This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Resource for Teens Who Struggle With Reading with Tara Giddings.

Some homeschooling high schoolers love reading. Others do not! Some teens struggle with reading. That’s why Vicki was excited to talk about a reading program that respectfully helps teens build their reading skills.

We talked to Tara Giddings from LearnUp Centers. She and her team work with teens who have struggled with reading. (It’s not anything to be ashamed of because everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.)

LearnUp is a non-profit that has been around for ten years. They are on a mission to help all young people learn how to read.

LearnUp is on a mission to help all young people learn how to read.

The team works with readers of all ages and all grades! They have developed a program specifically to support our teen learners.

The LearnUp program supports students using their proven structured literacy program. They offer high-dosage tutoring for students in-person in San Francisco and online nationwide.

The LearnUp reading program was initially created for a family whose fifth-grader was reading at below a second-grade level. They had tried many different programs. Nothing was working.

The family was feeling frustrated: “What do we do? How can we help our kid learn how to read?”

They finally found Steve Tatum, the founder of the LearnUp reading program, Tatum Reading. Working with Steve, the child rose from a second-grade reading level to high school level in less than a year!

The family was so excited about their child’s success! So, Steve sat down with the parents and walked them through the structured literacy reading program. (He calls this a train-the-trainer approach.)

Steve Tatum had combined the best elements of a number of reading programs. Using this “best elements” approach helped students learn as quickly as possible while still being engaging.

The non-profit is launched

The family was so happy about their child’s reading success that they asked to work with Steve to start a non-profit. They wanted to share the program with as many students as possible and for it to be accessible for families who may not otherwise be able to afford these services. They knew that education is key to unlocking success in the future. So LearnUp was born. They strive to make sure that students, regardless of their socioeconomic background, have the same opportunities.

LearnUp helps middle and high schoolers

Learning quickly is especially important for our middle and high schoolers; they don’t have time to waste. They need to catch up fast.

The team from LearnUp wants to make sure they are clear about what we do differently when we work with teens.

They adapted the curriculum, called Unlocking Reading Success, specifically for those older students. The lessons are engaging and story-driven. Teens can make sense of weird phonics rules, presented in a way that does not feel babyish. They never want teens to feel like they’re being talked down to.

LearnUp tutors interact with teens differently than with younger students. They know they need to get teens’ buy-in and engagement. They learn to see themselves as readers!

The first step in starting LearnUp is to take their free virtual intake assessment.

They want to make sure that all families can get insight into their homeschooler’s reading. Contact LearnUp, and you will be connected with one of their advanced tutors.

This intake assessment will show their student’s entry level. The entry levels are one reason they can move teens more quickly through the program, because we don’t start at the beginning of our scope and sequence with every student. LearnUp meets them where they are.

LearnUp has found students tend to bucket into about five different entry levels, ranging from a non-reader who knows some sounds, to an early reader who can read some one-syllable words. Then there are what they call “Start 3s and 4s”. Those students have more skills, but need support in areas such as reading multi-syllable words.

When a student comes in at entry-level Start 4, their tutor would start them at more advanced phonics so the student feels challenged. They would go back and fill in the gaps in their reading as needed.

Some students come to LearnUP at the last Start, an entry level where the teen sounds like they can read. However, they need support in comprehension, decoding, and writing.

After the assessment, parents connect with LearnUp to schedule their teen with a tutor.

During each session, tutors and students use visual and auditory aids to review what they have covered so far. Then teens learn a new phonics concept of the day. They practice on a digital board using “nonsense words”, so that they are challenged to apply the new phonics concept. The teen and the tutor also practice the concept by taking turns sharing nonsense words.

Then they would practice some spelling with real words.

Next, they read a decodable story in a chapter book using that day’s phonics concept. These stories are relevant and engaging for the teens. These are not reading children’s stories, but rather interesting, culturally relevant stories from Japanese mythology to African American folklore.

Reading stories builds comprehension and engagement skills. These are the skills they need for schoolwork and for life!

Tara shares the story of a high school student who was referred to as a hall walker by her school’s staff.  She was technically at school, but never spending any time in class. Rather, she was just walking around the hallways the whole time. This is an avoidance technique because the student knows they cannot engage in class.)

The LearnUp tutor worked with this teen who was at an early-reader level. (She was only able to read some one-syllable words.) However, within sixty sessions during one semester, she was able to jump over three grade levels. She gained confidence and began attending and engaging in her classes instead of hall walking.

To get started with LearnUp, you can contact LearnUp at

Join Vicki and Tara and learn about reading resources with LearnUp.

Thank you to Seth Tillman for editing.

The post Resource for Teens Who Struggle With Reading with Tara Giddings appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.