Elizabeth Alexander, Owner, Founder, CEOConsidering the importance of these early years, Elizabeth Alexander found that the early curriculums in the U.S., with both preschool and kindergarten, had seen little innovation in many years. For so many years, there had been a stigma about preschoolers learning to read, as if it would hinder their maturity and mental capacity or excitement for learning. What teachers weren’t aware of is that if taught through play and a multisensory approach, learning to read at a young age offers multiple benefits. In kindergarten, children were memorizing sight words instead of learning necessary foundational skills that include phonics and phonemic awareness. This meant that by first grade, when grade levels of reading skills are taught, children couldn’t keep up, which meant being behind in 2nd grade and beyond.
Alexander approached literacy education from a fresh perspective. Combined with her being homeschooled across different countries and cultures and helping raise/teach her siblings, she was free from the assumptions of traditional schooling yet acutely aware of the importance of instilling foundational skills for academic success later on. These perspectives were the cornerstone for developing her reading method, blending developmental psychology, multisensory learning techniques and practical insights gained from working directly with young learners. She aimed to teach children how to truly understand reading, not just memorize their way through it.
It is so much easier and kinder to prepare a child early on when their brains are like little sponges and they love to learn with play, rather than wait to do what is happening in U.S. today—not giving them the foundational skills to build on, and bombarding them with too much information in first grade where they begin to struggle and stay behind for grades to come
Using The Alexander Reading Method, Reading In PreSchool takes young children for 45-minute in-home sessions twice a week through trained teachers chosen by Elizabeth Alexander. Children learn how to decode words while building confidence through repetition, play and multisensory engagement. They move from learning letters to reading at second-grade levels before going into second-grade. There are benchmarks in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade to ensure children reach this level on time.
Her main motivation is helping children feel a confidence that will last a lifetime.
About 250 students are enrolled with Reading In PreSchool annually, with only a handful of students not reaching benchmarks due to neurodiverse challenges that require daily sessions rather than just twice per week.
These positive outcomes have helped Reading In PreSchool grow organically by word of mouth for over 13 years now. The company, which started in NYC, now operates in LA, Miami, Palm Beach, Greenwich, Connecticut and in the Hamptons during the summer season. Each expansion is carefully supervised by Elizabeth Alexander and her seasoned teaching directors. She does her best to choose teachers who are the kindest, most organized, easy to take direction and execute the curriculum, and she is proud of paying them competitively. Even today, she is still involved each month with every child’s progress, reading their progress reports and being available when teachers or clients want or need her attention.
Today, Reading In PreSchool is looking to scale the impact. They are actively looking to partner with private preschools to introduce the first levels of their program, and are looking for philanthropists and innovators to help them reach even more children. Elizabeth and her team have created amazing, multisensory products that teach The Alexander Reading Method. These products work well for homeschooling families, schools, speech therapists and tutoring programs.
In a crowded field of early learning startups and tutoring companies, Reading In PreSchool sets itself apart, having started many years ago with The Alexander Reading Method. They focus on depth over breadth, people over platforms, and outcomes over optics. With thoughtful expansion and strategic support, this grassroots movement adds another dimension to the current norms of early education and is set to become a national catalyst for change in how we help U.S. children become strong readers instead of the majority of children falling behind even by high school which is what we face as a nation today.
