Readology Tutoring:

Teaching children to read has always been my passion! I have a special gift for teaching kids from all kinds of backgrounds and challenges. I would love to help your child to become successful and confident, in both reading and writing. I can also show you how to help your child become proficient, at or above grade level, in reading and writing. I will provide information to you that will help you interact with school teachers, administrators and other professionals that are working with your child.

I am an experienced, highly qualified k-12 instructor, with a Clear Multiple Subject Teaching Credential. I am successful at teaching reading and writing to children for over 28 years. I am a former Mentor Reading Coach through the Read First Initiative (NCLB). I am Common Core trained. I have taught reading to SDC students with many challenges and welcome them.

I was on the district Leadership team for six years as a Reading coach mentor and have taught First and second grade for much of my career. I have also been grade level chair for First grade.
Whether a beginning reader or a struggling reader, I will teach your Child to master the strategies and skills that "THEY NEED," to achieve and maintain grade level and above. I teach reading using structured modeling, sequencing, practicing and reviewing of the skills that are research based and highly effective. I am often re-teaching skills that have not been taught correctly, or have not been practiced enough before going on to new skills. This causes a child to struggle while he/she is learning to read and write. When a child struggles, it hurts their self-esteem. That's when children start falling behind .They don't comprehend what they read because they are so focused on trying to figure out what the words are. These are the children who tell you that they "can't read" or that they "don't like to read." I love to work with these students because, I am able to teach them to be successful in learning to read through the use of strategies that teach skills and build positive attitudes. When children are successful, they will develop a genuine love of reading and writing.

I will provide you with a reading assessment and consultation, along with a written evaluation of your child's strengths, weaknesses and current levels, in both reading and writing. You will also be provided with a written intervention plan that includes "next step" instruction.
The services that I provide include; student evaluations, parent consultations, training, professional instruction, and homeschool consultations. I will also represent you and your child at IEP's or SST's that involve reading and writing.

 

Areas Of Instruction:

Phonemic Awareness
This is the  foundation of reading. It is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate sounds in spoken words. Example: Can you say CAT without the /c/. say all the sounds in cat. /c/ /a/ /t/,
Rhyming,  Knowing the alphabet,   beginning sounds and recognizing high frequency words,  are just a few examples of phonemic awareness.

Phonics/Spelling Patterns
The relationship between letters and sounds:  Example:. /b/ is the sound for the letter / b/and written with a  /b../Or, /s/ sounds like /z/ at the end of the word stars but it is written with an /s/. Vowel patterns, word endings and blends are just  a few examples of spelling patterns.

Automaticity/Fluency
The ability to read text, letters, sounds, words and phrases  accurately and quickly. ( fluency is not just about being quick, it's about understanding what is read. )There are grade level goals and expectations for fluency. If your child is having difficulty with fluency, their comprehension most likely is  effected. Fluency practice is an important part of reading instruction and important to comprehension.

Comprehension
The ability to understand and gain meaning from what has been read. Teaching strategies for comprehension are necessary so that students have a way to organize information they are expected to know and  respond to.

Text Vocabulary
The words students must know to effectively communicate through listening, speaking, reading and writing. Example: In teaching a science unit on weather, students would need to understand and use weather vocabulary specific to that unit. They need to hear it, read it, write about it and speak about it. 

If studying a unit on ocean animals, the student learns vocabulary specific to the ocean and the animals in it.

Writing
Writing instruction is specific to grade levels. Writing instruction includes teaching the mechanics of writing (letter formation and neatness) and writing for different purposes  (genres.) I use different strategies for teaching writing. One strategy I like to use is "Step-Up-To-Writing" . This can be used with success, for students from Pre-K through High School and beyond.

High Frequency Words (HFW's)
Also called "sight words" These are words that are specific to grade levels. The words are seen and used in text so much that they become automatic to us when we see  them.  Some of these words cannot be sounded out so we put them in our memory. Example:  the,  to,  like,  my,  have,  they, and. said. There are different lists for HFW's . The words in these lists are the same, but vary in their order for learning.(most often based upon the adopted reading program you're district uses and the grade level Being able to recognize sight words automatically is important for the development of  fluency and comprehension. 

Test taking strategies
Two strategies I use most often are UNRAVEL and QAR. Both are
Extremely successful in instructing  students how to focus on the most important details of the text they are reading, as well as, how to answer questions.

My Written Assessments and consultation Includes; current levels, strengths and weaknesses and an intervention plan. I provide
immediate  parent feedback on how to help you're child continue to practice at home, along with instructional goals that will guide  "next step "instruction.
Consultations are also  available for IEPs , SSTs  and home schooling parents,