Search
Dr. Sheryl N.'s Photo

PhD. Reading/spelling/writing (certified Barton Reading)
Dr. Sheryl N.

5.0 (547 ratings)

1,490 hours tutoring

Your first lesson is backed by our Good Fit Guarantee
Hourly Rate: $65
Contact Dr. Sheryl

About Dr. Sheryl

Bio

I am an educator with 20+ years of experience and specialize in tutoring students in language arts, including reading, writing, and spelling, as well as in elementary math. I have training as a literacy intervention specialist and am a certified Barton Reading and Spelling tutor; Barton is one of the most popular Orton-Gillingham methods of teaching reading and spelling. Additionally, I also teach elementary math and writing to both children and adults. In the recent past, I also taught Adult...

I am an educator with 20+ years of experience and specialize in tutoring students in language arts, including reading, writing, and spelling, as well as in elementary math. I have training as a literacy intervention specialist and am a certified Barton Reading and Spelling tutor; Barton is one of the most popular Orton-Gillingham methods of teaching reading and spelling. Additionally, I also teach elementary math and writing to both children and adults. In the recent past, I also taught Adult Education courses at a community college; my expertise is in working with adult students who struggle with reading and math foundations. I love working one-on-one with students and and have seen exciting progress in students with whom I have worked.

Early in my career, I got my Ph.D. in psychology and taught psychology at the college level. I soon realized that although I enjoy teaching psychology, even more, I enjoy teaching students the skills that allow them to become excellent students and communicators: writing, research, and if needed, reading and spelling. During my decade of being a full-time college professor, I also regularly taught an inter-disciplinary writing course to first-year college students, and this further fed my love of helping students become proficient writers and communicators.

When my children were young, 15+ years ago, I left college teaching to homeschool my children. Being able to work one on one with my students, and teaching to meet their individual needs, was very satisfying to me. Those years of homeschooling allowed me to unleash the creativity in teaching which is so natural when working with small groups of students or with individual students. As homeschoolers often do, we participated in numerous co-ops with other homeschooling families, and I did a lot of teaching in those co-ops as well. Along the way, I had a lot of fun helping my students learn to read, write and spell, as well as understand and solve math problems, and got invaluable experience working with students who respond

Read more

Education

Sterling College
Psychology
Purdue University
Masters
Purdue University
PhD

Policies

Schedule

Loading...

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Approved Subjects

Dyslexia

Dyslexia

Besides having a Ph.D. in psychology, I am a certified Barton Reading and Spelling tutor. Barton Reading and Spelling is an Orton-Gillingham, multi-sensory, approach to teaching reading and spelling and is highly effective for addressing the reading, spelling, and writing needs of students with dyslexia. This approach to teaching reading breaks the task of reading into small, manageable bites: there is explicit instruction in phonemic awareness (being able to hear the units of sound in language) and in phonics, incorporating visual, auditory and hands-on tasks. Each sound is taught separately and explicitly. Students are taught rules for sounding out words and for spelling. As necessary, students are taught sight words, but the emphasis in on sounding out words and learning rules for different sounds and spellings of sounds. In later levels, there is explicit instruction in writing as well. Besides being certified to teach the Barton Reading and Spelling system, I have been trained to teach the Alphabetics system, which is another Orton-Gillingham program to teach reading and spelling. The Barton Reading and Spelling instruction is comprehensive, in that students are taught to spell and write as they are learning to read. It is rare that a student is not able to successfully read and spell after completing this program. The difference in students is how quickly they progress. Students master a particular skill before moving on and so each student achieves success. In order to be successful, it is important that instruction be frequent; at a minimum, a student needs one hour of instruction two times a week, and three hours a week will allow the student to make much faster progress. Such instruction can be implemented into a regular school day, and in this case, five days a week is ideal. Although such instruction is a huge investment, this approach to reading instruction has been highly successful and I would be happy to explore with you whether such instruction would be a good fit for your family member
English

English

English is a complex language, and becoming skilled in English requires lots of skills: knowing how to break down words into sounds; being comfortable with sentence structure and grammar, and in many cases feeling confident in reading and writing skills. Besides having a PhD in psychology, I have been teaching writing for more than two decades, first to college students, and more recently, to children and young adults as well. I also am a literacy intervention specialist and so I also help readers who are struggling to read English. I am something of a "one-stop shop" for the various skills required to become proficient in English!
Grammar

