three-cueing. This is not a leveled-reader program. This is not a homework-help service, and it is not a class where your child will watch videos alone. This is live, explicit, teacher-led structured literacy intervention, delivered by a credentialed reading specialist using a program with twenty-five years of classroom results behind it.
Ready to begin?
If your child is behind in reading, waiting does not help. Reading gaps widen each year they go unaddressed, and the longer a child reads poorly, the more shame and avoidance accumulate. Twenty-five lessons, and your child can begin to feel in charge of the page for the first time.
Keep going. It’s worth it. — Mrs. Lemons
Week 1
Introduction to the program; Lesson 1–2
Focus: Breaking apart longer words, understanding word parts
Week 2
Lesson 3–4
Focus: Decoding multisyllabic words with common prefixes
Week 3
Lesson 5–6
Focus: Suffixes and how endings affect word meaning
Week 4
Lesson 7–8
Focus: Vowel patterns in longer words
Week 5
Lesson 9–10
Focus: Reading longer words with increased accuracy
Week 6
Lesson 11–12
Focus: Building fluency while decoding multisyllabic words
Week 7
Lesson 13–14
Focus: Applying decoding strategies in connected text
Week 8
Lesson 15–16
Focus: Improving reading rate and expression
Week 9
Lesson 17–18
Focus: Strengthening accuracy with more complex words
Week 10
Lesson 19–20
Focus: Reading longer passages with confidence
Week 11
Lesson 21–22
Focus: Advanced word strategies and automaticity
Week 12
Lesson 23–25
Focus: Mastery of decoding strategies and fluency
Week 13
Review & Reinforcement
Focus: Applying all skills, fluency practice, and confidence building
Class Introduction Video
Coming soon…
Taught From a Christian Perspective
Our mission is to equip learners’ minds and shepherd their hearts. We want them to have saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and then develop a biblical worldview. This means they view their world, themselves, and God in a way that aligns with what the Bible teaches. This brings great peace and understanding to the believer because we serve a good, sovereign God. This course is taught with these goals in mind. In class, we may pray, read scripture, and discuss how to view the content from a Christian perspective.
We have adopted The Master’s Seminary Doctrinal Statement.
ENGLISH:
The most essential reason people must become competent readers is to read the word of God. This is how God communicates with His people, and literacy is critical for developing a biblical worldview. Competent readers can engage in the Word of God and other texts with much thinking and reflection. Readers should be able to decode, understand, remember, analyze, synthesize, evaluate, make inferences, make connections, and apply learning from reading to other subject areas and the rest of life. Readers grow in knowledge and wisdom and can let the Word of God renew their minds and transform their hearts, becoming thinkers who can engage the world for Christ.
When writing, we are turning ideas into words that communicate. Written communication should be functional, truthful, orderly, coherent, creative, and beautiful, all traits present in God’s written words in the Bible, which we want to emulate.
Communication skills are essential for believers. The communication skills taught in English will help learners communicate with others and to be confident public speakers. These skills are essential when sharing the gospel message. Our voices are tools that help us show Jesus to others as we witness to the world through what we say–and what we don’t say (see Colossians 4:6, James 1:19-20, Ephesians 4:29, and Proverbs 10:19). We serve a creative God who has given us all kinds of tools to help communicate His message.
✨ 🍋 ✨ Why Lemons-Aid? ✨ 🍋 ✨
A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW: The Bible, infallible and inerrant, is the very written word of God, who has revealed Himself to man. The Bible is like the light we cast on all content areas in order to understand it, whether that be literature, physical science, history, or geometry. Students learn all content through a Biblical lens. Theology is important for understanding all subject areas. We carefully curate courses that capture learners’ imagination while pointing them to God through sound doctrine. THIS is most important!
RICH CONTENT / CORE KNOWLEDGE: While other schools and systems try to align their content to broad standards that are vague and open to wild interpretations, we focus our content on what students should know and be able to do so they see the world biblically and head into their adult lives filled with knowledge, wisdom, and mastery of skill such as computing and writing. For over a century, progressive education reform has been “anti-content,” which means they de-emphasize rich content and focus instructional time on things such as self-esteem and “skills” they hope will benefit a learner in the future. This is why American kids do so poorly in testing compared to nations with content-rich curricula. We want our learners to increase in knowledge and grow in wisdom, which our content-area experts foster while teaching.
