Building Confident Readers - Why Is Reading So Hard & What Can We Do To Help

In this episode, Jean Evans, leader of BUILDing All Readers joins us to unpack why reading can be so hard for some children and what we can do to help them succeed. She shares practical strategies, encouragement, and insights to help parents and educators build confidence in struggling readers.

For more Aha Moments visit https://buildingallchildren.org/podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome. My name is Kendra Morgan, and I'm the host of the Rise and Build Podcast, where we hope to empower you to rise up and build a strong family, knowing you have to strengthen your hands to do the good work. Come with us as we rise and build. Hey you guys, welcome to the Rise and Build Podcast. Today we are talking about building successful readers. And we are seeing more and more children falling behind in reading. We are getting more phone calls than we've ever gotten before, wanting information about our reading program. And so we are gonna dive into this today and just talk about why we are seeing so many children not being able to read? Why are they falling behind? And when we were praying about this topic, um, of course, Jean Evans came to our mind. Jean was placed in my life years ago, and she started or just jumped in, I guess, as our building reader coordinator. She runs our building readers program. I cannot speak highly enough about her. It's an honor to set across from her. She has a lot of wisdom that she's going to share with us today. But first, Jean, I want our listeners to know you. So tell us a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Well, I am a woman who has been passionate about teaching my whole life. I started teaching my dog in my garage when I was in third grade. I loved playing school. I always wanted to be a wife and a mother and a teacher. And I have been a wife for 53 years. I married my high school sweetheart. I have three grown, wonderful kids and three wonderful spouses that enrich our life so much. I have five grandchildren raising aging ranging in age from two to fifteen. And um, I just am passionate about teaching. I taught in the public schools for 25 years. I loved every minute of it. I started as a special education teacher. I moved to a regular education teacher, and I am so blessed that the Lord has put me here to continue pursuing my passion.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I love it. Can I share um that story that how we met real quick before we jump into all this? Sure. Okay. So um, building all children, I started building all children, and I was sitting on a soccer field next to one of my good friends, and she was an educator at the time. And um I kept talking about all these children that couldn't read. Long story short, she came to me one day and said, Kendra, I think I'm supposed to quit teaching and help you start a reading program. Nothing I could have ever done in a million years. And I was like, No, you can't quit. I can't even pay you. And she's like, no, I'm supposed to do this. So she ended up quitting at the public schools, came on board, started this reading program, did a fabulous job. And then her husband moved to the Dallas area. And so she moved with him, of course, and left me with this reading program. And I just sat on it for a while. And I told my husband, I said, I think I'm gonna have to shut the reading program down. Like I can't teach reading. And he said, you know what? I feel like you should just be patient and let the Lord place it in front of you. Those were like his exact words. And I had no idea what that meant, but I was like, okay, I think I'm shutting it down. Well, fast forward, I don't even know, maybe two days, three days later, I was sitting across the table from your daughter, and she was asking me about building all children and just had some questions about building all children, and I was answering them and she asked me about the reading program, and I told her that I was, I'm probably actually gonna close it down. I know it's needed, but I'm gonna close it down. And she wrote your name down on a sticky and on a post-it note and set it in front of me. And when I looked down, I remember Ryan said, I think the Lord is gonna place the name in front of you. And I just was like, Oh my gosh. So I immediately called you and I I don't even remember what I said to you. I mean, we had never met before. Do you remember what I said to you?

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Yes, you asked me if I wanted to interview for a job. And I had just retired. Yeah. But the backstory is I had been praying that my life was, is this all there is, God? And I had really been asking God, what else can I do? Yeah because I wasn't ready to be done.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Well, so I mean, I do. I think I was like, Well, you and you were like, No, I'm not looking for a job. And I said, No, I really think you are. And you're like, no, I really am not. And I was like, no, I want you to take a couple days, think about it, but I I really think you're supposed to do this. And so, anyways, we ended up meeting and you were a little unsure, right? And you stepped into it, and oh my gosh, Gene, are you took what was created, which was good, but you have made it excellent. And so Building Readers has a six-month program, um, one to two times a week, depending on the child's needs. And it is changing lives. Like kids are starting out behind and within that six months have a lot of success. It is a program that you have to be reading and be behind in reading. We don't teach kids how to read, they have to be reading and be behind. Um, we have a lot of parents that want us to teach them to read, but that's not what this program is designed for because that takes longer than six months. Um, but, anyways, it's fun. It's fun to work with you because you're so knowledgeable in this area and you have such a way with children and you are building confident readers. And I love, love, love it. I love you. I love what you bring to the team. And I I'm just so thankful that the Lord put us together. Me too. Okay, so let's dive into this topic. Um, first, being an educator, being in the field as long as you have been in it, running the Building Readers program. Why are so many children having trouble being a successful reader? Big question, I know. That is a very big question.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

