You are frustrated that your child isn’t reading well.
In fact, you’re concerned your child may have dyslexia.
Or maybe your child has been diagnosed with dyslexia, but they aren’t getting the support or accommodations they need at school.
You want to see your child make progress learning to read more quickly and are hoping to find a tutor familiar with dyslexia who can help.
What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a learning disability. People with dyslexia have a hard time accurately and fluently recognizing and decoding speech sounds. And, they have trouble recognizing and/or decoding and spelling words. Dyslexia isn’t as uncommon as you might think. In fact, According to the International Dyslexia Association, about 15-20% of the population is dyslexic.
Dyslexia’s symptoms include:
- Late talking
- Slow to learn new words
- Difficulty naming letters, numbers and/or colors
- Reading below grade level
- Concerns processing/understanding what was read
- Difficulty finding words to describe experiences
- Challenges remembering the sequence of events
- Poor spelling
- Avoiding reading, especially out loud
Concerned that your child may be affected by dyslexia? Take this quiz.
Teaching a Dyslexic Student to Read
Dyslexic students can learn how to read as well as their peers. Using systematic, individualized, and repeated fluency instruction, they can learn to read by making progress in the following areas:
- Phonics: sound-symbol association both visual to auditory (see/say – reading) and auditory to visual (hear/say/write – spelling)
- Phonemic awareness: the ability to segment words into their smallest component sounds (phonemes)
- Visual and auditory decoding: the ability to decode words (both visually and auditorily) based on their phonemic patterns: long/short vowels (cvc/e), r-controlled; vowel pairs (regular and irregular); hard/soft g/c; -gh patterns.
Phonics, phonemic awareness, and decoding must be worked on often; children learn reading skills through repeated practice. DO NOT assume that your dyslexic child can learn to read well without appropriate reading interventions.
Reading instruction needs to be systematic and cumulative. This means that their instructor must determine if your child has mastered basic and easiest concepts before moving on to harder concepts.
Your child’s reading tutor needs to assess their reading skills — both formally and informally — often.
A skill is considered mastered or fluent if your child can use these skills automatically.
Great! But where do I find a program that offers this method of dyslexia help?
Fit Learning provides systematic, individualized, fluency-based reading help. Fit Learning reading tutors (actually, we call them learning coaches) have helped learners of all abilities for over 20 years. Our method is currently the only in the world to combine well-researched methods into one comprehensive, instructional reading approach. The results of our Fit Reading program are transformative. Children who come to Fit Learning average at least one year of academic growth. In fact, many students gain two years’ worth of growth in just 40 hours.
If you live in the St. Louis area, our Fit Learning coaches would love to help you in our Creve Coeur office. But, if our Creve Coeur office isn’t convenient for you and your child, reach out and we may be able to offer online learning support instead. We are more than a reading tutor. You’re looking for someone who understands what it takes to teach a student with dyslexia to read, and our program does exactly that.
How is the Fit model different/better than Orton-Gillingham or Wilson Reading System®?
Along the way, you may have heard of the Orton-Gillingham or Wilson Reading System as an option for students with dyslexia. However, Orton-Gillingham and WRS are missing the science of learning that is the backbone of our curriculum. At Fit Learning St. Louis, science guides how our learning coaches measure learning and evaluate progress. It also helps them make immediate teaching decisions about a learner’s performance. So, they adjust our teaching practices to make sure they get the most out of our tutoring services.
To recap, really good reading instruction — using a method that is explicit, systematic, phonics-based, multisensory, and includes phonemic awareness — is necessary for learners with dyslexia, but is appropriate and helpful for ALL learners. Additional information on how Fit Learning St. Louis helps students with special needs and learning differences is available here.
Begin Dyslexia Tutoring in St. Louis, MO:
- Contact Fit Learning St. Louis and speak with Janice Smith, our Director.
- Schedule an intake assessment for your child where we will assess their reading skills.
- Begin Fit Reading with a certified learning coach and watch your child’s reading abilities and confidence grow!
Other Services Offered at Fit Learning St. Louis
Sometimes, learns struggle academically in more than one area. So, you may be looking for more than just reading help and a dyslexia tutor. Fit Learning St. Louis offers tutoring in several academic areas. Sometimes, our learners enroll in more than one program. Our school-age services include Fit Reading, Fit Writing, Fit Math, Fit Logic, Fit Penmanship, Fit Spelling, Fit Homeschool, and Fit Study Hall. Also, we provide a preschool program Lil Fits for very young learners. We know that it may not be possible for your family to come into our learning lab located in Creve Coeur, MO, so we offer online learning in all the academic areas mentioned above. For more information about learning, academics, and tutoring, please visit our learning blog.
If you’re ready to help your child catch up in school, learn to read more fluently and overcome the challenges they’re having with dyslexia, we’re here to help. Reach out to our St. Louis precision teaching clinic to learn more about the many ways we can help your student.