EXPLICIT TEACHING: We understand the skills and concepts students need to learn and know how to teach them. Lemons-Aid’s materials are top-notch, organized, and clear for students and parents to understand. We are especially skilled at breaking down a complicated process into understandable parts. Further, explicit instruction is “a structured, systematic, and effective methodology for teaching academic skills. It is called explicit because it is an unambiguous and direct approach to teaching that includes both instructional design and delivery procedures. Explicit instruction is characterized by a series of supports or scaffolds, whereby students are guided through the learning process with clear statements about the purpose and rationale for learning the new skill, clear explanations and demonstrations of the instructional target, and supported practice with feedback until independent mastery has been achieved.”
- Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching by Anita L. Archer and Charles A. Hughes.
Anita Archer trained Mrs. Lemons in workshops, and it changed her teaching. Read a little more about the research behind explicit teaching here and here.
STUDENT ACCOUNTABILITY = ACHIEVEMENT: Students master skills with us and make gains. We have a high degree of accountability. Since we make promises here and parents are paying good money, we understand you trust us to work! Students have to work too, and let’s be honest: they’re kids and don’t always want to. We push it. We teach them how to stay engaged, we cold-call on kids, we tell them to use the chatbox, and we want them to use emojis! If they are resistant, we contact the student through the teacher tab first. If that doesn’t work, we call in the big guns–Mom and Dad. We want kids to learn. We don’t want them to pass through our classes without gaining skills and doing great learning.
DO HARD THINGS. Boost your confidence, master new skills, learn new concepts. This takes a commitment to do hard things. Like the standards we have for our teachers, we also expect our learners to do hard things, whether that means they stand firm in their convictions, learn geometry, write an essay, or give an oral presentation. You can do hard things!
HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS: To balance our high expectations for their learning and behavior, we build relationships with them. We want them to know we care about and know them. We’ll ask about their play last weekend or the new trick they’re trying to master on the skateboard. We also want students to get to know each other and encourage community engagement.
DEPENDABLE: Multiple teachers are teaching this class, and we have an entire year of lessons planned and scheduled. Since we are a mission-driven organization, we protect our brand and the relationships with our families. We are accountable to our learners. When things come up for teachers, we work to get substitutes and do everything we can before canceling a class. We do not like canceling or changing, and we often teach classes at a loss to give others a chance to join. We have limits, of course, but we are not flippant or irresponsible about canceling! When things come up for students, since we have multiple sections, they can transfer from section to section. All our teachers teach the same content the same week, giving families even more flexibility!
TEACHER FEEDBACK: The back-and-forth work between a student and teacher significantly benefits a student if done well. We follow best practices in designing class time, assignments, and routines. According to Pennington Publishing, effective writing feedback (or grading) is:
- Specific, not general
- Immediate, not postponed
- Routine with a revision / feedback cycle
- Explanatory
- The right amount
- Targeted to the most critical issues
- Varied (written, audio, and video comments)
- Holding students accountable
STUDENT MASTERY: Each class includes explicit, direct instruction with teacher modeling. Students are guided toward mastery of skills and understandings to grasp the concepts and become independent. Students are held to a high standard of academic work, including often ignored skills like the use of grammar and neatness in math.
STUDY THE BEAUTIFUL
We are surrounded by the mediocre, which is not good! We see this in expectations at some schools, the poor customer service at a store, and even architecture like in a gray, uninspiring complex of high-occupancy housing.
In contrast, we are surrounded by the beautiful, which is good! We see the beautiful in classic literature, music, and beautiful architecture like pictured here.
The mediocre demoralizes learners while the beautiful inspires.
At Lemons-Aid Learning, we study the beautiful: classic literature, artful sentence construction, art, poetry, maths, God’s hand in all of history, and God’s very creation. His creation glorifies Him, and in our study of all content areas, we learn about who God is.
We do not compromise. This means we don’t choose a graphic novel of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We read the original play. We know how to make the complexity and beauty of classic study approachable and understandable to a modern audience. It’s more difficult, but worth the effort!
CUSTOMER SERVICE
We serve the Lord and we work hard for families. We work to give quick responses to questions, authentic and careful feedback, and to solve any conflict. As home educators ourselves, familiar with the joys and struggles of teaching our own children, we can relate! We are supporting families, equipping learners, and serving Christ. We are 100% devoted to Him and to you!
To read more about our teaching and learning methods, read our blogs, written by our teachers and staff.
The Lemons-Aid Team
Lemons-Aid teachers have a few things in common.
❤️ They love their students and value each of their unique strengths and personalities that make our classes special. Our classes can be described as fun, personal, academic, challenging, and supportive.
🤩 We work to keep learners engaged, so there is always a degree of student accountability for their attention and focus, whether that be through asking them direct questions or by using the chatbox.
💭 We know all kids can learn, but sometimes things are hard! To support students, we teach them how to develop effective thinking and learning habits that will bring them success in class and in life.
