Does your child struggle to ‘sound out’ words or read irregular words?
Does your child really understand what they read or do they just ‘bark’ at the text?
Is your child having difficulty with spelling or forming grammatically correct sentences?
Are you fighting a losing battle when you try to get your child to write?
We can help.
Our specialised and experienced literacy tutor provides reading, writing and phonics tutoring for students who are struggling.
How we have helped others
“Kristy has been working with my son for almost a year now and in this time he has flourished! He is loving to read a lot more and his comprehension has improved and continues to do so. He is really taking on board her instructions when it comes to his writing as well. Thanks Kristy 🙂“.
Mother of grade 4 child.
What does reading tutoring look like?
Reading involves two main elements: reading the words on the page and understanding those words to make sense of the text as a whole. Before starting our sessions, we conduct a thorough assessment of your child’s needs. This determines whether your child needs more support with word reading, reading comprehension or both.
If your child needs to strengthen their word reading skills, our tutoring sessions would focus on:
- Phonological (or the sounds of language) awareness skills
- Letter-sound correspondences
- Recognising whole sight words automatically and at speed
- Explicit decoding teaching
- Teaching how to read with expression and at a good pace
- Building a range of strategies to attack unknown words
If your child needs to strengthen their reading comprehension skills, our tutoring sessions would focus on:
- Teaching students how to track their comprehension during reading
- Learning how to set reading goals and adjust them as they read
- Explicit teaching of comprehension skills such as predicting, inferencing, questioning and summarising
- Story structure and background knowledge
Help your child with their reading comprehension skills at home.
What does phonics tutoring look like?
Phonics instruction involves teaching the letter-sound rule system and reading by decoding. This instruction helps improve word reading for typically developing and struggling readers. Yet, to achieve long-term improvements in reading ability, phonics instruction must be systematic and explicit. At Forging Roots Education we use the systematic phonics program Read, Write, Inc. (RWI). RWI is taught in over 5000 schools in the U.K. to great effect. We also adapt this program to meet the needs of non-verbal learners.
We embed phonics instruction into a broader literacy approach because phonics is only one part of learning to read. Our broad approach develops whole word reading, comprehension strategies, fluency, vocabulary development, and an emphasis on reading for meaning. Your child will then have time and support to apply their new skills to independent reading and writing.
What does writing tutoring look like?
At Forging Roots Education, writing tutoring can involve tutoring in spelling, creative writing or non-fiction writing. It can also include interventions to address specific needs.
Some of the interventions and approaches we use include:
- Shape Coding to teach the grammar involved in reading and writing. Shape Coding uses a visual coding system to show the rules for how words are put together in sentences, to develop the child’s understanding and use of grammar, so that they can communicate more effectively
- Sentence combining for students who have difficulty arranging their thoughts to form clear, effective sentences
- Word Study to teach students how to look for and use spelling patterns
- Nessy to teach spelling rules in an interactive way
- Talk for Writing to teach the specific language structures of each genre of fiction and non-fiction text-type. Through the use of a model text and shared writing, Talk for Writing guides students, step-by-step into creating their own piece of writing
Whatever your requirements are, we will design the ideal learning programme for your child.
References
Photo credits:
https://www.literacysolutions.com.au/resources/reciprocal-teaching-prompt-card.php
https://thereadingroundup.com/decoding-secret/
About Us
Kristy (B.Ed, M.A) is a qualified and highly experienced special needs teacher who has over 18 years of teaching experience in the U.K and Australia. Kristy specialises in teaching students with learning difficulties such as neurodiverse students and students with neurological disorders. She also specialises in teaching neurotypical children with difficulties in literacy and mathematics.
ABN: 56560180433
Working with Children Check: 2129452A-01
Australian Tutoring Association (ATA) membership number: 20210032