For Parents and Teachers

Individualized Instruction

Each tutee receives an individual plan for instruction based on the Diagnostic Evaluation. The tutors select two or three primary goals and one or two secondary goals as their instructional focus. This ensures that our tutees can make accelerated growth in a few important areas. We want them to feel confident and successful as they reach observable learning goals.

Our sessions are busy, fun, and fast paced. Please make sure that your child has used the rest room and had their snack before they arrive. In order for your child to make the most progress possible, we like to stay on task for the entire time frame. The tutors engage the youngest students in 8 to 10 activities during each session, and older students engage in 5 to 8 activities.

Your child will spend at least 50% of the time frame reading increasingly difficult connected text (books, passages, not word lists, not drills) with teacher guidance and varied levels of support. The other 50% of the time is spent working on particular skills that your child needs to develop as a reader and writer. We do not use any packaged programs, but all teaching techniques that our tutors apply are research-based.

What is the diagnostic evaluation?

Before we begin working with your child, your child’s tutor will conduct a diagnostic evaluation to determine your child’s reading strengths and challenges. Unlike the psychological evaluation process conducted by schools, our diagnostic evaluation is very practical in nature. Depending on your child’s age, we will administer a few tests to answer questions such as:

• What is my child’s instructional reading level?
• Is my child able to efficiently attack an unknown word during reading?
• What aspects of decoding, spelling, and phonics are under my child’s control? What aspects of decoding, spelling, and phonics does my child need to learn next?
• Is my child reading fluently compared to other children his/her age?
• How does my child’s comprehension compare to his/her age peers? What aspects of the comprehension process are in place? What comprehension skills need to be developed?
• Does my child’s writing in response to reading adequately reflect a high level of comprehension?
• Is my child applying effective reading and writing strategies in the content areas, such as science and social studies?
• How is my child’s attitude about reading influencing his/her progress?

This diagnostic evaluation will inform our instructional focus for your child. In our reading clinic, every child receives an individual program based on his or her assessment results. A few weeks after the clinic sessions end, you will receive a copy of your child’s diagnostic evaluation. We recommend that you share this information with your child’s teachers. The package will include:

• Pretest Results
• An evaluation of your child’s reading strengths and reading needs
• An instructional plan
• A description of the tutoring that was conducted
• Post-test results
• A summary of outcomes
• Recommendations for future instruction