I have some opinions. Okay. I think the world is different now. I think there are so many struggling readers because screens are so prevalent that we don't have conversations, we don't sit in color, we don't get outside and build things, we don't work with blocks. We we have a screen that takes our time. I think that's a part of it. I think schools are another part. The learners are so diverse. Classrooms are full of kids with who are very gifted, who are average, who have learning problems, who are distracted. I think it's really hard. There's not a one-size-fits-all. I think another thing that has happened is that um students are given instruction in school, but they're not given homework or practice time. And we know that repetition and learning to read is so important. Our brains were not designed to learn to read by themselves. Yes. They need good solid instruction. And I understand schools' perspective about not assigning, some schools do not assign homework because the playing field isn't even at home, but children need repetition and practice. Yeah. I think another reason is just the amount of curricular differences in reading programs. Yeah. And one side doesn't always fit all, but one method of teaching skill after skill does fit all.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

That's good. Okay, so I definitely want to talk about the method piece of it a little bit more. Um, can you share what you're seeing? Because you are the one that when we get a child that has concerns, you're the one that kind of does that initial informal reading assessment. Can you share with us some areas that you're seeing kids just struggling with?

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Yes. Um, when kids, you know, I just see struggling readers. So I see good readers in my own family, but I see struggling readers here. And I think the number one thing is kids just don't trust what words do. Um, reading is a big mystery to them because sometimes a word, a vowel is long, sometimes it's short. And reading is very sequential. If we teach the most basic common things and then build skill upon skill upon skill, they can trust what they know. But children know so much. Maybe a lesson was presented and they got a part of that lesson and they didn't practice it, and then another lesson was presented and they got a part of that. They can't put it all together. It's a mystery. So a struggling reader has a hard time keeping up with the instruction pace in the classroom. And even in an intervention classroom, um, repetition is so important for kids. Um, struggling readers need to have 14 to 40 repetitions to learn a skill.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

A learning disabled or dissected child needs 40 to 200 to learn a skill. So that amount of practice that's happening, that's why kids are struggling. The pace is the curriculum is wide and the pace is fast. Um I think that children need to be taught the most basic things first, and then skill, sequential upon skill upon skill upon skill, is really important. Another thing I see that I think is really important is children are not uh writing with any competence. They're not even making their letters correctly. And I think letter formation is so important because reading and writing are linked hand in hand. The if you can read it, you can write it. And I think that's a neglected skill. So I see kids just thinking that reading is a mystery, it's hard, they hate it.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Um Yeah. Okay, so I want to back up you said a couple things that I think are so interesting. Um, one, you talked about kind of learning those basic skills in order. If I'm a listener and I have no idea what that means, um, can you talk a little bit about learning the letters and the letter sounds and rhyming and all of that?

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Letters all make sounds. Okay. It's important to know what a letter makes, and you want to know the most common sounds. So a G says g. Don't worry about it saying ju. We teach that later. Vowels learn the short vowel sounds first. And once you have some consonants, which is any letter that's not a vowel, and some vowels, you can write. You can write any word. Tag, dog, cat. You can put words together to read if you learn those common short sounds first. And also kids need to learn some red words or sight words, because you can't read a book without a few tricky words. R, um, when. Those words said, they need to be learned. So we start our instruction with learning about letters and sounds and putting them together and writing them, but we also teach a couple of sight words with each lesson so that books can be read, little decodable readers that go with our um is instruction.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Okay. What about like once they kind of get that and start making those basic skills some success? I feel like we have a lot of the older children that when they're reading their vocabulary, they don't even know what the words mean. And I feel like as parents, we could that's conversation, explaining what I hear some of our tutors all day long ask kids what words mean, and they sometimes are close, but they don't quite understand vocabulary.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

