Is your middle school aged child being taken out of class to work on reading but they are still working on phonics and the types of things 1st graders are working on year after year? Or do you home school and you choose a phonics-based reading program for your child, probably an Orton-Gillingham-based program, because you wanted them to become a confident, fluent reader—but they are still struggling to read with confidence? If so, you may be making a very understandable mista

By the way It’s also a Myth that Good Readers Don’t Struggle With Spelling Have you ever noticed that often when your child is sounding out a word they do not actually spell it correctly even though they really tried to sound it out. Maybe this happens to you as well. Sometimes even people who are good readers struggle to become good spellers. This is very common. You may have read the word hundreds of times but you still do not know how to spell it. Perhaps you have been to

Have you ever watched your child struggle to read a page or even just a word and wondered, “Why is this so hard for them?” and “Will it ever get easier?” You know how important reading is. It affects school, future opportunities, and everyday independence. You want your child to be able to pick up a book and read it independently—you want them to know the joy of reading for pleasure. To be able to learn new ideas and to travel through time and space to places they may never

When your child is struggling to read, it can be hard to know what to do next. Maybe your 7-year-old still struggles to remember letter names and sounds. Maybe your elementary student has practiced the same spelling words over and over, but they simply don't stick. Or perhaps your middle or high school student can read, but longer academic words, spelling, vocabulary, and reading comprehension continue to be a struggle. Homework takes forever and cannot be done independentl

Dyslexia is trouble with reading. Dysgraphia is trouble with handwriting. Many times these two things come together. A student who is struggling with learning to become a good reader also has difficulty writing neatly. Some children have reasons for this trouble with their handwriting and may need help from an occupational therapist. If your child struggles with handwriting you can have them evaluated to see if they need to work with an occupational therapist. A great bo

Have you seen comedians on social media showing how ridiculous the English language is when it comes to spelling? They show a word like tomb and next a word like comb and expect that the words will sound the same. It seems they should rhyme because they end the same. Only the first letter is different. But they do not rhyme. The comedian is demonstrating that English spelling just doesn’t make any sense. But Structured Word Inquiry shows how the English language does make

I am sure that most of us can remember a time when we were in a conversation in a social situation and didn’t have the words we wanted to...

Recently I attended Reading in the Rockies. (It is the annual convention of the local branch of the International Dyslexia Association.) ...

I am sure you have an interesting story of what happened in your life in March of 2020. Everyone has their own story about what happened...

Children are excited about learning to read. They believe that when they go to school they will learn to read and that is one of the...

As a parent, I know getting help for your struggling reader can be very confusing. How do you determine who is able to help you? How can...

I had a degree in elementary education before having children. I used to teach kindergarten. Most of the children in my kindergarten...

In my last blog, I talked about how and why I chose to do my tutoring online instead of in person. It was a personal story about why I ended up with my business online. In this blog, I am going to share with you the things I learned when researching online versus in-person reading tutoring. I am a person that believes in children being outdoors doing physical stuff. Too much screen time is very bad for everyone. So I felt conflicted about choosing to have my tutoring business

Many people wonder if online tutoring for dyslexia can be as beneficial as in-person tutoring. It’s a question I have had as well. This...

Is a struggling reader just a late bloomer? Does dyslexia improve with age? Every child develops at their own pace. Maybe we just need to...

Comprehension means understanding. There is no reason to read something unless you understand it. But sometimes people have a hard time...

In this blog post, I will give you 22 ideas you can use to support reading for your child. These ideas will work for anybody whether they...

Is “fast reading” a “fluency synonym”? Do all good readers need to be fast readers? In this blog post, we are going to be exploring...

Spelling is often thought of as something to be learned through rote visual memorization. In order to practice spelling people often use...

The Importance of Vocabulary in Reading fluency and comprehension. Vocabulary is the third essential component of 5 components of reading...