See immediate improvement in reading confidence with the phonics-based literacy program from Toe by Toe
The Toe by Toe literacy program has already helped over half a million struggling readers to unlock their potential.
Made up of three manuals, the foundation of the literacy program is the highly structured and synthetic phonics-based reading manual Toe by Toe. The manual helps readers to gradually build their decoding abilities using a unique and easy-to-use syllable division not generally seen in the teaching of reading. The Toe by Toe manual can be supplemented by Stride Ahead and Stareway to Spelling, designed to help learners improve reading skills, fluency, comprehension and spelling following completion of the little red Toe by Toe manual.
Regardless of the nature of a learner’s literacy challenges or the level of expertise of their support person, everyone can be taught to read using Toe by Toe for as little as twenty minutes each day.
The Toe by Toe teaching method was developed over twenty-five years of testing and refinement. It arose out of the needs of Keda Cowling, a Yorkshire teacher who dedicated her career to understanding why a significant proportion of the children in her classes struggled to pick up basic reading skills.
In the early stages of her research, Keda began to explore the role played by dyslexia. This fueled the meticulous development of a system for the teaching of reading that pared down the process to only the bare essentials necessary.
The bared-down approach makes Toe by Toe easy to use by parents or by teachers – you don’t need to be a trained educator to help a child read with the Toe by Toe teaching method.
Keda Cowling, creator of the Toe by Toe manual, was born in 1926 in West Yorkshire. Although forced to leave school early for financial reasons, Keda maintained a love for school and her books. She never lost this passion or her burning desire to become a teacher, finally qualifying in 1968 at the age of 42. Despite this late start to her teaching career, she would develop methods that would change the lives of thousands of struggling readers worldwide.
Keda spent almost all her teaching career at one school – Sandal Road Primary School in Baildon, UK. After observing that some students’ reading difficulties persisted despite careful instruction, she began teaching students in her home after school each day. Though a relatively unknown term at the time, dyslexia fascinated Keda and she began to conduct her own research, which became the basis of Toe by Toe. Over the ensuing decades, Toe by Toe became the fully functioning system it is today.
Keda retired as a teacher at her primary school in 1989. She used her teacher’s pension to finance Toe by Toe, and it was finally published in 1994. It has become a phenomenal success. Since publication, Toe by Toe has sold more than 500,000 copies, helping hundreds of thousands of people to overcome their reading difficulties and as a result, dramatically change and improve their lives.
Frank and Kelsey Cowling, Keda Cowling’s sons, collaborated with Keda in producing her other published books – Stride Ahead and Stareway to Spelling.
Frank and Kelsey both have considerable teaching experience, both overseas and in the UK. As well as managing the business, they also continue to teach Toe by Toe, Stride Ahead and Stareway to Spelling in the very same home that Keda opened the doors to her first students more than 45 years ago.
