Success Stories
Nicky's school didn't teach handwriting so his writing was "sloppy and difficult to read" according to his parents. He wrote as little as possible in class because his hand would tire after a short time. Upon assessing him I discovered he was not able to write the letters of the alphabet in order with correct formation and he wrote several letters backwards. During the first five minutes of each session, Nicky wrote the alphabet. When he made a mistake, I modeled the correct formation while saying the verbal prompts for the letter. Nicky then rewrote the letter while saying the letter sound out loud. Anytime Nicky formed a letter incorrectly while writing during our sessions, I provided immediate feedback and he made the correction. It took a while and a lot of effort to get rid of some bad habits he had developed. After a couple of months Nicky's handwriting became more legible. He even said his hand didn't hurt as much anymore!
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WORLDWIDE
Nicky - Third Grade
Christopher - Fifth Grade
Christopher surprised his teachers and parents when he scored below grade level on his beginning of the year reading assessments. He was always considered a good reader and actually enjoyed reading a lot. Upon further analysis I discovered that Christopher relied on his extensive sight word vocabulary when reading. He had been taught to guess at unknown words by what looked right or made sense. Christopher and I focused on sound based decoding. Rather than guessing words, he used his expanding knowledge of the reading code to blend sounds and syllables to figure out unfamiliar words. Christopher’s accuracy improved as did his comprehension. He scored at grade level on middle of the year assessments and passed the state assessments at the end of the school year with flying colors!
Jacqui - First Grade
When I first started working with Jaqui at the beginning of first grade she did not know all of the letter sounds, she could not blend three or four sound words together, and she guessed or skipped words she didn’t know when reading. Jaqui and I worked on oral activities such as breaking apart words into their individual sounds, putting sounds together to make words, and changing sounds to make new words. I provided support as we read short stories and eventually books the kids in her class were reading. Jaqui was so excited to tell me she read a couple of Frog & Toad books on her own while on vacation during Spring Break!
Brandon - Fifth Grade
Brandon's parents contacted me after receiving a letter from his school denying an IEP. They were told he was "doing great" yet they knew this wasn't the case. They were understandably frustrated and worried that he wouldn't be able to handle the workload in middle school the following year. After assessing Brandon, I found he skipped words he didn't know but was able to get the gist of what he read so he could answer comprehension questions fairly well. Brandon and I worked on breaking multiple-syllable words apart, reading them sound by sound and then blending the syllables together. At the same time we discussed the meaning of the words to increase his vocabulary. Brandon wrote about what he read - starting with a sentence or two and eventually increasing to a few paragraphs. Brandon and his parents felt he was prepared for 6th grade by the end of the summer.