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Totally Literate

Totally Literate is an English Literacy Program, designed for students worldwide. The younger the student, the more guidance he or she will require. Over time, however, students will require far less guidance. For older or more advanced students, who are already literate in another language, our numerous products may be self-taught.

Beyond teaching reading comprehension, Totally Literate develops literary appreciation and a full spectrum of literacy skills.

Totally Literate is designed for a wide range of students:  preschoolers and even toddlers, schoolchildren in early elementary school, remedial students in middle school and high school, students with learning disabilities, fast and not-so-fast learners, mature adults who desire to become more than merely functionally literate, foreign speakers who want to learn English so well as to discourse in it easily, and high school and college students who, regardless of their mother tongue, want to excel in one or more additional languages.

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Having a seamless audiovisual interface, Microsoft Edge is the only fully compatible browser for our website. No other browser, including Chrome, Firefox, or Opera will suffice. 

 

Classical music is provided to facilitate reading and enhance enjoyment. The five media players in the header play continuously as you surf from page to page. However, the media players found on the various pages stop playing when you leave one page to go to another.

An "A" Student

The Red Well-Read Reader

TRWRR cover

The Red Well-Read Reader (TRWRR) is the nexus of our Totally Literate Program. Its main part is comprised of 361 short stories, each story typically containing just a single rhyme. All together, the stories systematically cover the entire phonetic makeup of the English language. These pithy stories, besides being inherently humorous, are in part decidedly highbrow, if you will. This keeps the brightest students from ever getting bored and spares adults from being talked down to. Moreover, owing to the stories' unvarying simplicity of decoding (that is, reading irrespective of comprehension), they never overwhelm slow learners and make them become dejected and quit trying to read altogether!

Lullabies & Rhymes / Phonics
Printing & Cursive / Vocab
Decoding / Comprehension
PP & CC / Lit. Appreciation
AIWG / Languages
Girl absorbed in a book while lying in the mouth of a crockodile
Cartoon Character intensely reading a book while walking hurriedly
Young Man (cartoon character) writing with a Feather Pen
2B Banner

"Smiles and/or laughs guaranteed on every page."

A tiger on the prowl

1. Not only do lullabies and nursery rhymes develop rhythmic speech patterns, but they are also delightful to everyone, from babies in cribs to centenarians in rocking chairs! 

Nursery Rhymes

The world is a jungle to the unread!

Slides

Anti-Illiteracy War College

Cartoon Drawing of Anti-illiteracy War College Buildings
Anti-illiteracy War College

Especially for:

Special Needs Students

Diligent Students of Any Age

Foreign Speakers

and above all

Bright Kids Who Are
Destined to Become Independent, Critical Thinkers

Woman cartoon character welcoming Totally Literate visitors.
Brendon & Brighid McGann
Woman caricature waving

Developing Perspicacious Minds
for
All-Out Guerilla Warfare on Illiteracy


Pronunciation

Aids to pronounce words correctly

Lullabies/Nursery Rhymes

Develops a love for language

Printing and Cursive Exercises

Develops reading ability too

Classics

Phonics

Stories for all age levels
Covers all phonemes of Eng. lang.

Anti-Illiteracy War Games

Vocabulary

All docs develop vocab
10 fun games

Modes

Polylingualism

Desktops/Smartphones
Learn other Languages

Read Aloud

Nearly every doc is audible

OUR FOCUS and INTENT:

To Help Young Scholars from 5 to 105 Years of Age Become Totally Literate.

 

Our Focus & Intent

To Nurture Very Young Students to Become Tomorrow's Leaders.

To Help Special Needs Students Overcome Their Handicaps or Handle Them More Effectively.

Monkey with hands held as if looking through binoculars

To Help Foreign Speakers Comprehend English and Be Readily Understood Speaking it.

To Teach Students the Subtleties of the Written & Spoken Word.

 

To Help Students Develop Diverse Literacy Skills & Acquire Literary Appreciation.

To Have Everyone Smile and/or Laugh with Every Turn of the Page.

To Help Students Learn with Their Heart 'n' Mind Entwined!

Cartoon character with finger pointing to his brain.

International Student Body

International Student Body
A Diverse group of multicultural happy smiling cartoon characters

1. Home Schoolers

  • First and foremost, Totally Literate is designed for children of dedicated parents who expect their little ones to rise to stellar heights.

​​

  • To maximize parental involvement, all Totally Literate products, particularly TRWRR, have been designed to be as much fun for parents as they are for children. Even Lullabies and Nursery Rhymes will delight parents. Parents may sing along while their babies and toddlers are lulled to sleep. 

 

2. Rank Beginning Readers

  • Totally Literate has several products that youngsters can use for months on end without formally being taught. Phonics Drills & Exercises will teach them to decode words. Printing and Cursive Exercises expressly develop manual dexterity while subtly developing emergent reading skill. And Play Onwards, which further increases phonics awareness, also expands vocabulary greatly as well as develops basic spelling skill.

 

3. First Graders & Above 

        Fast Learners

  • Because The Red Well-Read Reader stories are typically rather sophisticated in part―young students, even older ones―will not understand them implicitly. Yet, students will not fail to sense the ever-present, intrinsic humor. Thus, they should never get bored, even a bit.

