Frequently Asked Questions
1. That Reading Thing - General Information
No, sorry. The training and materials form one package.
If you have lost your materials, please see the replacements section on TRT-Two.
No, but please have a look at That Spelling Thing – a manual which will explain how to spell any word in your subject.
The 3rd Edition (2024) is now available on Amazon in your country.
The cost per person (i.e. staff member) for a single user licence is £170 (plus shipping and VAT).
This includes training and resources for working one-to-one and ongoing support. There is no extra charge per student.
Just add reading material.
Request more information for the price in USD, AUD, CAD, NZD or EUR.
Yes and maybe.
Yes for the first 8 – 12 hours worth of lessons.
If your student then feels very confident about the strategies, they might do just fine in a small group working more on spelling and writing as well as reading. Get in touch to talk about how it could work for you. The most important factor is how the young person will react.
If you must work in groups from the beginning, results will be slower than those described in our assessment. Try to get all the way through the Foundation Levels one-to-one.
No. A person who has a learning difficulty can get to Level 30 and still be reading quite slowly. Another person, who maybe just missed learning to read, can be quite fluent by Level 30.
We suggest an hour of 1-1 per student per week, but that can be delivered over 2 or 3 sessions.
The challenge with shorter sessions is making sure you have time to read together.
TRT Basic is available for learners who are starting with learning their alphabet sounds. The resources will be available on the tutor support site when you’ve completed the full training.
2. Who is That Reading Thing for?
No, but please have a look at That Spelling Thing – a manual which will explain how to spell any word in your subject.
The 3rd Edition (2024) is now available on Amazon in your country.
TRT was written for largely white working class boys in the North of England and some of the names and language reflect that. However, it’s been used very successfully in Birmingham and London with students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. I’m very open to rewriting stories and word lists to reflect the diversity of our students. Please drop me an email with your ideas and I’ll come up with something to put in the materials section on trt-two.
No! There are extra materials for standard North American English too. If you have a different accent, you can make changes as you go. It’s very flexible.The beauty of online student materials is that I can edit and create culture specific lists and stories if you get in touch.
TRT works best as an intervention if the learner has reasonable spoken English but struggles to read and spell.
See this page of ways to adapt old favourite ESOL activities to reflect the logic of English.
In the UK we say that the minimum age is 11 or Year 6 – and only as a preparation for high school. I’d ask other countries to consider how it could best be used to get young people ready for high school and would say 6th or 7th grade as the lower age range. The key thing is that we want to protect the “teen” brand for the sake of our older learners. I wouldn’t want any 15 year old finding out that their 9 year old sister was getting the same help. Our learners have had enough humiliation and TRT is too mature for younger children
3. General Training Questions
Please get in touch to request a brochure and a registration form.
There are discounts for 10 or more people on one order form.
4. Online TRT training -General Information
No, sorry. The training and materials form one package.
If you have lost your materials, please see the replacements section on TRT-Two.
No – you really can’t. There course content would be delivered over two full days face-to-face.
Put aside 7-8 hours over 3 or 4 sessions to complete the course. It can be done in two but that requires a lot of concentration.
Finish the course before you start working with a student.
The 6.5 hour course contains the information that you’d get over 2 days in a face to face training. It’s a lot to take in but don’t feel you have to have everything perfectly committed to memory. You’ve got all the information in your manual plus the reminder clips over on trt-two.com.
To get the most out of your time, I suggest going through the videos in a maximum of 3 weeks then jump right in with a student. You’ve then got 4 weeks to go back and review bits you want to see again.
If you’ve got colleagues who are interested, do the training together. It’s great to have the support.
5. Online TRT training - cost
The cost per person (i.e. staff member) for a single user licence is £170 (plus shipping and VAT).
This includes training and resources for working one-to-one and ongoing support. There is no extra charge per student.
Just add reading material.
Request more information for the price in USD, AUD, CAD, NZD or EUR.
6. TRT-Two - TRT Tutor Support
If you’ve finished training or are currently taking the online training, go to the TRT-Two contact page with this link and request a code.
Go to TRT-Two and sign in there. All the materials are there. If you need a code, use the TRT-Two contact form to request one.