When we teach children, we teach them how to decode words, big words like alfresco.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

That gives us an opportunity to talk about what that word means. Because a beginning reader does not have books that will grow their vocabulary. And so we need to enrich vocabulary in any way that we can. So we talk about words all the time. Children have a talking vocabulary, but children should have a higher vocabulary. But if you're not reading widely and across a variety of topics, you're not going to develop your vocabulary. So one of the best things that a parent can do is read a book that's just a little bit higher than your child and that has some good vocabulary and take time to talk about it. Yeah, that's it. Um have conversations and across the dinner table or on the way home, and have conversations that include looking at and talking about big vocabulary words. Do you want to eat dine al fresco tonight? Yes. So things like that can really help grow a vocabulary. It just doesn't happen without some emphasis on reading or listening or talking.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Let me ask you this. If I'm a parent listening to this and I'm sitting here going, well, he goes, my child goes to school, won't the school teach all that? Is it enough? If you have a really good solid teacher and that teacher is teaching all the right things, is just that enough, or do you have to do things at home?

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Well, to learn a word, you have to interact with it four to fourteen times. I mean, okay. Yeah, you have to interact with vocabulary. So that's why a shared reading response or even a shared movie that you can talk about later um and bring out some vocabulary turns, that's really important. It's it's really important to be deliberate about acquisition of vocabulary. Sometimes the word of the day is really fun.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah. So if I was sitting here going, okay, well, I want to build a strong reader, I want to do that, where do they start?

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Well, it starts at birth.

unknown 12:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

You talk to your child constantly. You you talk to your child, you sing to your child, you do hand motions with nursery rhymes, you read signs, you just talk, talk, talk. But readers, when you're actually the act of actually learning how to read, they just need to be taught in a systematic, sequimal way, from the most common word patterns to the least common. They need to develop instruction and practice so they can trust how words work, so they know how syllables divide. First of all, do they know us what a syllable is? Do they know syllable parts? And when a consonant says it's soft sound or it's hard sound, when long vowels, when they get to talk, all these things are taught. Um, one of the things that we do here is how we teach kids how to decode words. And it's kind of a little formula that we use with symbols, and there are four syllable types, and we call it the superpower because once you can decode a word, you can read anything. And as a child is reading, I'll say, and they they come to a word they don't know, but I know they know the pattern. I'll say, just lift that word off the page, write it on another piece of paper, and decode it, and they can read it. They know whether syllables are open or closed, and it's just um amazing to see the development, but it's like it gives them an anchor or something to to to rely on when things get tricky. Um, children, we teach with a lot of modalities. We use sand, we use bumpy paper, we use lots of repetition. So all those things can happen at home with the kinds of things that you know your child can handle. Um they need to practice what they're learning in order to move to the next skill. We uh kids have a toolbox and they've gotten lots of skills at school, but they need to know when to use those tools and how it works, and that's what a real consistent sequential program lets them trust what they know. Um my coworkers and I talk about something that happens with early readers as they they're learning, they're learning, they're learning, and then all of a sudden there's a click, and not everything has to be taught. It begins to click. So that's our goal with the struggling readers to get them enough knowledge that it begins to click.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Okay. So you are the one I mentioned earlier that you do our informal reading assessments. When a child comes in and you are assessing their reading, what are you looking for?

SPEAKER_02 15:26

This is kind of actually, I'm not really looking for anything, I'm looking for what they're missing. Ah, good. Okay. I'm looking for holes, I'm looking for a starting point for our tutors to begin. So I'm seeing, you know, the journey. What do they know? What do they not know? Do they know the phone phonemes? Do they know all the sounds? Do they know what vowels do? Um, and do they have some sight word knowledge? That's what we're looking for, because we have to have a starting point for our tutors to begin to build them. Um, I also look at spelling to see how they sound sequence the letters and words. And um, another thing that I really pay attention to is language. Can they speak in a sentence? Yeah, can they communicate something clearly or are they just talking in short one-word phrases? Um, can they talk to me?

