Instructor’s Training Course
As outlined on our page, The Reading Crisis, American schools are doing a terrible job of teaching our children to read. As a result, the number of parents who are taking back control of their children’s education is skyrocketing.
Released data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that during the years 2003-2012, the number of American children between ages 5 to 17 who are homeschooled has risen 61.8 percent. In 2003 1,096,000 school-aged children were homeschooled in the U.S., representing 2.2 percent of the total number of students in that age range that year. In 2012, the number homeschooled was 1,773,000, or 3.4 percent of elementary and secondary school-aged children that year. The increase in the number of children homeschooled between 2003 and 2012 is 677,000—or 61.8 percent.
According to the August 21, 2017 issue of A2Z Homeschooling.com, each year since the release of the Department of Education data, the number of homeschoolers has steadily increased. Johns Hopkins School of Education reports that in the 2024-2025 school year, homeschooling continued to grow across the United States, increasing at an average rate of 4.9%. This is nearly three times the pre-pandemic homeschooling growth rate of around 2%. Notably, 36% of reporting states recorded their highest homeschool enrollment numbers ever — exceeding even the peaks reached during the pandemic. Clearly, American parents have spoken.
The most important skill that parents are now teaching is reading. Towards this end, parents are looking for the most proficient methods to create proficient readers. There are lots of reading programs out there. Some have very attractive packaging that will pull on your heartstrings. Yet, the majority of these reading programs are way off target. The result: they’re just taking your money. You spend a small fortune, and you’re still in a bad spot.
At Cardinal Reading Strategies, LLC, we teach decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) forensically. We strictly adhere to the findings of The National Reading Panel, that 14-member panel of reading researchers and experts who studied over 100,000 reading programs and methodologies. And whose members included Dr. Sally Shaywitz of Yale University. (Yes, that Yale.) While school administrators continue to sleep at the wheel, and book publishers turn a deaf ear, Cardinal Reading Strategies offers the evidence-based reading instruction that the National Reading Panel prescribes. Our reading instruction is multi-sensory, explicit, and diagnostic-prescriptive. And now our training is available to dedicated parents who wish to provide evidence-based reading instruction to their own children.
The Instructor’s Training Course Overview
The primary objective of Cardinal Reading Strategies’ training course, The English Code Language Training System, is to provide parents, reading tutors, and teachers with goals and structure that will meet the needs of students requiring either primary instruction or remediation in the reading (decoding) and spelling (encoding) of the English language. This course provides a systematic and forensic approach to mastering the English language and a solid foundation for reading, writing, and spelling skills for students who are struggling with language acquisition. With this forensic approach, students can be shown the phonetic nature of the English language and the proper structure of the written language.
This course was specifically designed for use by dedicated parents in home school environments, as well as, by Educational Specialists, Language Specialists, and mainstream or special needs English Departments. If a departmental approach is used, it is recommended that the department nominate one individual who has reached the level of “Endorsed” in The English Code Language Training System’s Orton-Gillingham approach, to evaluate the appropriateness of its application and to make determinations concerning it continued usage.
The complete language training system has been organized to provide fluidity of information to ensure success. Concepts that build upon other concepts have been placed accordingly. While some of the presentations may seem repetitious, this commonly utilized method enhances the students’ exposure to foreign concepts and fosters mastery.
Throughout this course, I am aware that I have included information that crosses the line into the arena of speech pathology. I do this in order to familiarize those who have not had the exposure to speech pathology that I have received over my twenty-seven year career. The information that I have gained over this period of time has served to strengthen my grasp of the articulation process and its inseparable relationship to phonemic awareness. To pass this information on to struggling students so that they may receive the full benefit of language remediation, parents, tutors, and teachers themselves must become familiar with the process of articulation and its inseparable relationship to phonemic awareness. The phonemic details that permeate this course will serve as this resource.
As you progress through this course, you will find that, in our system, there are no cute little animals, funny faces, or anything else to distract the student from the task at hand. This curriculum is not designed to entertain. In its purest form, I seek to explicitly and systematically teach the intrinsic relationship between sounds and the symbols that represent them in the English code.
As we proceed with our language remediation training, remember the French novelist, Marcel Proust, who wrote:
“The real voyage of discovery
consists not in seeking new landscapes…
…but in having new eyes.”
Let us help you develop your “new eyes”.
COURSE FORMAT
Participants must complete approximately 200+ hours of coursework and practicum to complete the course and receive full endorsement from Cardinal Reading Strategies, LLC in The English Code Language Training System. Regular homework assignments will be given. Participants must complete approximately 20 hours of pre-course preparation after registration for the course. A certificate will be issued upon successful completion of the training course and submission of a criminal record check. Successful completion of the training course will allow participants to provide highly effective one-on-one academic language therapy.
Training Course Requisites
39 Hours of Course Work (3 course hours per week for thirteen weeks)
60+ Hours of Course Reading (See Course Syllabus – Written Summaries Required)
20+ Hours of Self-Application (Homework)
Completion of 100 hours practicum using The English Code Language Training System
5 online observations ($50.00 per observation)
Course Costs
$2950
Attendance
Course participants are required to arrive at all sessions on time. If participants are more than fifteen (15) minutes to a scheduled session without prior notification, the instructor reserves the right to cancel the session. Participants will not be given a make-up session.
Enrollment
Course participants must enroll in the online course. Course application may be found here. The completed application may be scanned and emailed to drwed@cardinalreading.com.
The only requirements for success in our training course are dedication, determination, and a desire to teach everyone how to read—enough of the gatekeeping.
Each participant is provided with the materials that are required for successful reading instruction. Download the complete English Code Language Training Tool Kit, here, to see the comprehensive list of materials that are included in the price of the course, and the kit will be delivered at the very beginning of the course. The course contents may be downloaded, here.
Technology Requirements
Touchscreen laptop with a full operating system
Webcam
Broadband Internet Access
ActivInspire (Personal Edition is free of charge)