Structured for Success

Cathie Arnold
Cathie Arnold

Our campuses utilize a clinical model that incorporates the latest scientific research in the field of reading and spelling education, as well as dyslexia and dyslexia remediation. First and foremost, we take into account the child’s emotional well-being, as each lesson is individualized to remediate dyslexia according to the child’s intellectual level. Our lessons are structured for success so that our skilled tutors can always guide the student to the correct response. Our students know that we never ask anything of them that they are not able to do, providing emotional security within our learning environment.

The Waiting List

Sara Harig
Sara Harig

To obtain a place on the waiting list for one of our campuses, a checklist must be followed. The first on the list is to call either the Cincinnati or Norwood campus (closest in proximity to you) to receive an e-mail with complete instructions, information, and the application itself. We will also talk you through the application process. The information required for our application process is important in helping us to decide whether our program is right for your child. We are always looking to include, not exclude, but it is so important not to waste your child’s valuable educational time if our program does not fit his or her needs.

The Value of Independent Reading

Cathie Arnold
Cathie Arnold

Now that summer vacation is here, it’s more important than ever to make sure that children spend time reading every single day! Variation in time spent reading outside of the school setting plays a large role in vocabulary development. A study on the independent reading (outside of the school setting) of fifth graders conducted by Anderson, Wilson, and Fielding (1988), showed that a child at the 80th percentile in amount of independent reading time (14.2 minutes per day) was reading more than 20 times as much as the child at the 20th percentile (0.7 minutes independent reading minutes per day). The average child at the 90th percentile (21.1 minutes of reading per day) reads almost 2,000,000 words outside of school per year—250 times more than the 8,000 words read by a child at the 10th percentile (0.1 minutes per day).

Skills vs. Subject Knowledge

Sara Harig
Sara Harig

The student with dyslexia typically has a wonderful brain with all the mental ability of other people.  Poor marks in math, science, and social studies can be the result of poor reading and spelling proficiency, not in thinking.  When educating a child with a dyslexic mind, it is important to analyze subject performance from literacy performance.  Did he fail the test because he didn’t understand the topic or because he couldn’t achieve all the literacy tasks to comprehend the test?  Is spelling the true weakness in the essay questions of the social studies test rather than the actual material?  These are appropriate questions when teaching a child with dyslexia because it is often difficult for the student to perform reading and writing skills successfully while simultaneously exhibiting subject knowledge.

Rich Discussions

Cathie Arnold
Cathie Arnold

Because home language experiences play such a significant role in a child’s development, parents should actively seek opportunities to expose their children to higher-level vocabulary and engage them in rich discussions. This could be during a family meal, while driving to and from activities, and/or before going to bed each night.

Rare Words

Sara Harig
Sara Harig

It’s important to expose children to print, because written language is much richer in content than spoken language. Research by Hayes and Ahrens (1988) showed that there are more rare words (words that rank lower than the 10,000 most commonly used words) in children’s books than in all adult speech, with the exception of courtroom testimony. Children’s books also contain 50% more rare words than can be heard in prime-time television shows for adult audiences.

Parents and Reading Development

Cathie Arnold
Cathie Arnold

Most dyslexic children’s verbal and listening skills surpass their reading abilities, so it’s important to provide read-aloud experiences for as long as possible. By discussing events and vocabulary in a story that is above the child’s reading level but within comprehension range, the parent plays a significant role in reading development by facilitating comprehension once the child has acquired the necessary decoding skills.

Developmental Trajectory

Sara Harig
Sara Harig

Hart and Risley’s study, “The Early Catastrophe,” showed that language experiences in the home environment contribute to a child’s developmental trajectory. Data collected from monthly observations of 42 families over a two-and-a-half-year period showed that the average child growing up in a professional family experiences about 45 million words in a four-year period. A child growing up in a welfare family, however, accumulates experiences with only 13 million words in a four-year period—a stunning gap of 30 million words!

Instructional Methods

Cathie Arnold
Cathie Arnold

Parents and educators should be wise consumers and ask questions about instructional methods used in reading and spelling. Fields such as medicine and engineering rely on the scientific method to prove what works and what doesn’t. Parents and educators need to get on this same page and focus on the evidence by asking questions such as: Where can the research on this method be found? Who is the author of the research? Has it been replicated until the evidence leads most people in the field to agree on the findings?

Research-Based Instruction

Sara Harig
Sara Harig

Research-based instruction has finally gotten the attention of both educators and the public. Orton-Gillingham practitioners have known for a long time that a structured, systematic approach to language instruction is essential especially for initial learners. Educational research has proven that the following elements should be present when teaching reading, writing and spelling: phonemic awareness, letters and names, systematic and explicit phonics, spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension development.