Two out of three children aren’t proficient readers. Most parents don’t know.
40L gives parents, churches, and volunteers free tools to find out where a child really reads, and free lessons to help them catch up. All we ask is your time.
Most struggling readers are hiding in plain sight
Good grades and friendly report cards can hide a reading problem for years. Most parents have no idea their child is behind until homework starts taking hours.
Sources: The Nation’s Report Card, 2024 (4th grade, 8th grade); Learning Heroes parent surveys.
The fix starts with knowing. 40L’s free reading grade level test takes about five minutes. When a parent sees the number, they want to help, and so do their friends.
Test, teach, and tell
Three simple things anyone can do, starting this week.
Give the grade level test
The child reads a list of words aloud until missing ten. The score is the number right divided by ten, so 63 words right means a 6.3 grade level. A quick guide is included.
Printable test Online test (scores for you)
Hand it out freely to parents, teachers, churches, and homeschool groups. More testing help
Teach Syllables Spell Success
Ten free video lessons that take students from basic syllables all the way to 12th grade words, with Greek and Latin roots. The video teaches for a few minutes, then you review. Volunteers from all walks of life have taught them successfully.
- Classes improved an average of 1.7 grade levels
- Free to watch and free to print, workbook included
- Secular, so they work in schools, libraries, and community groups
Spread the word
Most parents don’t know to ask. Tell them. Share the numbers above, share the test, and share this site with:
- parents at church, school, and practice
- pastors, youth leaders, and Sunday school teachers
- PTAs, librarians, and homeschool co-ops
The podcast Sold a Story explains how so many schools stopped teaching phonics.
Phonics Lessons: just watch and learn
Our original Phonics Lessons need no teacher at all. Students simply watch the videos and learn. They are longer than our other lessons, but they are the easiest to use, and they use the book of Romans as their reader.
Use them alongside any other lessons. Students who need a lot of repetition can watch them again and again, even while eating a meal or a snack.
Good for
- Extra review between classes
- Students who need lots of repetition
- Families who want to keep going at home
- Anyone who wants to learn with Scripture
Your time, close to home, makes the biggest difference
The children who need help are already near you: in your church, your neighborhood, your library, your kids’ school. Teach a few of them and you will watch them change. You will see the impact yourself, not read about it in a report.
Start small. Give the test to parents you know, and offer to test their children yourself. Gather two or three who are behind. Use the free lessons. Then test again and see how far they came.
Why we don’t ask for money
Donations once paid for DVDs and printed books. Today the lessons are free videos anyone can share, and every workbook is a PDF you can print yourself.
What we need now is time. If you want to spend money, spend it locally: print workbooks for your class, buy good books for your students, or bring snacks.
A Christian nonprofit
40L’s mission is to transform lives by improving educational foundations through the Word of God. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with no paid staff, run entirely by volunteers since 1993.
Our original Phonics Lessons use the book of Romans as their reader. Syllables Spell Success is secular, so churches and schools alike can use it. More about 40L
Forty words for a lifetime of reading
Our name stands for forty words that start with L, each one tied to literacy, learning, or faith. A good reader will read thousands of words like these, and every one of them can be sounded out. These forty are just the beginning.
- Learning
- Lord
- Lifelong
- Literacy
- Logos
- Lively
- Lofty
- Labor
- Love
- Liberate
- Letters
- Listen
- Launch
- Light
- Leverage
- Lion
- Lodestone
- Lamb
- Lyceum
- Loom
- Lighthouse
- Leapfrog
- Lovely
- Latin
- Long-range
- Ladder
- Levity
- Lamp
- Landmark
- Laser
- Lattice
- Lift
- Logical
- Lessons
- Lead
- Lantern
- Link
- Language
- Lasting
- Lore