Nearly two-thirds of all U.S. children cannot read on grade level*. For many of them, reading is a laborious and frustrating experience that causes them to feel bad about themselves. It is little wonder they do not voluntarily visit libraries.
We want to help you make your library more appealing and helpful to these kids.
Imagine that underneath the visible surface of every online word there lies a “support net”. Students never even see it unless they stumble on a word. But, if they do stumble, it immediately becomes visible and ready to help with them with anything they might need to be able to read and understand the word.
If they don’t recognize the word, they can instantly engage an interactive “sounding-out” that teaches them how the letters they see spell the sounds that they hear.
| We call this the “Online Learning Support Net” or OLSN for short. Students can learn to use it on their own in just minutes. By following a few simple steps, it improves their reading by helping them learn to recognize and understand any unfamiliar word they encounter. |
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Try it now, click on any word on this page and click it again so can you hear the word sounded-out.
The Online Learning Support Net, OLSN, is NOT a complicated human-led or computer-based ‘course’ of reading instruction. Instead, OLSN turns every single word, on virtually every page of the internet, into its own reading tutor and reference support system. Rather than learners having to remember and apply abstract rules to work-out unfamiliar words, OLSN provides visible and audible pronunciation cues, animated sound-outs, definitions, synonyms, and multiple translations – and it does so instantly on-demand, during the real-time flow of reading. Rather than learners having to risk the public embarrassment of asking others for help, OLSN is private.
The only thing learners need to learn to do is to click or touch every word they don’t know and keep clicking it until they do. By this simple process, decoding, vocabulary, and background knowledge are compensated for through the very same process through which they are being highly efficiently facilitated. By this simple process, each unknown word becomes a confidence imbuing environment for improving reading. It’s inevitably the way of the future.
OLSN is a free system provided by Learning Stewards, a 501c3 non-profit organization. OLSN is built into hundreds of free stories, lessons, and eBooks available in the Magic Ladder Library.
OLSN can be easily added to Google’s Chrome browser to make virtually every page on the internet provide OLSN support. Click here for more information about using OLSN with Chrome.
OLSN can be easily added to library and other websites to provide all visitors with OLSN support. Click here for more information about adding OLSN to websites.
Because Learning Stewards is a non-profit organization, OLSN is free for personal, family, public school, and public library use. It is available for many other uses for a modest cost plus license fee.
Please try these tools and experience for yourself how easy they are to use, and how powerfully they address the needs of so many children and adults. They are ad-free and spyware-free. Please use them to help adults and children better benefit from your library while they improve their school and life futures!
Together we have a unique and historic opportunity to expand the relevancy and utility of libraries, while helping a great number of children and adults improve their lives.
We are here to support you. If we can be of any assistance in getting your library started using OLSN, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Please share these resources with your friends and colleagues!
If you’d like to receive more information about OLSN, please click here.
You can find out more about the Magic Ladder by visiting these pages:
Magic Ladder Stewards Page – About the Magic Ladder
