It’s been a labour of love getting Readahead going.

My Uncle, a school teacher in the UK designed this fantastic reading system many years ago now.  About 10 years ago he asked if I could design some software to demonstrate it and help teach the system to not only children, but anyone with reading difficulties or learning English as a second language.

With some basic rules:

  • Red letters = the name of the letter ( ‘a’ as in ‘page’)
  • Black letters = the sound of the letter (‘a’ as in ‘apple’)
  • Blue letters are silent

You can have non readers reading words like as simple as name and difficult as e’pit’o‘me and everything in between in a matter of minutes.

There are some easy to remember symbols for letter combinations like ‘sh’ and ‘ng’ and ‘th’ etc.

The Readahead software provides a really nice interface for learning these rules and practicing your reading.

Despite having a publishing arrangement with a distributor for a year or so, not much came of the software, which is a shame.  I’d be interested in hearing what you think about it.

Click here for a demonstration in your browser.  (Requires Java)