Seven Summer Reading Tips For Struggling Readers

When I think of summer vacation, I have visions of popsicles, playing in the sprinkler, lemonade stands, long summer evenings and lazy days reading in a hammock. As an educator, I know that for struggling readers, reading is often the last thing on their mind when they think of relaxation. But,  I also worry about summer learning loss or “the summer slide”. On average, students lose one month of school learning during the summer vacation. For students with dyslexia, the loss is likely even greater and will be more time consuming for them to regain than their peers. However, children with dyslexia have worked very hard all school year long and should definitely make time for fun and play. Striking a balance is key.

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The Top Ten Books About Dyslexia for Parents and Teachers

Whether you are a parent of a child with dyslexia, an adult that has dyslexia, a tutor or interventionist that works with children with dyslexia or a classroom teacher that has students with dyslexia in your class, there is one thing that we all have in common. We need to actively seek out information and knowledge in order to advocate for our students (or ourselves). Although awareness is increasing, it is still necessary to be proactive and seek out resources and learning independently.

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Effective Comprehension Strategies For Struggling Readers

If you have a child or students who struggles with reading comprehension, there are a number of reasons why this is happening.

These include:

• weak decoding due to poor phonological awareness skills that have compounded over the years and impacted a child's ability to make meaning of text
• weak fluency skills
• poor vocabulary development due to a language-based reading disability 
• learning English as a second language 
• a student who may have memorized a large bank of words in the early years as a compensatory strategy, instead of actually learning to decode effectively, so when text complexity increases, old memorization tricks no longer work
• a child who may decode beautifully, but cannot comprehend a word they just read or even give you a simple retelling. Admittedly, this has probably been the TOUGHEST scenario as a teacher for me to remediate. Not impossible, just tricky.
• a student who may be a very literal thinker due to a lower IQ or ASD

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The Top 5 Reasons You Should Start Your Own Tutoring Business

Top 5 Reasons You Should Start Your Own Tutoring Business

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to run your own tutoring business? Maybe you’ve left the classroom to start a family or retire, or you think it’d be great to have some extra income in the afternoons or over the summer while teaching. After being in the classroom for 13 years, I lept into starting my own tutoring business full-time, and I haven’t looked back!

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Orton-Gillingham In Small Groups? Yes, You Can!

Do you find yourself scratching your head when thinking about how the heck to run an Orton-Gillingham lesson plan in small groups during a typical school week?

Common problems which may arise:

• Timing could be off. You might only have a session about 30 minutes a day or a few days a week. A typical 1:1 OG lesson runs about 45 minutes up to an hour.
• Pacing is spread out a bit too far. You end up feeling like you could be holding students back instead of moving them forward through the sequence.
• What do you sacrifice when you have time constraints without compromising fidelity and the greater good for the child and the group?
• Different needs and ability levels among students might vary. This can make creating common groups tricky. 

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