I'm Christopher, I have a Ph.D. in the humanities and spent almost a decade training college students how to read critically and write well. Now I teach my three children as a homeschooling dad. When we discovered that my daughter is dyslexic, I went through the training to become an Orton-Gillingham certified tutor. Besides tutoring my daughter successfully (she went from a 1st-grade reading level to a 5th-grade level in just under a year of tutoring), I've also helped several other...
I'm Christopher, I have a Ph.D. in the humanities and spent almost a decade training college students how to read critically and write well. Now I teach my three children as a homeschooling dad. When we discovered that my daughter is dyslexic, I went through the training to become an Orton-Gillingham certified tutor. Besides tutoring my daughter successfully (she went from a 1st-grade reading level to a 5th-grade level in just under a year of tutoring), I've also helped several other elementary students raise their reading level by at least two grades in the past two years. I'm particularly adept at working with male students, especially those with attendant learning challenges such as ADHD.
My focus in tutoring sessions is on personalizing my instruction to meet the needs and interests of my students. There are many different techniques for achieving the goals of the Orton-Gillingham method, and I pride myself on finding creative solutions to make learning fun. I tailor the scope and sequence of a student's program based on their initial assessment. And once I've gotten to know a student's interests, I customize their lesson readings so that they are reading a story that fits those interests. What I have found is that this level of personalization drives better outcomes and builds confidence quickly.
While I'm certified as a Orton-Gillingham tutor, a phonics-based approach, I emphasize morphology more consistently than most O-G tutors. That means that I emphasize the importance of knowing how words fit together and what their origins are. That means that practically speaking, my students are in a better position to improve in the areas of spelling and composition.
I leverage my experience as a college professor when it comes to teaching the basics of grammar. If a student is also struggling with issues like recognizing sentences, when to use proper capitalization and punctuation, or how to recognize parts of speech, I can build that into our lessons. Feel free to contact me and schedule a lesson!
