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READING ON RAILS™
The Bristol Standard reading skills program
Bristol Standard was founded on the principles of improving education curriculum through the focused study on the science of how humans memorize things. Our premiere program is dedicated to improving reading skills using this teaching method and is called “Reading on Rails.”
Through our initial research studies, we’ve been able to see the following benefits:
Builds reading skills 6 to 8 times faster
Faster decoding raises comprehension
Less struggle with homework
Increased confidence
Academic success in future classes
Smoother reading
Lessened chance of bullying and embarrassment
Smoother reading aloud
What makes the Bristol Standard method more successful
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Reading on Rails™ is the Bristol Standard’s read skills training program. The program contains over 500 exercises, carefully designed, to promote fast, smooth reading. Smooth reading, or fluent reading, raises comprehension dramatically. It sounds like natural speech—and crucially—allows your child to place pauses where they are supposed to go. When a sentence is properly broken up into a first part, a middle part, and a last part, it’s easy to understand. That leads to high levels of comprehension. High comprehension comes from fluency. Reading fluency comes from instantly recognizing the letter patterns you see and saying them so fast and so automatically… that you can actually look ahead in a sentence to identify punctuation marks. Almost all punctuation marks actually mean the same thing… pause here. Pausing at the right locations—instead of pausing to figure out the next word—leads to high comprehension.
There are about 125 common letter patterns in English: E-A as in eat, T-H as in them, E-R as in her, S-P-L as in split, and so on. Students need explicit explanations and a lot of practice in order to learn all those letter patterns. Once they know the spelling patterns, rare spelling exceptions will stand out …because they don’t fit the learned patterns. Students will teach themselves the exceptions while they’re reading for fun. This link will take you to a gated list of those spelling patterns, so you can test yourself or your child on just how well they know or don’t know those common letter patterns.
Reading on Rails™ is all about decoding. Decoding is about 90% of reading. It’s the skill that allows readers to pronounce a word they have never seen before, even though they may not know what it means. When decoding is automatic and rapid, the student can stop worrying about what the next word is and instead, focus on what the author is saying. That also leads to high reading comprehension.
Program Offerings:
Tutoring & Homeschool
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Tutoring is our premiere program. We offer both online and in-person tutoring. In both programs, we start with a reading assessment. Through this assessment, we are able to determine what level to start skill training on. Then you will choose from one of our plans based on how many 30-minute lessons can fit into your schedule each week.
We required at least a 24-hour notice, if, for some reason, you need to cancel a scheduled lesson. All rescheduled lessons can roll over into the next month.
Plans may be terminated by either party with 30 days advanced notice.
Online Tutoring
With this program, we meet with students via the Zoom application. We find it highly convenient for students, parents, and teachers.
This program requires internet access, a webcam a microphone, and the ability to run the Zoom application smoothly from your computer, tablet, or smartphone.
Parents have the ability to monitor sessions from their work if desired.
In-Person Tutoring
Some students still prefer to meet face-to-face. For that, we offer in-person tutoring. Our tutor can come to your home, school, work, or any other location you find feasible for your lifestyle.
The tutor will bring a laptop with them to provide the necessary lessons and up to 20 miles of travel is included for each lesson in this plan. (Additional miles may be added upon request at a per-mile rate.)
Homeschooling
Parents that homeschool can find out program useful as a way to supplement their teaching at home with the Bristol Standard method. Both online tutoring and in-person tutoring are perfect for homeschool applications.
Aftercare Program for Schools
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The Aftercare program is available to schools as an offering to their students and aftercare participants.
In this program, the school will facilitate student signups for single or group tutoring classes depending on skill level. This can be billed directly to the parents or student or through the school if they prefer.
This program has several different structure options:
- One 45-minute group class meeting 3 times per week
- One 45-minute group class meeting 2 times per week
- One 45-minute group class level meeting 3 times per week and a second 45-minute class level group meeting 2 times per week
- Individual tutoring sessions meeting every 30-minutes for the hours of the schools After-care program for as many days as required for the students that sign up.
