About Right Track Reading company and phonics programs

The Tools to Achieve Reading Success

Effective ~ Affordable ~ Easy-to-Use

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Right Track Reading LLC is a small home-based business started by Miscese Gagen, a mother and successful reading tutor with a strong passion for teaching children to read proficiently by using effective methods. Right Track Reading LLC strives to empower parents and teachers with information and effective tools so they can help their child or student learn necessary skills and achieve reading success.

Right Track Reading’s mission is to improve reading proficiency rates in this country. Right Track Reading is working toward this objective from the bottom up, one child at a time. By directly teaching all necessary skills with effective targeted instruction we can help individual children and students acquire necessary skills and achieve reading success. We CAN improve reading proficiency…one child at a time!

To accomplish the mission of improving reading proficiency, Right Track Reading:

#1 Empowers parents and teachers with free information on the science of learning to read and on effective reading instruction. The Right Track Reading web site shares free information, activities, resources and articles on reading. The key to improving reading proficiency lies with empowering individual parents and teachers with information and effective resources so they can work with and directly building necessary skills in their individual child or student.

#2 Provides highly effective, easy-to-use and affordable reading instructional programs that give you the tools to help your child or student achieve reading success.

Right Track Reading Lessons: A Highly Effective Step-by-Step Direct Systematic Phonics Program 2nd Edition~ This reading instructional program is specifically designed to help your young child (kindergarten - 2nd grade) build necessary skills and get on track to proficient reading.
Back on the Right Track Reading Lessons: An Effective Step-by-Step Reading Remediation Program for Older Students and Adults 2nd Edition ~ This reading instructional program is designed to help a struggling reader (3rd grade through adult) acquire skills and get back on track to proficient reading.

#3 Offers workshops, presentations and training sessions on teaching children and students to read. These hands-on workshops are designed to empower parents and teachers with specific information and tools to teach their children or students to achieve reading success.

Right Track Reading provides the information and tools so you can help your child or student achieve reading success. Right Track Reading can help you begin your rewarding adventure into the joys of successfully teaching your child or student to read.

Right Track Reading is located in Livingston, Montana. The books are proudly printed in the United States of America by Morris Publishing in Kearney, Nebraska.

Meet the Author/ Author Background Information:

My name is Miscese Gagen. I am the author of Right Track Reading Lessons and Back on the Right Track Reading Lessons and the owner of Right Track Reading LLC. My primary vocation is mom of three precious children and wife of my wonderful husband. In my spare time, my passion is teaching children to read proficiently and empowering parents and teachers with effective information and reading resources.

My adventure in teaching children to read and was triggered when my young son asked “Mommy, show me how to read”. To respond to my son’s request, I investigated the scientific research on reading and quickly discovered direct systematic phonics instruction was proven to be the most effective approach to reading instruction. Teaching my son with a simple home program was an enjoyable and rewarding experience. I compared the ease and success of my son learning to read to my many encounters with perfectly bright children who struggled with reading. Through exposure as a volunteer in several different school districts, I began to observe how other approaches to reading instruction inadvertently resulted in children struggling to learn to read. These well intentioned methods did not directly teach all necessary skills and many children failed to develop skills necessary for proficient reading. I continued to study the reading research, learned from teaching my children and began working with and tutoring children who struggled with reading. The mistakes struggling children made and the dramatic improvements in their reading when they were instructed using direct systematic phonics were enlightening. Instructional methods absolutely do matter! These experiences ignited and fueled my passion for teaching children to read proficiently by using effective instruction.

I am a ‘life-long’ learner, and my son’s request started me on a new and continuing pathway of discovery. My education background was primarily in science. I have a Bachelor of Science in Forestry from the University of Montana. My pre-motherhood work experience was in forest resource management and environmental analysis. When I began my investigations into reading I applied my general scientific background and experience in systematic analysis procedures. I spent many late nights reading and investigating the existing research and information on reading. One of my favorite hobbies is reading about reading. To answer the question of how to most effectively teach a child to read, I focused on the validated scientific research, evidence based results, and the fascinating neural research on the process of proficient reading. I then applied a scientific approach, critical thinking and analysis skills to address the question, “What is the most effective way to teach children to read?”

