When reading is harder than it should be,

more practice isn't always the answer.

 

 

Dyslexia Isn't About Intelligence

Dyslexia is a language-based learning difference that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling.

Kids with dyslexia don't need to try harder.

They need reading instruction that teaches them how our written language works in a way their brains can understand, practice, and eventually use automatically.

That's where structured literacy comes in.

 

What We Work On

Reading tutoring is individualized to your child's current skills rather than simply following their grade level.

Depending on what your child needs, we may work on:

• Phonemic awareness
• Connecting sounds to letters
• Decoding unfamiliar words
• Encoding and spelling
• Syllable types and patterns
• Reading longer, multisyllabic words
• Morphology, including prefixes, suffixes, and roots
• Reading fluency
• Vocabulary
• Reading comprehension

The goal isn't just getting through tonight's reading assignment.

The goal is giving your child the skills to approach words they have never seen before.

 

Why a Speech Therapist Teaches Reading

Because reading is language.

Before children ever learn to read letters on a page, their brains are already learning to hear, distinguish, combine, and manipulate the sounds in spoken words.

Those language skills become part of the foundation for reading and spelling.

My background as a speech therapist allows me to look at reading through a language lens. If your child is struggling, I don't just want to know which word they missed.

I want to know why they missed it.

Did they hear all the sounds in the word?
Do they know which letters represent those sounds?
Are they recognizing the spelling pattern?
Are they guessing from the first letter?
Is language comprehension getting in the way?

Those little differences matter because they help us figure out what to teach next.

 

Structured Literacy & Orton-Gillingham

My dyslexia tutoring incorporates principles of Structured Literacy and Orton-Gillingham instruction.

That means reading skills are taught explicitly and systematically rather than expecting children to figure out patterns on their own.

We build skills step by step, continually connecting:

what your child hears → what your child says → what your child reads → what your child writes

And we practice until those connections become stronger and more automatic.

 

Let's Figure Out What's Making Reading Hard

If your child is struggling with reading or spelling, I'd love to hear a little about them.

Tell me what's going well, what's frustrating them, and what you've already tried.

Then we can decide whether working together makes sense.