🌟 Building relationships with students so they know we care about them helps us balance the high expectations we have for them regarding their effort, work quality, and behavior. Our students are encouraged, cared for, and they achieve!
𝙆𝘼𝙍𝙀𝙉 𝙇𝙀𝙈𝙊𝙉𝙎: English Language Arts
#High-Energy #Skilled #Experienced #Relational #Fun #Faithful
Karen is the Founder of Lemons-Aid. She has a bachelor’s degree in English, a minor in Education, and a master’s degree in Education Administration from Liberty University. With a teaching certificate and a principal’s license in both Washington and Colorado, she has many years of experience teaching English Language Arts and History / Social Studies at the middle school and high school levels. Additionally, she is TESOL and TEFL certified and enjoys teaching English Language Learners from all over the world. She has worked in private and public schools at every level and is currently an affiliate faculty member at Colorado Christian University, supervising teacher candidates in their undergraduate and graduate teacher education programs. She is a teacher of teachers. A homeschool mom herself, she admits that teaching other people’s kids is easier than teaching her own teenage boys! She lives in the Denver, Colorado area where she cheers on the Broncos, Avs, and the Rockies, but her favorite athletes are her own kids who play hockey and baseball!
𝑱𝑬𝑵𝑵 𝑹𝑰𝑨𝑳𝑬: English Language Arts
#Experienced #Knowledgeable #Empowering #Patient #Rises Above the Ordinary.
As a certified English teacher, Jenn has taught in some capacity over the course of the past twenty-five years. She has taught middle school and high school English classes in both private and public school settings, tutored international ESL students online, developed and taught literature and public speaking classes for a local homeschool co-op, and homeschooled her own two children. Jenn has a bachelor’s degree in English Education. A strong believer in lifelong learning, Jenn has also taken several graduate-level courses related to teaching. Jenn enjoys spending time with her husband, Mark, and their two teenagers. She enjoys taking day trips close to where they live in upstate New York. In her spare time, Jenn enjoys singing and performing in plays. Additionally, she enjoys curling up on the sofa to read a good book. More than likely, one of her four cats will be curled up at her feet.
Christian Teachers on Outschool
Lemons-Aid Coupon Code:
We want to serve you on Lemons-Aid! For first-time learners on Lemons-Aid, you can use the coupon code Newbie20 to get $20 off your first class.
Outschool Coupon Code:
If the schedule on this platform doesn’t work for you, we will happily teach you on Outschool, but we can’t talk about Jesus. Use this referral code and get $20 off your first class on Outschool: LEMONSA2020
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Request a New Section
Want to see this class offered at another time? Send a request, and we’ll see what we can do!
ENGLISH:
The most essential reason people must become competent readers is to read the word of God. This is how God communicates with His people, and literacy is critical for developing a biblical worldview. Competent readers can engage in the Word of God and other texts with much thinking and reflection. Readers should be able to decode, understand, remember, analyze, synthesize, evaluate, make inferences, make connections, and apply learning from reading to other subject areas and the rest of life. Readers grow in knowledge and wisdom and can let the Word of God renew their minds and transform their hearts, becoming thinkers who can engage the world for Christ.
When writing, we are turning ideas into words that communicate. Written communication should be functional, truthful, orderly, coherent, creative, and beautiful, all traits present in God’s written words in the Bible, which we want to emulate.
Communication skills are essential for believers. The communication skills taught in English will help learners communicate with others and to be confident public speakers. These skills are essential when sharing the gospel message. Our voices are tools that help us show Jesus to others as we witness to the world through what we say–and what we don’t say (see Colossians 4:6, James 1:19-20, Ephesians 4:29, and Proverbs 10:19). We serve a creative God who has given us all kinds of tools to help communicate His message.
LITERATURE:
Stories often serve as powerful vehicles for truth. For example, the prophet Nathan used a parable to reveal King David’s sin in 1 Samuel 12:1-4. Similarly, Jesus frequently used parables to teach profound spiritual lessons. Literature clearly offers timeless insights that reflect the complexities of life, guiding us toward His wisdom and understanding.
All truth is God’s truth. Even unbelievers use universal themes in their writing that clearly point to deeper truths about life and the human condition. For example, authors often use theme concepts related to justice, love, or integrity. These concepts reveal a glimpse of God’s truth– whether the author acknowledges it or not–because all truth originates from God (John 17:17).
Throughout English and literature courses, learners will read about individuals who made flawed decisions. As Romans 3:23 reminds us, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Literature provides a window into humanity’s fallen nature, allowing students to learn from the mistakes and successes of characters. By engaging with literature, students will gain timeless insights into the complexities of life, as reflected in Proverbs 2:6: “For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.”
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