About Me
My name is Sarah Porter. I live in Colorado Springs with my husband and daughter. I graduated from Southern Nazarene University with a bachelor’s in Christian education and have worked in the field of Early Childhood Education for over 15 years, and I have been a homeschool mom for the past 5 years. My homeschool journey taught me that there are so many children out there struggling to learn to read and so many families wonder how they can help their child succeed. My child’s struggles led us to Take Flight, a curriculum designed for teaching students with dyslexia and other reading difficulties how to read. This changed everything for us! Once I learned about Take Flight, I couldn’t keep the Good News to myself. I started a specialized training course in Take flight and am working towards becoming a Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT). I started Good News Reading Center in 2024 with the goal of helping young readers learn to love reading. If you know a struggling reader, I am accepting new students!
My Story
My journey began like many parents. My child was struggling to understand how to translate the letter names and sounds into meaningful words. She didn’t understand that the letter sounds could come together to form words she could read and comprehend. She started Kindergarten in 2020 during the height of Covid-19. We had chosen to do a homeschool hybrid with a local charter school. She loved going to school, but between being out for suspected illnesses and the school closing because of Covid outbreaks it was hard to tell if she was on track or not. I never really got to speak to her teacher, but all the feedback I got was that she was a delight. The following year, school began to look a little more normal and I was able to talk to her teacher more often. I noticed she was struggling more and more to complete the very small number of assignments from school and her teacher said, “I can tell she’s trying so hard to do what I want but doesn’t really seem to understand.” My child was starting to realize she couldn’t do what her peers were doing, and I realized there was no way she could complete the assignments the teacher was giving her, so we decided to pull her and start homeschooling exclusively.
On the recommendation of her teacher, we took her to a psychiatrist for an evaluation and discovered that she had severe dyslexia. While we were disappointed that she had to suffer from this condition, I can’t tell you how relieved I was that there was a reason that learning to read was such a struggle, and it wasn’t me!
We connected with a local Take Flight reading therapist and began regular therapy with her. My child went from not being able to read at all, to just passing a 4th grade reading test with a 99% accuracy at 102 words per minute. My husband and I love to read and are thrilled with the progress we have seen our child make. She has started choosing to read, FOR FUN!
My goal is to help your child become a confident reader who loves discovering all the new worlds books can open for them.