SPEAKER_01 16:15

I love that. Okay, because language is such a big piece of it. Um, and we don't realize how important like the vocabulary and talking and just just reading and letting them hear all that language is so important. Um, talk to me about, I've heard you say this as I walk through that room and you were working one-on-one with children. I've heard you say this probably a hundred times, but what are you thinking about? Like, how do you make a child? I feel like once the children click and start thinking about what they're reading, they become successful readers. I want our parents to challenge their children to become thinkers, what they're reading and think about what they're reading. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_02 16:54

I always say that reading is thinking, and there always was a big sign in my classroom that said, Are you thinking? I love that. Because if you're not thinking while you're reading, you're just saying words. Right. Decoding is the heavy lifting for young readers, for beginning readers. Um, they are working so hard at what each word says that that's really tricky in the beginning, but it still can happen. Um, but for really teaching children how to think, reading aloud and modeling your thinking is such a big learning tool. Um, if you share a chapter book or you share a book with your child, just talking about the characters, talking about why do you think he did that? It didn't say that, but you're thinking, you're challenging the child to go outside the book, use their own life experiences, what they know about people, and make some connections. And it teaches that we're not just reading the words on a page, but we're interacting with the words. Um, we want children to think deeply. And literal questions don't do that. The who, what, when, where, why. They're important, but they don't teach kids to think deeply. Um, I've noticed that in the readers that we use, our very beginning readers, they even have some very good inferential questions. Why are the men smiling? And that's really it's it's a very simple book. The the guy hit a hole in one or something in a golf. But he's smiling because he's happy. But for a child to voice that, sometimes they think, well, it didn't say that, so should I say it? So that's really important that that kids begin to think that they have important answers that come from inside their head and they're smart and they can they can make connections. Um for inferential thinking, which is kind of the one of the uh more advanced ways of thinking, you use your background knowledge, what have you experienced, and what did the text say? And you put them together and you make an inference. And so teaching kids to do that is very valuable.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Having discussions about books is such a good way to teach thinking. Have you ever had an a discussion with someone and you got home and you thought about what you said and you wanted to say more and you wished you could? That's what discussions do. They make you think internally. You may not have said it, but you're gonna go back and think about it. So you become a a wiser reader as you discuss things.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

I love it. I think we don't realize how important the thinking piece is. And as parents, we just kind of we want them to have success, so we just keep kind of pushing them, but it's really about kind of slowing down and making their brain think about what they're reading, and that's gonna impact them more and be more confident. And what I love about it is I've heard you say it so many times. Um, every kid thinks differently. And so their answers are different, which is good. That's the way it should be. Um, but it's making them kind of jump into that.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

And also realizing that there's not a right or wrong answer all the time. Yes, it's not black or white.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

I'm thinking. Yes, I love that. I love that. Um, okay, let's talk about reading with expression. So I love this, and this question I love because I have seen the children come to you and it's they're like almost sound like a robot. Like it is just sounding out kind of this robotic reading. And then as you get them to think and you get them to really kind of fall in love with reading, I have heard them, like I love it. There's times I when I walk through the room, I stop and listen because they're reading with excitement and emotion, and they'll even change the tone of their voice. And I mean, how do you teach that?

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Well, it it's it's an ongoing skill. Uh, we call that reading with prosody or it's appropriate expression and tone. Um, one of the good examples is um listen to this. Let's eat, grandma. Let's eat grandma. So the way I said that has two different meanings. So as a child reads, they need to construct the correct meaning through their phrasing, through their prosody, for the through the way that they read the sentence. And that doesn't always come easy for kids. Yeah. We start by like um just kind of coaching it, you know, and then sometimes we draw under the lines, we scoop the sentence parts, maybe the noun part, the verb part, the predicate part, and teach them to scoop it so they know how what words to put together. Um, it takes a lot of practice. Fluency does not come naturally. Yeah, fluency does not mean reading fast, it means reading with a comfortable pace that helps you comprehend what you're reading. And repetition, again, is very, very important. Statistics show that repeated readings improve reading.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Awesome. I think that's good for our listeners to know because I feel like they think they have to constantly get something new into their brain, but sometimes just repeating what you read the night before is okay. So let me ask you this if my kid is not reading with expression as an adult, if I read with the expression, does that help them?

