Services

INITIAL ASSESSMENT/ EVALUATION:  If you desire your child to be assessed for low, average, or high literacy skills, or just to get an outside opinion, please contact me. A one time assessment fee will be ~$110. All other tutoring sessions will be $70/hr for literacy services (see details below and/or our Rates & Availability page).

HOMESCHOOL COACHING/CONSULT: $170. This is a bundle comprised of: a sit down assessment + 1-2 sessions of tools for you and your child (to help them become their most successful). The assessment will help you know where your child sits on the literacy learning scale: low, average, or high; and the 1-2 sessions are there to help you learn new literacy best practices that will help you to maximize your child’s greatest learning potential.

ABC SOUNDS/PHONEMIC AWARENESS/CV Blends & CVC WORDS/Level 1:  When working with beginning readers we work on phonemic segmentation (sound counting), digraphs (like ch, ck, th, wh), blending, etc. Curriculum-wise, I typically use: Letterland, Fundations, or Abeka Reading. To make things engaging, I pull in lots of interactive tools from Osmo Words, to sound throwing (we literally throw suction cup balls at the window), to games like: Fishing for Sounds, Popcorn Sounds, Go Fish, Spot It, etc.

TRICK WORDS/BRAIN WORDS/SIGHT WORDS/Level 1+: In addition to learning to segment or break sounds apart, students also need to memorize certain words. These are called "trick words" since they typically don't follow any phonetic rules with the exception of their beginning sound, making them harder to read. I typically call these brain words. Materials include but are not limited to: Post-it Note Scavenger Hunt, Individualized sight word books, Digital Sight Word Matching, Popcorn words, etc.

FLUENCY/ Level 1+: Fluency can feel a bit tricky at times, especially given all the sounds a child must remember while they’re reading. For this particular skill set, I bring in reading-ready games like Tic-Tac-Toe, Hangman, etc. so that practicing accuracy and fluency doesn’t feel so tedious! Other materials include: numbered passages, readers’ theatre, expression rubrics, and more!

PHONICS/ WORD WORK/Level 2: Phonics is extremely important to understand for reading! If a child doesn't know a sound or a combination of two, decoding can be hard! For phonics, I use a lot of phonics readers, sound-building boards, I Spy, Hidden Pictures, letter tiles, and games like Connect Four, Roll A Word, etc.

MULTISYLLABIC WORD STRUCTURE/Level 2+: Once students have mastered Level 1 PHONICS, many words they encounter are either compound words or are made up of multiple syllables. In this particular skill set, we go over syllable rules (yes, there are rules), play an interactive strategy game with index cards (a technique called “Breaking Words” I learned from NC State), and discuss how these words fit into a comprehensive context when reading. In cooperation with these methods, I like to use color coding, magnetic tiles, magnetic blocks, etc.

VOCABULARY/Level 2+: Vocabulary is another key component to understanding what you read. To make learning more fun and engaging, I typically like to utilize "Discovery Reading" where your student and I partner read as to make learning new context words both fun and exciting without the pressure of having to do it just right! Supplemental games and activities include: Vocabulary A-Z sheets, Vocab Doodles, Eye Scene It, Spot It, Sorry, etc.

COMPREHENSION/Level 2+: Comprehension is so much more than understanding what I read. It is being able to understand what I read so I can interact with text and as a result, interact with the world! Here I use question stems and text-based response strategies to help kiddos grapple with what they read so that they can interact with it on a more personal and social level! For practice, we play games like: Read and Roll, Padaeia Jenga, Candyland, etc.

ELA SKILLS/Level 3+: ELA Skills range from author's purpose, to author's craft (tone, mood, characterization) to figurative language (onomatopoeia, similes, metaphor, hyperbole, metaphor) to foreshadowing to central idea and inferencing. All of which are extremely crucial to understand and apply so that students can properly analyze and evaluate what they are reading and respond appropriately. These skills typically start in elementary school but go all the way into high school and beyond. To help students get stronger, I use the following methods: dialogic teaching, Socratic Seminar, novel studies; as well as board games like Clue, Battleship, Would You Rather, Five Second Rule, etc.

WRITING ABOUT READING/Level 3+: Did you know that writing is just the inverse of reading? Reading is input and writing is simply the reverse! But what structure do I use for writing and/or teaching writing? It seems so abstract! You're going to laugh when I tell you, but I actually use the TWISTER gameboard to teach writing! Why? It allows students to freely write and then use the structures of the colors to reorganize what they've already written. You would be amazed at how well this framework works!! It's one of my favorite things to teach because the TWISTER framework makes it so fun, for me and for your kiddo! 

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Contact me, you won't be disappointed! 

Sincerely,