Grammar

I learned much of what I know about grammar through writing, and teaching others to write as a psychology professor. More recently, as part of homeschooling my own kids, and now tutoring other students, I now teach "applied grammar" courses -- which means that I focus on grammar and usage in the midst of writing. This additional experience makes it even more enjoyable to tutor students who don't want a whole course in grammar, but need help with grammar and usage while they write. I love helping writers become confident of their sentence structure and usage!!
Homeschool

Homeschool

I have a PhD in psychology. After a decade of being a full-time college professor of psychology and writing, I transitioned to homeschooling my own children. A background in higher education was very helpful even though I then began to learn how to work with preschoolers! I started formally homeschooling when my oldest was four, and continued for more than a decade. In those years, I taught all ages -- preschool, elementary, middle school, and high school. I did not teach all subjects in high school; we were parts of co-ops that provided part of the courses my high-schoolers needed. I frequently taught courses for co-ops and homeschool networks, and so got lots of experience teaching homeschoolers who were not my own children. I continued homeschooling until 2010 when a geographical move resulted in all three of my kids transitioning into public schools. At that time, I refocused my professional energies to tutoring and becoming a literacy intervention specialist, which means that I have received training in providing intensive reading, spelling, and writing intervention for students for whom more conventional curricula and approaches haven't worked. I am still (and always will be) a homeschooling parent in my heart, and tutoring others one-on-one is much like homeschooling: I still get to work with individual students and respond to their individual needs. The particular skills I have to offer homeschoolers are these: 1) I am a specialist in dyslexia. I screen for dyslexia, and I am also a dyslexia consultant. Most dyslexic students need intense remediation in reading, spelling, and phonics, and I provide this remediation. I am a certified Barton Reading and Spelling tutor. Many homeschooling families end up homeschooling because conventional approaches to teaching reading were not working for their child; I can help when you see that conventional curricula are not sufficient for teaching your child to become a fluent reader and speller. 2) I have taught writing for 25 years. I currently teach writing to all
Phonics

Phonics

I have a Ph.D. in psychology. After starting out teaching psychology and writing to college students, I then homeschooled my children for over a decade. In my early years of working with my own children, I realized that some students pick up reading with limited teaching, while others require explicit instruction in phonics. In the years since that I have had the opportunity to receive training in how to teach struggling students how to read, using phonics as the backbone of the instruction. The students that need my help typically need to have phonics broken down into individual sounds and at a pace that is slow enough so that one phoneme is very familiar before going on to the next one. Such instruction works best using a Orton-Gillingham approach in which phonics is taught using multisensory techniques – each lesson utilizes visual, auditory, and hands-on approaches to learning. I trained in the Alphabetics approach and am now training with Susan Barton who designed the Barton Reading system. I find that students who need help in learning to read are relieved when we start working together – it is extremely frustrating not to be able to read (often these students compare themselves to others who read with less effort) and having the learning process broken into manageable chunks is a huge relief to these students. Before a student can effectively master phonics, it is essential that the student has cultivated phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the skill of being able to hear individual units of sound. The easiest unit is a word, more difficult is a syllable, and most difficult is hearing individual sounds or phonemes. Before even working with letters per se, we work on breaking words into individual sounds, blending sounds together into words, rhyming and manipulating sounds in several other ways so that the student is able to hear individual sounds as they are paired with letters and combinations of letters when we work on phonics. The need for work on phonics is not necessarily limited to young stu
Reading

Reading

Reading is one of the most complex skills students set out to learn. Many students are natural readers, insomuch that they learn to read regardless of the nature of their reading instruction. There are a significant number of students, however, who need explicit and detailed instruction in decoding words using a phonetic approach which breaks words down into individual sounds. Besides having a Ph.D. in physiological psychology (one of the neurosciences), I am also a literacy intervention specialist. I have had 80 hours of training by ALTA-certified instructors and am now training with Susan Barton, who designed the Barton Reading method. I use the Barton Reading method, which is an Orton-Gillingham method because Barton uses a multisensory approach (engaging the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic sense modalities) for this instruction. The instruction is comprehensive in that students are taught to spell and write as they are learning to read. Once a particular sound is learned (for reading) that sound is then also used to spell words as well as to write words. The instruction is mastery based, and instruction is not considered complete until a student is successfully reading. In order to be successful, it is important that instruction be frequent; at a minimum, a student needs an hour of instruction three times a week. This approach is an integrated one insomuch as students also learn to spell and write as they are learning to read. Reading and spelling are complementary tasks and the best way to learn the one is to also learn the other! In younger students, a struggling reader is most often in need of instruction in phonics. An older reader who struggles, however, may be skilled in phonics and yet not be an effective reader. Such readers may struggle with fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension in addition to, or instead of, struggling with phonics. With an older reader, it is important to assess which skills are keeping the reader from effective reading. When I work with an older reader, I start with acce
Special Needs

