What methods does your reading tutor use?

A good reading tutor can help children learn to read. Children with reading problems fall into two main categories:

Improper or inadequate instruction
Dyslexia or reading disabilities

The solution for both situations is better reading instruction, by a reading tutor trained in methods that are effective for overcoming the barriers to reading success. Just because someone can read does not mean they can teach a struggling reader how to do it! Otherwise, every child would read. Instead, 25 to 35% of children struggle to acquire this very important skill.

Sound-to-Code, Synthetic Phonics, and Systematic Phonics

These are all different names for basically the same approach. Reading tutors who use these methods are successful at helping children to overcome reading problems. The child learns the sound and its corresponding letter or letters, how to blend the sounds together, and is taught in a system that builds upon previous skill acquisition. It works!

That is why we are more than general reading tutors. We specialize in the most successful reading instruction methods and incorporate brain training technologies to get bigger and faster results.

Science clearly shows that reading problems are caused by deficits in phonological processing. Unless your reading tutor knows how to develop this cognitive skill, traditional reading tutoring may have very limited results.

Better than a reading tutor

At Accomplished Learning Centre we specialize in developing the underlying skills that are causing the reading problem.

These underlying skills include phonological processing, working memory, attention, and more. With these abilities intact, your child can overcome reading problems and learn to read. Permanently! And without the time and expense of years of reading tutoring.

When considering a reading tutor, ask him or her what method is being used. If there is no “method,” your reading tutor is just a person who can read teaching what he or she knows about reading from personal experience. This is not enough knowledge to enable a child to overcome reading problems. Older methods like Orton Gillingham were good in their day, but don’t reflect what brain science has demonstrated during the past two decades. Sure, OG’s been around since the 1930’s but Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham were both born in the 1870’s. Brain science of the past few decades has proven what methods work best and those are the methods we use.

We use methods designed by neuroscientists based on scientific knowledge about brains and how they learn to read.

Skills require practicing with the correct tool

A child can’t learn to ride a bike by being told to do so–he needs a bike. A child can’t learn to swim by being told about it–she needs to get into the water.

To overcome reading problems, the child must develop and/or strengthen cognitive abilities including phonological processing. This requires the right tool. For most of our students, that is a special family of “computer games” called Fast ForWord.

These computer games are more fun than a reading tutor. They are also far more effective than a reading tutor. The child can accomplished far more “practice” in a game than face-to-face, with less tears, arguing, and resistance. The computer eliminates the “shame” factor. The computer doesn’t care if the child makes a mistake and so the kid isn’t embarrassed, whereas he might be with a reading tutor.

Data! Fast ForWord provides extensive reports analyzing the student’s errors. We then have a very clear picture of how your child’s brain works and what is going wrong in the learning-to-read process. A human being (the reading tutor) could never compile this amount of information.

Armed with the data, Fast ForWord customizes to provide your child with more practice where needed, and little or no time wasted in skills that your child has already mastered. You can’t do that with a reading tutor.

Reading Practice

The games provide reading practice in a fun and different way than a reading tutor can. The games develop automaticity, which is how good readers read, whereas reading tutors usually teach the rules and exceptions. Good readers don’t need to remember countless rules and exceptions because they read with automaticity. Hmmm.

What it looks like

Fast ForWord isn’t like a reading tutor. Get a glimpse of the games with these demos. They show you how to beat those reading problems.

Where it happens

For most of our students, Fast ForWord is done in your home. We have clients across Canada and the USA.

What to do next

Solve those reading problems now! Call us at (604) 539-1386. If you are in or near Langley or Abbotsford, BC, call to schedule your child for an assessment to determine the exact causes of the reading problem and the best solutions. If you are not in or near us, we can still assess your child online.

A Better Reading Tutor