 Typical Learners

  • Being that TRWRR stories normally have just one rhyme, the level of difficulty remains constant throughout the book. Thus, even slow learners will not feel overwhelmed and quit trying to learn to read altogether. Likewise, a mentally challenged student should have little difficulty proceeding from one story to the next.

 

4. Third and Fourth Graders & Above

  • TL has three products for students who already know how to read well but want to develop their ability in other literacy arts. One, Work on Words, a vocabulary builder designed particularly for youngsters, can actually help anyone―even professional writers, college professors, and mom and dad―hone his or her vocabulary skill. Two, some of Anti-Illiteracy War Games can help older elementary-school-age students build such literacy skills as writing and speech. And three, Classic Stories will nurture their literary appreciation. 

 

5. Special Needs Students

      Children with Dyslexia

  • Nearly every product in TL’s Anti-Illiteracy War arsenal that is designed for the general population is also helpful to students with dyslexia. In fact, virtually all of TL’s products are designed precisely as the Orton–Gillingham Method propounds.

 

      Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

  • TL’s many colored-charts, TRWRR’s stories, and a number of classic ones are helpful to special needs students. Perhaps the biggest help to ASD students is the Immersive Reader, whereon their interface they can see practically every noun and verb of any TRWRR story in picture form. 

 

6. Older Children & Adults in Literacy Programs 

  • Because TRWRR stories are well-suited for classroom settings having students of various ages and aptitudes, and because none of TL’s products ever talks down to students, middle school students to seniors will not feel embarrassed, belittled, or ashamed. Hence, TL and TRWRR can easily be incorporated into the curriculum of the following educational entities: Private & Public Schools, Literacy Councils, Jails and Prisons.

7. Specifically Spanish Speakers

  • TL has three products that are particularly helpful to Spanish speakers. Phonics Charts and Drills will aid them greatly with pronunciation and spelling. The Spanish-English PDFs on Edge allow them to easily compare the structure of the two languages as well as to grasp the humor of the English narrations. And three, each Spanish-English PDF allows them to listen to either language in a choice of several TTS voices.

8. Foreign Speakers in General

  • As with Hispanics and Spaniards, all other foreign speakers will benefit hugely from Phonics Charts and Drills, mainly with pronunciation. Moreover, Multilinguals (i.e., 361 TRWRR stories converted to myriad languages) help all students learn English, as well as any other language. In other words, besides helping foreign speakers learn English, the stories can help English speakers learn foreign languages. ​

Cartoon Character with Pen, Caption saying Pen is Mightier than the Sword
Ordnance & Armaments

Anti-Illiteracy Ordnance
and Armaments

Chartoon Character, holding his chest out and beaming with pride
  • PDFs: Text is read word by word, line by line, or paragraph by paragraph depending on context. Great for learning to read, decode, and pronounce words correctly.

  • English-Spanish Flipbook: All 361 TRWRR rhyming stories narrated in English. Stories and Transcriptions seen side by side.  A comprehension aid systematic covering of the entire phonemic makeup of the English language.

  • TRWRR Mini-Flipbooks: Highly Interactive Comprehension aids.

 

  • Multilinguals: TRWRR rhyming stories can be heard in over 40 languages, developing reading comprehension and building a prodigious vocabulary. 

 

  • Immersive Reader - Standard Version: Stories may be directly opened onto the Immersive Reader platform. IR is of practical use to Turquoise members and above. Words are highlighted as they are read aloud. 

  • Immersive Reader - Word Version: IR is included even on the free version. Color-coded rhyming stories of TRWRR stand out distinctively.

  • Word: It has multiple applications. It is ideal for comparing languages, practicing pronunciation, writing compositions, and studying foreign languages in depth.

  • Google Translate: Translates English text into 248 languages, and the audio on roughly 60% of them. 

Website Can Be Translated into 248 Languages

  • Edge: Dictionary/Sidebar: Provides access to the Web where unabridged dictionaries provide audible definitions, pronunciation aids, and give access to informative and entertaining complementary YouTube videos.

  • Smartphones: They have multiple usages. They enable an English teacher and a foreign student to dialog in two languages. In a snap, English text and speech can be translated into numerous languages. Smartphones allow for comparison of English with other languages. They give students a platform to self-check and practice their own pronunciation. And they allow students who have Adobe Acrobat Pro to listen to all of Totally Literate's downloadable files even without an internet connection.

Large Selection of TTS Speakers and Dialects

Stories Translatable on Immersive Reader Platform

Simultaneous Interactive Printing, Cursive, and Reading Exercises

100 Webpages in English Alone

361 Color-Coded Rhyming Stories

10 Platforms

40 Interactive PDFs

12 Audible Flipbooks

20 Lullabies and Nursery Rhymes

14 Classics (Stories and Fables)

> 25,000 TRWRR Translations 

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Cartoon character with one finger pointing to his head and another finger, straight up, as though saying Totally Literate expands the mind

Totally Literate, aka 2B Totally Literate and Celestial Bound, is an English reading/literacy program designed for native and foreign speakers alike. Most significant, it can help future scholars with dedicated parents learn to think with their Heart & Mind Entwined, thus maturing into Totally Literate Independent, Critical Thinkers. 

Home School Seal of Approval Award 2017
2022 Best of Greenville Award
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