Special Needs

Besides having a PhD in psychology, I have extensive experience in working with students with Dyslexia, which sometimes is diagnosed as specific learning disorder. I am a dyslexia consultant, and as well am a certified Barton Reading and Spelling tutor, which is an Orton-Gillingham method for teaching reading, spelling, and writing to students for whom classroom methods of instruction have not been effective. I am happy to discuss accommodations for dyslexia with parents as well. I also have considerable experience with Nonverbal Learning Disorder. Students with NVLD often need help identifying their own strengths and weaknesses, and how these can be intersect with their academic work. Depending on their own areas of weakness, they may need support in specific subjects, but often need more help with organization, study skills, and time management. Because of my knowledge of NVLD, my prior experience as a college professor, homeschool educator, and now full-time tutor, I can assist students in strategizing how to maximize their effectiveness in school.
Spelling

Spelling

I have a PhD in psychology for many years have been working with students who struggle with spelling and reading. I am a literacy intervention specialist, trained in two different methods of teaching reading and spelling. I have effectively worked with both adults and children in helping them become successful spellers.
Study Skills

Study Skills

I got my Ph.D. in psychology and taught psychology at the college level right after grad school. It was in that setting that I first began working with students on study skills. But the need for effective study skills begins long before college. When I homeschooled my own children, we worked on study skills, actually from a fairly young age on. But study skills become increasingly important as students move into middle and high school. A student's ability to do well in an academic setting is often more a function of his/her study skills than it is of some natural aptitude in a given subject. Some of these skills are not even exclusively academic skills: time management, goal setting, organization of materials, knowing how to ask questions, and knowing how to break down tasks into manageable parts are all both academic and life skills. Other skills, however, are more academic: critical thinking; reading comprehension; memorization and information retention; writing and research skills. A successful tutor will find ways to break down this rather daunting list of skills into bite-sized chunks to allow a student to build success with the individual components. Students who struggle with study skills often are frustrated, and because of not experiencing success in their schoolwork, often become very unmotivated. Because I like working with struggling students, I am frequently able to connect with them. I value being able to use playfulness, a listening and perceptive ear, and considerable creativity to connect with them and find ways to help them gain grounds on their study habits and skills. I would be excited to be able to connect with the struggling student in your family in this way!
Writing

Writing

After teaching a writing course for first-year college students for about a decade (and loving it!) I then home-schooled my children for the next decade, and had the chance to assist them in cultivating their writing skills. Now I am tutoring various students in their writing skills; in the past year, I have worked with college graduates looking for admission into graduate school, college students, high school students, and elementary students. Additionally, I am teaching a writing class at Richland. I would be happy to see whether my skills could be helpful to you!
Vocabulary
Dr. Sheryl N.'s Photo

Questions? Contact Dr. Sheryl before you book.

Still have questions?

Contact Dr. Sheryl

Ratings and Reviews

Rating

5.0 (547 ratings)
5 star
(530)
4 star
(14)
3 star
(2)
2 star
(1)
1 star
(0)

Reviews

Wonderful! Sheryl is very kind, patient and adaptable. We are so happy to have found her.

Sheryl has a great deal of knowledge in multiple areas. We needed someone to be able to come in and work with our twins in some LA skills and she is doing just that. My kids love her and are already beginning to progress in their studies.

Brandon, 6 lessons with Dr. Sheryl

Stop looking and hire Sheryl!

My son started tutoring with Sheryl in 3rd grade and has continued as her student for over a year and a half. Previously we had a very capable Wilson tutor (he was at level 8), but I was always curious about the Barton method, so we switched. I'm so glad we did! Sheryl quickly realized that my son was still having trouble discerning basic sounds ("m" vs. "n" and "d" vs. "b"). She suggested we start with the LiPS program. Although I completely agreed with her assessment, it was a little disheartening to think we had to start at the beginning. But what a difference it made!!! He is now in level 4 of Barton and continues to make consistent progress in reading, writing, and spelling. As parents of dyslexic and/or struggling students, we need not only highly effective tutors but those who are empathetic too. Sheryl oozes empathy and patience. She is flexible when it comes to rescheduling due to illness and vacations. During summer break we were able to increase tutoring appointments from twice a week to three times. She will even work around extracurricular activities that are so important to our kiddos. If you're new to online tutoring and worry it might be missing those features that keep your child engaged, rest assured Sheryl will keep your child interested with fun learning games, tiles and activities. My son usually tutors an hour after returning from school. Somehow Sheryl is able to take my tired, burnt out kid who sometimes is in a bad mood, and turn him around so that he is smiling and cooperative. She is a gem and I know you will love her as much as we do!

