Private 1:1 Reading Tutoring, Phonics, Fluency, Comprehension (Literacy Expert)

This is private, 1:1 reading tutoring with an experienced primary/elementary teacher who is a literacy expert. 

Assessment and Action Planning:
Using a Structured Literacy approach, I will initially assess a student's phonemic awareness, letter sound knowledge, reading fluency and comprehension. As this is a comprehensive assessment, this is split across two 25-minute sessions (can be booked back-to-back depending on scheduling availability, please message me to enquire about timings). After these sessions, I will evaluate the results and develop a personal action plan and lessons that will be implemented in the following sessions with the student. Depending on student needs, these lessons will involve explicit teaching of new letter sounds and/or comprehension and fluency strategies. Each session, I will be formatively assessing their progress and adjusting the lessons to meet their arising learning needs.

Lesson Structure:
My lessons generally follow a structure of: Review, Teach (I do, we do), Practice, and Apply (you do), using the Liz Kane Literacy scope and sequence in a structured literacy approach. As students move beyond the need for phonics instruction, tutoring will progress from learning-to-read, to reading-to-learn. 

Some examples of what to expect in 1:1 reading tutoring with me:
- explicit phonics instruction: decoding, blending, segmenting (if needed)
- fluency
- specific comprehension question types (e.g. literal, inference, evaluation, reaction)
- studying genre and text types
- vocabulary development
- creative text responses
- time for the student to share their personal reading interests and choices
- homework help with readers from the student's day-to-day schooling (if requested)

I use a combination of engaging digital and physical resources, also working with what the learner has available to them in their own study space. It is recommended that the optional homework is completed outside of the tutoring session times to support student progress, however homework isn't compulsory as students may want to self-direct their own reading over the week. Ideally, the student and I would meet 1:1, once a week. 

What is a structured literacy approach?
Our brains are hardwired to learn how to talk but not how to read! Structured Literacy is an evidence-based approach to teaching the science of reading English. It is fun, engaging and produces excellent results. Teaching is very systematic and follows a clear teaching sequence the cumulates over time to develop fluent readers. Children learn letter sounds and spelling patterns to help them understand the English alphabetic code. There are 44 sounds in the English language but approximately 250 ways of representing those sounds. Structured Literacy is aligned with the Orton-Gillingham teaching approach.
In practice, this looks like:
- Explicit, sequential lessons of phonemes and heart (sight) words
- Cumulative practice and ongoing review 
- A high level of student-teacher interaction
- Carefully selected examples and support material
- Prompt, corrective feedback