Holly Shapiro Ph.D. - Speech Language Pathologist

Director of Ravinia Reading Center in Highland Park, IL

When I finished my doctoral studies at Northwestern University, I knew I wanted to help children who were not learning to read in school. I set up a private practice and tried to make a difference. It went well, with some of my students demonstrating improvement.

However, a caseload of kids was slipping through my fingers. Eager to find better results, I took a series of workshops where I learned about a phonics-based approach to reading instruction known as Orton-Gillingham. At the time, Orton-Gillingham and phonics were quite out-of-favor, so I had the opportunity to study under the direction of some of the pioneers, notably Jean Osman and Paula Dozier Rome, who had known and worked with Dr. Orton himself. The Orton approach sparked what would become a lifelong interest in orthography, phonics, and the origins of words.

As I modified my teaching with greater emphasis on these many concepts in mind, I found that while some children learned quickly with most any instruction, all my students were able to learn using phonics to instill the connection between sounds and symbols. One student, who could not read at all, really took to it in particular.

After we'd been working together for a time, his mother called me, and I could hear tears in her voice. The family was Jewish, and she told me that her son had read aloud the four questions at their Passover meal, a momentous passage for him. He's now a voracious reader and college student, attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison. There are so many stories like that, and they mean a lot to me.

Specialists in any field have to keep current in their research, but specific research findings tend to work their way more slowly toward generalists like teachers. After all, they have to know something about everything. Something had to be done to establish and promote successful reading instruction, so in 1997 congress created the National Reading Panel. The panel evaluated more than 100,00 studies on reading to see what worked. They published their findings two years later.

I was pleased to find that their research was very consistent with what I had learned in my studies, and then confirmed in my practice—that systematic phonics instruction from a professional is the best reading help for children struggling to read. This is especially the case for K-6 reading instruction. Our clinical teaching experience at Ravinia has borne that out.

Anything as amazingly complex as reading is difficult to master. We are biologically wired to speak naturally, but reading—a human invention—must be learned. Consider yourself lucky if you learned to read without effort. A large part of written language is built upon the creative liberties humans have taken as we break spoken words into smaller sounds, and represent them in symbols. Without this understanding, many aspects of language appear without logic. Children can be taught to memorize words, but this takes tremendous effort.

Learning to read is an undertaking for any child, and at Ravinia Reading Center, our goal is to make sure they won't fall behind. However, if a child has already fallen behind, our speech-language pathologists can help make up for lost time. At Ravinia, we emphasize progressive, tailored instruction that finds traction at your child’s current reading level. We build phonemic awareness, phonics skills, and fluency simultaneously, from the first lesson.

The demands of leadership and administration at Ravinia Reading Center mean I no longer have the time to teach. But my position has allowed me to fulfill a very urgent need in our profession: the development of effective teaching materials. Because Ravinia is a working reading clinic, I have the opportunity to develop new teaching materials based on the very problems we see in our clinical practice. We're always adapting to our students, which means your child receives the best reading help available at Ravinia.

Developing your child's reading skills will always be my top priority. As my life's work, it is most certainly a professional goal. But as a parent, it is also my personal interest to see children thrive and read fluently. Reading well is an attainable goal worth every bit of effort, because it pays off for a lifetime.

Build Reading Skills Today, For Life
Call Ravinia 847.433.5878