Deena, 1 lesson with Dr. Sheryl

I am so happy she does LiPS

It is hard to find a tutor that does the LiPS program. After she did the initial screening, it confirmed that my child does not hear many of the foundational sounds. I feel like this program will set him up for success. Dr. Sheryl is very patient and connects well with my son.

Joanne, 10 lessons with Dr. Sheryl

Knowledgeable, enthusiastic and patient tutor

I was looking for a tutor to work with on my English speaking. Sheryl asked me what I needed and what I considered as a priority. She is very attentive and asks you regulary if the exercise that she offers are useful or not, so we can go a step farther if wanted. We started with phonics exercises to improve my pronounciation. Sheryl also gave me some grammar and vocabulary exercices to work on on my own and was open to answering my questions. I can't wait for the next lesson.

Mathilde, 4 lessons with Dr. Sheryl

Dedicated, professional skilled, engaging and gifted tutor.

Sheryl has been working with my son for a couple of weeks on planning and organization. I don't think I can think of enough positive things to say. She puts so much time and thought into everything she does. My son feels very comfortable with her and while the long term goals may take time we are already seeing progress. I enthusiastically recommend Sheryl. By the way , she is tutoring online which I was initially a bit skeptical of but she is a pro at this.

Antoinette, 28 lessons with Dr. Sheryl

Two enthusiastic thumbs up!

Sheryl is a very insightful tutor who is looking for ways to make the sessions enjoyable while teaching the student!

Nathan , 102 lessons with Dr. Sheryl

Knowledgeable and Extraordinary

Sheryl did a phenomenal job from begging to end. For the kind of work I was doing I needed someone who would be flexible enough to work with my limitations, but also understanding of my need to identify the weaknesses in my thesis and provide appropriate feedback. She not only accomplished this flawlessly but she went beyond the agreement we had initially and worked with me on her vacation when I needed her last minute. Sheryl works with integrity which is very rare these days. If there is something I would take away from my experience with Sheryl is that she was a very professional, skilled, passionate Angel. I highly recommend her to anyone who needs help editing, writing, proofreading, and assessing large papers like my thesis.

Desyre, 14 lessons with Dr. Sheryl

Very positive, patient and upbeat

My 15 year old son has been doing online tutoring with Sheryl since Nov. 2015. We are working on phonics using the Barton reading program. He has ADHD and was recently diagnosed with dyslexia. His physician recommended he have phonics training. I was not able to find anyone locally with training in the Barton program so decided to give online tutoring a try. This has worked surprisingly well. He has face to face contact with Sheryl throughout the session and using the computer helps to keep him engaged throughout the session. Sheryl is extremely patient and provides lots of positive feedback. A 9th grader with dyslexia and ADHD can be (and is) challenging to work with. Sheryl does an outstanding job of keeping him engaged and on-task. She has been very helpful outside of our sessions, providing me (mom) lots of advice and feedback . I would highly recommend her!

KB, 76 lessons with Dr. Sheryl

Knowledgeable and Wonderful Tutor.

Sheryl has a great deal of knowledge in tutoring multiple grade kids based on their requirements. She worked with my 8th grade son since Aug., 2015. My son’s writing skill was poor before he worked with Sheryl. I could not imagine that on-line tutoring given by Sheryl could be this effective! My son has benefited greatly and has shown great improvement in his writing, especially he showed great improvement in writing more complicated and grammatically correct sentences. He needs lots of writing in his current English subject. I can fell he really benefits from working with Sheryl. Sheryl takes each tutoring seriously; she puts lots of time and effort in preparing each lesson. She picked up very useful resources as tutoring material. I sometimes listened to her tutoring, it is wonderful! I felt even I can benefit from her tutoring. I am very glad that I picked up her as my son’s tutor! I strongly recommend her as a tutor.

Holly, 7 lessons with Dr. Sheryl

Wonderful and Patient Tutor

Working with Sheryl over the computer has not only kept the interest of my daughter as it is a different way of learning, but she has benefited greatly and continues to show improvement. We love having her as our daughter's tutor!

Brianne, 42 lessons with Dr. Sheryl
Hourly Rate: $65
Contact Dr. Sheryl