All include one tutor per every 8 students including their laptop and projector to present group lessons. The school will need to provide a room for the lessons and a TV, screen, or blank wall for projection during group classes.
Day Care, Learning Center, & Summer School Program
This program can be used in Day Care facilities, Learning Centers, or as part of a school’s Summer School program.
In this program, the daycare, learning center, or school will facilitate student signups for single or group tutoring classes depending on skill level. This can be billed directly to the parents or student or through the facility if they prefer.
This program has several different structure options:
- One 45-minute* group class meeting 3 times per week
- One 45-minute* group class meeting 2 times per week
- One 45-minute* group class level meeting 3 times per week and a second 45-minute* class level group meeting 2 times per week
- Individual tutoring sessions meeting every 30-minutes for the hours of the facility’s normal operation for as many days as required for the students that sign up.
*Summer School class length will line up with the school’s period schedule.
All include one instructor per every 8 students including their laptop and projector to present group lessons. The school will need to provide a room for the lessons and a TV, screen, or blank wall for projection during group classes.
English As A Second Language (ESL) | Accent Reduction
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Americans aren’t the only people that can learn to read & speak English. Our program also helps people who don’t have English as their first language. The program is excellent for teaching ESL students to overcome their native accent when speaking English so that they sound more “American”. Some schools call this “accent reduction” or “accent modification”.
Some people want to lose the accent they were born into even if it’s American. Our program can help to reduce the Boston accent, New York accent, Chicago, Canada, your neighborhood, etc.
Just sign up for our tutoring program and let your instructor know to focus on your accent or/and ability to communicate in the English language. We offer both online and in-person tutoring. In both programs, we start with a reading assessment. Through this assessment, we are able to determine what level to start skill training on. Then you will choose from one of our plans based on how many 30-minute lessons can fit into your schedule each week.
We require at least a 24-hour notice, if, for some reason, you need to cancel a scheduled lesson. All rescheduled lessons can roll over into the next month.
Plans may be terminated by either party with 30 days advanced notice.
Online Tutoring
With this program, we meet with students via the Zoom application. We find it highly convenient for students, parents, and teachers.
This program requires internet access, a webcam, a microphone, and the ability to run the Zoom application smoothly from your computer, tablet, or smartphone.
In-Person Tutoring
Some students still prefer to meet face-to-face. For that, we offer in-person tutoring. Our tutor can come to your home, school, work, or any other location you find feasible for your lifestyle.
The tutor will bring a laptop with him to provide the necessary lessons and up to 20 miles of travel is included for each lesson in this plan. (Additional miles may be added upon request at a per mile rate.)
Reading Insurance™
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Reading Insurance™ is the name of our quarterly reading assessment program. About 1/3rd of all elementary students fall behind in reading by third grade. Schools do what they can, then call on the mothers and fathers for help. Strong reading skills are crucial in the final 8 years of middle school and high school, so Bristol Standard has developed a quarterly assessment program of regularly scheduled reading check-ups for your elementary child.
Every three months, you will be reminded to schedule your child for a 30-minute evaluation to see how fast they are pulling ahead of—or falling behind students their age. If your child is falling behind, you’ll be one of the first to know, so that you can do something about it before the problem develops into something more serious.
Designed to help parents know where their children are from a skills training perspective, the program measures their reading level and compares the results to educational standards and reports the results along with relative recommendations to the parents.
With this program, students will receive an initial benchmarking assessment followed by progress assessments each quarter thereafter for a year. Each assessment can be done online and lasts about 30-minutes.
Teacher Training and Curriculum
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Our mission and goal is to help Education as a whole, so schools of all sizes have the opportunity to obtain our curriculum and then have their teachers go through curriculum training. Just contact us at info@bristolstandard.com or via our contact us page.