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Absolutely, modeling that. Yeah. Paying attention to commas, question marks, exclamation marks. I tell kids sometimes I want you to take this book and I want you to sit on your bed and I want you to line up your stuffed animals and I want you to practice reading to them. You be the teacher. Yeah. And sometimes when just give the kids the privacy of trying that on their own, that unlocks something in them, and they love that.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

I love that too. We talked um a little bit about vocabulary. I kind of already brought that up. I just know it's a really big factor. Anything you want to add with that?

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Well, I want to say that without reading wildly, your vocabulary will be lacking. Um, a reader who's struggling, he's not growing an active vocabulary. It just doesn't happen. If you're not interacting with words, it's not happening. Um so I think it's important to, you know, read books a little bit higher than your child reads to grow your vocabulary organically. Um I think you need to build background knowledge because that builds vocabulary in different areas that you are thinking about. If your child is really into snakes, get a lot of books about snakes and learn what anti-venom means and learn what um different snake terms mean. That's growing background knowledge, it's growing vocabulary. Um just don't be satisfied with the talking vocabulary.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

There's some of those children's books. Uh, my granddaughter loves fancy Nancy. Yeah. There's all kinds of fancy words in it, but I like it. I get it. I understand why.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Yeah, it's interesting. I remember learning um in some of my coursework that you could take two adults that have a bachelor's degree and have a conversation, or you could read children's books, and children's books has more vocabulary than that adult conversation. They're just written so rich with great language and great vocabulary.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

And I think something is important as a parent is just saying, I love the way you use that vocabulary word. Talk about it, make it be something that, oh my gosh, I'm gonna try that again because mom noticed that, dad noticed that.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Yeah, I love that. So in the busyness world that we live in, because it is busy, how do we get more kids to be holding books and reading them? I just saw um some new research that came out that is is we are not no one's reading as much as we used to. Um, probably due to screen time. It's easier to watch a video than read a book. But we also know that kids have to be reading more. So, do you have any encouragement for that?

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Well, I think that what we do with the books that we do have is more important than the number of books that we have. Okay. Rereading books is really um a great thing to do because then you develop storylines, you understand characters, you're you can have conversations about this book is like this book. Of course, the library, there's a variety of books, and the library is full of books. But um if if you reread several books or your child has a genre they like, that's really building uh a really good base. I often have parents ask me, I I want a list of books that my kid would like. Yes. And I can't generate that list because uh you know your child better than anyone else. Yeah. So you can go to the library and you can try out uh ten books, and if they like three of them, that's a great thing to do. If you like if your child liked one book, you can find another book like that book. Yeah. And reading a series is awesome. You don't give up. It's hard. It's hard to hook kids into books. I get it. It's very hard, it's very difficult, but it's an expectation that we can't go away from. I think a nightly reading habit is so important in families that's gonna grow that vocabulary, it's gonna grow the thinking skills, it's gonna grow your background knowledge, all of it. So um, you know, adult readers are always looking for the next book. Yeah. We want to build that in kids. I love that. We want to build that in kids. I agree, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

We even had a mom that she loves to read and she has um all of her books on her Kindle. And she said, one day I was reading and I realized that my kid thought I was just staring at a screen. And so she said, I started getting out the books because I want them to see me actually reading a book. So a lot of it's by example, too, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Exactly, exactly, exactly. Um, and if your child doesn't like one book, try another.

unknown 25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

There are so many books out there.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Make a treat going to the bookstore and just spending a lot of time there and pulling out books and looking at books.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Yeah, there's something about the library. My kids always love to go to the library. They had their own bag, they filled up their books, they would go home and look and look and look through them and read them. And um, kids, they love books, but we just have to keep encouraging them to put the screen down and get a book in their hand. Um, okay, well, anything you want to share about that, um, the whole reading piece. Do you want to talk a little bit about building readers?

