When your child is struggling with reading at school, it’s very hard to watch as a parent. You know your child needs help. But where do you turn? Should you give it more time to see if things get better on their own? What about that friend/cousin/relative who teaches reading? Maybe they can help. These are the thoughts that run through many parents’ minds when they realize their child needs extra reading help. If your child is truly struggling with reading, sourcing a certified Orton-Gillingham tutor can make a huge difference. Here are the Top 5 reasons your child who is having difficulty with reading needs to work with a certified Orton-Gillingham tutor.
#5. If your child is having a difficult time learning to read using balanced literacy instructional techniques, more balanced reading techniques will not necessarily be helpful. An Orton-Gilliingham approach to reading instruction is sequential and each skill is directly taught in a specific scope and sequence to build your child’s skills until they are a skilled reader.
#4. A certified Orton-Gillingham tutor will assess your child, and design individualized lessons intended to strengthen your child’s weaknesses. True Orton-Gillingham instruction is diagnostic and prescriptive. This means a tutor is assessing your individual child’s learning needs in order to design and implement instruction.
#3. A certified Orton-Gillingham tutor incorporates spelling instruction into their work, and therefore can boost the skills of those kids who read well but struggle with spelling. Does this sound familiar? Your child might read well enough, but when it’s time to spell watch out! A child who struggles with spelling is a child who lacks the knowledge of why and how the English language works. Once taught the rules needed to spell with accuracy, you’ll watch your child’s spelling confidence start to improve.
#2. The Orton-Gillingham approach teaches students how the English language works. By middle school, your child will be encountering numerous words containing prefixes, suffixes, Latin and Greek roots in the words they learn and study. Teaching students about morphology, or how the English language is constructed, has a huge impact on increasing comprehension and spelling accuracy.
#1. Watching your child make progress with their reading and writing skills will bring you such a sense of relief! No parent wants to watch their child struggle. The decision to hire a tutor is a balancing act with other afterschool priorities. Often parents hesitate, wondering how to fit it all in. While working with an Orton-Gillingham tutor is a commitment, choosing to make that a priority and observing the progress your child will make the schedule juggling worthwhile.