Although I gained extensive knowledge from the science and research, much of my understanding of how children learn to read and how to actually help children acquire necessary skills came directly from my work with children. My ‘best instructors’ for teaching me how children learn to read were my own children and the students I tutored. Children and students who faced difficulty reading were exceptionally effective instructors. By carefully observing exactly what the child did incorrectly, determining why they made certain errors, evaluating the child for missing skills, and then finding ways to help the child acquire the specific necessary skill, I gained invaluable ‘expertise’ and understanding of how to effectively teach children to read. I applied my ‘mom’ insight and understanding of how to work with children to develop highly effective techniques to directly develop necessary skills.

Right Track Reading evolved out of my growing passion for teaching children to read. By the time I was ready to begin teaching my youngest daughter, I understood more about how children best learn to read. Unable to find an affordable reading program that met my exact expectations I started putting my own material together. This instructional material was the first daft of Right Track Reading Lessons. My newly developed reading program was extremely effective with my youngest daughter and with the struggling children I was asked to tutor. I used, refined, and improved the program and began sharing it with friends searching for a way to teach their children to read. My direct systematic phonics program was highly effective and easy to use. I realized I needed to share this program with more than a few friends and the small number of children I could personally tutor. Therefore, I published Right Track Reading Lessons. Subsequently, as I worked with older students, I adapted instructional material to meet their unique needs creating Back on the Right Track Reading Lessons.

My strong personal beliefs influencing the Right Track Reading programs include:

I believe all children are capable of learning to read proficiently unless they have serious hearing or vision disabilities or are severely disabled. Children with physical hearing or vision problems do face challenges learning to read our phonetic written language simply because they can not hear the sounds or see the written letters. Children with challenges can often learn to read (remember Helen Keller). However, instruction needs to be adapted to meet their unique situation.
Reading is not a natural biologic process. We need to recognize reading is a complex learned skill that is difficult for many students.
Proficient reading requires the development of neural phonologic processing pathways. This is proven by the neuroscience of proficient reading! See the article How Reading Works for additional information.
Children fail to learn to read or struggle with reading because they lack specific necessary skills.
Frequently students face reading problems because they were never directly taught the complex set of learned skills that are necessary for proficient reading.
As parents and teachers it is our job to directly teach our children and students all skills necessary for the complex process of proficient reading.
A strong direct systematic phonics program with explicit instruction targeted to build all essential skills is the most effective way to insure children acquire all essential skills, develop phonologic processing pathways, and learn to read proficiently. This is backed up by the valid evidence-based scientific research and supported by the neural processing research revealing phonologic processing pathways are essential to proficient reading. See Direct Systematic Phonics Proven Effective.
To improve reading proficiency, we need to apply the scientifically valid research and the science of proficient reading. Direct systematic phonic based programs are the most effective way to teach children how to read and are proven to establish essential phonologic neural processing pathways. Unfortunately much of what is used and strongly defended in our education system ignores this scientific evidence and validated research on what works.
I believe reading is ideally taught one-on-one by a parent, teacher or other caring adult in a pull out tutoring situation. Teaching reading one-on-one to your child does not require special certification or expensive material. Teaching a child to read only requires a caring literate adult, effective instructional material and an investment of time. (Note: Teaching an entire class of children to read absolutely does require special training as well as effective materials.)
The ever present complexities and challenges of teaching a diverse group of children in a classroom situation greatly complicate reading instruction. That is why one-on-one individual instruction is the ideal way to teach a child to read. The complexities and multiple challenges of a classroom setting make it even more important to use the most effective methods available. In a classroom situation, no matter how wonderful the teacher, use of ineffective materials and programs results in children failing to learn to read. Our education system must make a fundamental shift from programs and approaches with proven track records of failure to the most effective direct systematic phonics systems. In addition, when children struggle they need early direct effective intervention to directly establish necessary skills.
I believe in empowering parents and teachers with information and effective resources. Alone, I can only teach a limited number of students. However, if parents are empowered they can teach their own child and maybe even another child or two. Teachers by the nature of their job have the potential to help many children read proficiently. By empowering others we can exponentially expand the number of children that learn to read proficiently.
I believe parents and teachers need highly effective instructional materials that are easy-to-use and affordable. This is why I published the Right Track Reading programs.
I believe the solution to the reading problem in this country is found in a bottom up approach. Time after time, I have seen dramatic improvement in reading skills of individual children. We can achieve success one child at a time by directly teaching all necessary skills in an effective direct, systematic manner.
By using effective instructional material and helping individual we can make a significant difference, not just in the educational potential of one individual child but eventually in impacting this nation's high rate of reading failure. Together, we can make a difference --- starting with one child, one parent, one teacher, one classroom, one school at a time.