A Teacher’s Recommendation for Children Struggling with Reading
For educators working with students who struggle to read, finding the right program can feel like searching for a lifeline. Many students face persistent challenges despite years of intervention, leaving both teachers and children frustrated. This is where the Nardagani Reading Program has made a remarkable difference.
Beth Zuschlag, a literacy specialist at Anser Charter School in Garden City, Idaho, works with students who have been diagnosed with a reading disability and qualify for an Individual Education Program (IEP). Her experience with Nardagani highlights why this program is not just another curriculum—it’s a tool that transforms reading challenges into tangible successes.
A Fresh Approach to Reading
Beth has worked with numerous programs designed to help struggling readers. Many of these programs rely heavily on memorization, repetitive drills, and simplified phonics patterns. While helpful in some contexts, they often leave students disengaged or unable to progress beyond basic reading skills.
Beth Zuschlag explains:
“Many of the students that I work with, of course, are challenged readers. They have been struggling and striving for years, some of them, and they have tried many other different programs, and I have tried other programs with them—to limited success sometimes.”
What sets Nardagani apart, Beth notes, is its symbol-based system, which allows students to connect the visual symbols with the corresponding sounds. This connection enables children to decode complex words confidently, without the guesswork or frustration that often accompanies traditional phonics programs.
Imagine a student staring at a challenging word for the first time. Instead of guessing or stumbling, the Nardagani symbols guide them step by step, building confidence and reinforcing understanding. This immediate success, even on complex words, gives students a sense of accomplishment—something many struggling readers rarely experience.
Beth continues:
“The Nardagani approach is effective in that it offers a different way. It’s not just memorizing and learning different phonics patterns. It has those symbols that allows the students to make a connection between what the symbol is telling them and how to pronounce and the letters. By doing that it allows them to read words that are more complex, words that are more challenging, and then they feel like they have really accomplished something, which they have.”
Implementing Nardagani in Schools
One of the questions many educators ask is whether Nardagani can realistically be implemented in a classroom setting. Beth’s perspective emphasizes its simplicity, efficiency, and impact.
Beth advises:
“If a school took on the Nardagani program, and implemented their five-week program, I think it could be a huge benefit. It’s five weeks, as so it’s not as time consuming or labor intensive as some of the other programs are. To have multiple resources, and having yet another tool, in your toolbox, has been shown to be very effective.”
A five-week program may seem short compared to other literacy interventions, but Nardagani’s unique methodology ensures that students make rapid progress. Schools can integrate the program without overwhelming teachers or students, while providing measurable outcomes. The program’s design also makes it engaging: games, interactive exercises, and structured reading exercises make the learning process enjoyable, fostering a love of reading alongside skill-building.
Beth adds:
“Nardagani is also fun to implement. The kids enjoy the games, the success they see with it, and I think it would be a real positive thing for schools.”
Why Nardagani Outperforms Other Programs
Traditional reading programs often start students with simplified stories, limited sentence structures, or abstract phonics exercises. While these approaches are structured, they sometimes fail to give students the sense of “real reading.” Nardagani, by contrast, allows learners to jump directly into meaningful text.
Beth explains:
“Even though the Nardagani course is very short, it ends up being more effective than some of the other courses, because the students can jump into reading right away. They can jump into their stories right away.
When it comes to other sorts of programs, those stories are very short, their sentence structure is very simple, there is not a lot of complexity, and just feels like it’s not real reading. However, with the Nardagani method, they can just jump in, they can read, and they are successful.”
This immediate success has a compounding effect: students gain confidence, motivation, and a desire to read more. What begins as simple decoding turns into fluent reading, expanded vocabulary, and improved comprehension—all within a short time frame.
Success Stories in the Classroom
Beth has shared Nardagani with other teachers, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Teachers appreciate how easy the program is to implement, the structured methodology, and the results it produces.
Beth shares:
“I have talked up the Nardagani program to many other teachers, because I think it’s a really easy program to use and it’s one that works. Whenever I talk to other teachers about the struggles they are having, trying to reach striving learners and striving readers, I always bring up the Nardagani mentor because it works.”
Across classrooms, struggling readers often enter school feeling left behind. With Nardagani, teachers can witness tangible progress in just a few lessons. Students start reading words they previously avoided, gain confidence in pronunciation, and begin enjoying reading for the first time. The program’s combination of structure, symbols, and interactive exercises turns reading from a challenge into a rewarding experience.
Beth concludes:
“The cool thing about Nardagani is that the kids love it and they are successful.”
Why This Matters
The experiences Beth shares illustrate a broader trend: students of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds can benefit from a method that makes reading intuitive and engaging. Literacy specialists, classroom teachers, and ESL instructors alike have found that Nardagani provides a reliable, repeatable way to help challenged readers succeed.
For schools, this means more than just improved test scores—it means building confidence, fostering a love of reading, and giving teachers a practical, effective tool in their literacy toolkit.
Conclusion
Struggling readers need programs that offer clarity, structure, and engagement—and the Nardagani Reading Program delivers. Teachers like Beth Zuschlag demonstrate that with the right tools, students can make rapid, meaningful progress. From IEP classrooms to ESL instruction to general education settings, Nardagani provides a pathway for students to learn to read, develop confidence, and embrace lifelong literacy.
For educators seeking a proven method that transforms reading instruction, the recommendation is clear: Nardagani works.
