One-on-one literacy tutoring sessions help to reduce academic gaps for students struggling in the following areas…..
- Phonological Awareness
- Spelling
- Reading Accuracy
- Reading Fluency
- Reading Comprehension
- Vocabulary
- Sentence Writing Content
- Sentence Writing Mechanics
We know what effective instruction needs to look like for struggling readers and writers …..
Research is clear on the necessary teaching essentials for effective reading and spelling intervention and it is our goal to provide every student with an intervention program that addresses all of these components. Effective programs must target ALL of the 5 essential core components of literacy: Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension as well as writing content and mechanics.
We specialise in providing a personalised approach to your child’s education by:
- Creating an individualised intervention program
- Identifying and working towards target goals to help close academic gaps
- Consistently monitoring progress to plan and differentiate instruction based on your child’s needs
- Celebrating your child’s successes with them, in order to motivate and build their self confidence
- Respecting their strengths and weaknesses and encouraging them to take risks they would not normally take in the classroom
What makes this approach to intervention SMARTER?
The program we use follows the SMARTER approach to intervention and has essential components:
- Systematic -we get a baseline from your child and follow a roadmap to our end goal because the skills we are teaching are being built in a progressive format across each lesson.
- Multi-sensory – by incorporating multiple senses we are strengthening neural pathways and connections, supporting students with different learning styles, and providing extra engagement for students.
- Application of concepts for retention -often, students with learning difficulties will lack generalisation of specific concepts and strategies because they are not seeing the connection between their lessons and “real world” reading and writing. We help students see that reading and writing are reciprocal processes.
- Research Based – we implement research-based practices because the outcomes of our students depend on effective literacy instruction. Thousands of studies have been conducted to understand what this needs to look like and we don’t have time to waste using ineffective instructional strategies.
- Targeted Instruction – is necessary because a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. To be as effective as possible we need to be dynamic in our instruction. Without targeted instruction, our impacted students can fall further behind, they miss more of the curriculum offered at each grade level, and some of them never catch up.
- Explicit instruction – students need direct teaching and modelling.
- Realistic instruction – our intention is to meet each students needs and use our intuition to make tweaks as needed.
6 monthly Progress Reviews
Each week we gather data to drive the direction of our sessions and at 6 – 7 monthly intervals we administer a midpoint followed by an end of level assessment to evaluate standardised student growth and to review whether continued support is appropriate.
Written progress reports are available on request and parents will be invoiced an additional service fee of $100.
Additional Home Support
Parents always ask how they can best support their children at home in a way that does not conflict with how we teach. To ensure parents are able to do this, we encourage them to attend our various parent workshops designed to provide practical advice around best teaching practices. We also require that every student enrolled with us purchase a resource pack to use in their tutoring sessions and these can be used at home and at school if they choose.
Individualised home practice activities are also available on request and can be emailed to provide additional practice for increased retention and faster growth.
For additional evidence based support at home and to boost individual progress, we recommend our families purchase Nessy as it aligns perfectly with the spelling rules we teach along with the added benefit of improving keyboard skills.
School Based Support
When visiting students at school we are happy to communicate with your child’s teacher at your request and always happy to provide suggestions on which accommodations and school-based supports are most appropriate at no charge. We always make ourselves available to discuss student progress, but it is up to the individual classroom teacher to seek our input. We are also available to discuss student progress with Educational Psychologists and therapists.
This communication will occur through:
- Phone call and emails
- Provision of up to date standardised assessment results eg. YARC and South Australian Spelling