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Well, I want to say something about reading. I want everyone to know that reading is really hard for some people. Yes. Our brains were not wired to learn to read by themselves. Yes. So if your child is struggling, don't give up. All children can read. I don't care what label a child has when they come, if they're dyslexic or they're learning disabled, or they have auditory processing, they can learn to read. It just is the same technique, it just takes time and reputation.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Yeah, and we went through that training where it just talked about how it's a pattern of connecting those neurons. And you have to just keep doing it and doing it and doing it until those neurons get connected.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

So there's so many different areas of the brain involved with reading.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Yes. Yeah. So, and that we have proof of that. I have given you a couple really, really tough kids, and you're like, Kendra, and I have just said, I know we have to help them, and I know they can learn to read, and they have, we have seen it. Um, but it's not easy, it takes a lot of work.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

I'll I'll tell you a little bit about our program. It's um, it's pretty amazing what it has evolved to. We are working with kids all different levels, all different ages, and we have a starting point, and we have an excellent curriculum that is um multi-sensory. Um, we have excellent materials, we can send home enough practice to make progress, and we see readers make incredible gains. Yeah. God is a big part of this. Agreed. But our kids move forward and they become more confident. I had a little boy tell me yesterday he went back to school, and he told me I started at the beginning of the summer with him, very low, going to the third grade, and he told me, You made school so much easier for me.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

And it happens again and again and again. We can make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

He told me, he said, I love Miss Jean, and I said, You do. And he said, for the first time ever, I could follow along and I knew what was going on because he could read. And so it it makes a big difference for sure. It does. Yeah. Um, I love that. We could probably tell story after story. And here at Building All Children, we have a gold bell. And if you when you graduate from our reading program or you build development, we believe in celebrating hard work. And so the children ring the bell and we hoot and holler and scream and clap for them. Um, and I every time I feel like I'm wiping tears away from my face because we have taken a program that works, and we have built children to be strong readers, which are more confident, which are gonna just have more success in life. So I agree. And you have a great team. We have I do. We have a good, good, solid group of women that know what they're doing and do a fantastic job. Um, so building all children likes to wrap up with the Bible. We believe in the Bible, um, we know that it is truth. And so I'm gonna ask you to share um a scripture, but real far before we do that, I just want to encourage our listeners that if you have a child that's struggling and reading, um, to just go back and listen to this again. There's some practical tips and tools on how to how to do some of this. Um, but mainly it's more about you finding the time to just read and read and read and carve out time. And then the ones that need help, seek help. If you're not in this wholesale area, there's other check with the public schools, check with your school that you're going to. And there's a lot of people that can help. And so if you need help, then try to find some help. It's okay to get them help because we want them to be successful readers. Okay, scripture. What scripture did you bring?

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Well, because reading is so hard for the kids that I'm helping with, they are all struggling. It's the most difficult thing in their life. I feel like they need to trust. And so Isaiah 40, 29, he gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless, and he does it again and again. We see that every session. Um, and we always graduate with Philippians 4 13. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I love that. And kids love that.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

I love it. Um, at the Building Readers program, you open up in prayer and you end in prayer. We do. And we love that. Um, and then at the very end, we let them ring that bell and we pray over them and we ask the Lord to carry them on and help them have success. So if you are listening to this and you have a child that is struggling to read, we first ask you to ask the Lord for guidance and ask the Lord for help. Um, he cares about your child. He actually cares about your child more than you do. Um, and he will put the right people in your child's life to help him become a successful reader. Gene, thank you. I'm gonna have you back because we have a lot more to share. And so I know you've got more wisdom than I can even imagine. So you will be back on this podcast because I want people to hear more from you. But thank you for sharing today.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

You're so welcome. This was wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Let us close with a word of prayer. Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for these children in our lives. Thank you for all the resources you have placed in our life to help us rise up and build. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the Rise and Build Podcast, brought to you by Building All Children, a child development program in Tulsa, Oklahoma. To learn more about Building All Children or the Rise and Build Podcast, please visit buildingallchildren.org. This podcast is crowdfunded. We appreciate our sponsors and the donations given by our listeners. Come with us as we rise and build.