I Can Read, Sri Hartamas (Kuala Lumpur)

Reading is a skill that will not likely be replaced by any other, ever. If an individual cannot read well enough, his or her life is almost automatically rendered less gratifying and unnecessarily inconvenient. Thus is the power that reading can have on our lives. And of course, we know by now that the younger a person begins reading, the better off they’ll be, to put it in the simplest of terms.

Originating from Singapore, I Can Read has been winning over parents, as well as teachers, as an effective learning programme for children, helping them read better and more efficiently. What follows is usually the start of a beneficial life-long habit, beginning with the passion for… reading! Kiddy123 had the opportunity to speak to the Sri Hartamas branch owners, Selene and husband David, to learn more of what the centre and its programme has to offer.

I Can Read, Sri Hartamas, the 10th branch to be set up in Malaysia, opened its doors in October 2020. It has a somewhat interesting story behind its establishment, though, as we learned from our conversation with Selene. “When my daughter, now age 10, was seven years old, I realised that she was having difficulty reading. Although she was taught phonics in kindergarten, she wasn’t able to read well enough. At first, when she kept needing my help with her homework due to not being able to read her tasks, I told myself that she’d catch up soon enough, and just assisted her by reading with her and doing whatever I can to help her. But when she began encountering problems while trying to answer questions during tests and exams, I knew I had to do something,” she explained.

When a school-going child has problems reading, or has poor reading skills, he or she is bound to face an unlevel playing field when it comes to learning and to some extent, even socialising. They will also experience problems catching up in their school work, where even small tasks would seem more challenging to them. If left unaddressed, this issue could lead to a lack of confidence, as well as self-esteem, which is damaging during the growing years.

Selene tried enrolling her daughter into special tuition classes in hope of turning things around, but to no avail. “Most of these tuition centres tend to be too advanced, teaching things like grammar and sentence structuring to name a few, while my daughter needed help with the very basics of reading,” she shared. Then, quite near to her office, a new branch of I Can Read happened to open up. With nothing else to lose, Selene decided to give that a try and it was the best decision she had made in terms of helping her child read!

“Within just a short period of time, I noticed that my daughter was reading much better and more proficiently, without even needing any help from me. Needless to say, that really impressed me!" she stated with conviction. We get her, don’t we? When it comes to teaching children to read, a lot of attention is given to phonics. While phonics will always be an integral part of children’s reading progress, there are other important elements that need to be emphasised to ensure that children learn to read better and faster.

This is where I Can Read, from the experience and viewpoints of Selene and her family, seemed to have an edge over many other reading programmes for children. “My husband and I quickly began to realise the immense potential of this programme, and how helpful it can be for other families who were facing the same dilemma as we had at that time. That is when we decided to act, and proceeded to open up a branch at Sri Hartamas,” she quipped.

What makes this programme stand out?

From a very basic point of learning to read, whether we realise it or not, new readers face their first challenges when they are trying to combine letters to accomplish certain blended sounds. Apart from that, they also need to learn the pronunciation of words despite the fact that letters and/or letter clusters may produce more than just one sound. There are simple-sounding straightforward words to learn, and also more difficult-to-pronounce words. As explained by Selene, the programme utilises special codes to help students identify all the possible sounds of any given letter, and this too, on its own, offers a unique way of teaching children the basics of reading. The I Can Read programme effectively addresses all the important elements of learning to read, allowing students to comfortably progress and flourish in their reading skills. Using Phonemic awareness, Phonics, and Phono-graphemic blending sequences, I Can Read represents a value-for-money reading programme which is helping countless children of various ages to master precious reading skills that will prove to be invaluable to them for a lifetime!

Could your child be needing help?

Reading is an important life skill that many parents tend to take for granted, probably due to being dependent on what’s being taught in kindergarten or preschool. Not every child is guaranteed to be able to read when they graduate from kindergarten, and this is when parents can identify if there is a potential problem at hand. Having said that, it is worth remembering too that when it comes to literacy, experts have always believed that it’s a good idea to start children young, from as early as 2 ½ years of age. Check out I Can Read today, for your child’s best reading outcome tomorrow!