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 For most parents, ensuring their child's achievement in literacy is paramount. Advanced literacy skills unlock both academic and career attainment.
However, given the normal bell-curve distribution of human abilities, 35% of us will struggle to read at grade level. According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 40% of American fourth graders do not read at grade level. And, unfortunately, despite conclusive findings by the Congress-convened National Reading Panel (2000) attesting to the centrality of phonics in effectively remediating reading difficulties, political will has not changed graduate teacher preparation programs in either reading or primary education. The look-say method of learning to read remains the dominant instructional approach. Only one in seven teacher-preparation graduate programs teaches the science of reading, which typically is portrayed by educators as a method no more valid than any other. Fostering a love of literature with only incidental attention to phonics has been the pedogogical rage since the 1970's, despite research's conclusions that phonics taught in an ad hoc, rather than systematic fashion, is an educational disservice. Phonics-based reading remediation is almost unheard of unless privately-sought. For more than 75 years, the Orton Gillingham approach has effectively remediated reading difficulties via one-to-one tutorials. Language-based, rather than literature-based instruction, has been used effectively to improve reading skills. The Orton Gillingham approach is multisensory, structured, cumulative, and explicit. Most of all, it is emotionally sound, so that the reading-challenged student experiences himself/herself as a successful reader-- perhaps for the first time. To be listed on the exclusive Orton Gillingham Academy Provider List (www.ortonacademy.org), an Orton Gillingham practitioner must have apprenticed in a 3-6 year practicum under a supervising Orton Gillingham Fellow, as well as subsequently been admitted to the Orton Gillingham Academy on the basis of demonstrated competency as a provider. Only the Academy of Orton Gillingham Practioners & Educators (AOGPE) has the authority to regulate Orton Gillingham training. Jan Campbell is one of only two approved Orton Gillingham Academy Provider List practitioners serving New York City's Upper East Side. Such credentials assure parents that their child's Orton Gillingham provider has sufficient expertise to handle this critical and timely task.
An Orton Gillingham provider's extensive knowledge of English permits that practitioner to individualize instruction responsively and prescriptively for the unique requirements of each student's case. Because these students read more slowly, the carefully-targeted design of handcrafted Orton Gillingham lessons ensures the most efficient use of learning time. No arbitrary elements appear in the lessons simply because they are boilerplate. Educators who lack deep knowledge of our language's structure are at the mercy of scripted programs, which they deliver without the ability to individualize prescriptively or responsively. Orton Gillingham is not taught in graduate programs for reading and Special Education. Many Special Education and reading teachers and tutors are reluctant to use Orton Gillingham because it is perceived to require too much training, although its practices are research-validated and have stood the test of 75 years. Without intensive phonics instruction, however, struggling students will not close their skills' gap. On average, public school students enter Special Education reading two grade levels behind and exit reading two grade levels behind. These students have made progress-- just not enough progress to read at grade-level. The district will maintain that as long as a student is making some progress, all is well. However, children reading behind grade level after third grade are unlikely ever to catch up with their more literate peers. The Information Age's demands for greater literacy are undeniable. First, compulsory education for all citizens has been a fact for the past century in the developed world, and for the past half-century in second-world countries, so that widespread literacy is common. Consequently, corporations now have the world marketplace to outsource jobs, making Americans compete in an altogether new way. The OECD's Program for International Student Assessment found that the reading skills of American fifteen year-olds ranked in sixteenth place when compared with those of students from 31 other developed nations. Below are listed the two services provided by New York City's ALEXIA, LLC: reading evaluations & reading remediation.
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BENEFITS OF A PRIVATE READING EVALUATION
Time is of the essence in reading remediation because learning to read is taught in the primary grades (K-3), before reading to learn is expected. The earlier a problem is caught, the simpler the remediation is. A reading evaluation can identify a student at-risk for reading struggles at mid-kindergarten.
Before a child is referred to Special Education because of a problem that hinders academic progress, a significant discrepancy between IQ and academic achievement must be documented by standardized testing. Or, if the student is in one of the 25 states that also uses Response to Intervention (RTI) as a means of identifying reading problems, the student may be remediated in a small group and later one-to-one instruction for a semester or academic year before being referred for Special Education eligibility testing.
However, 90% of dyslexics, all but the most profound, typically fail to qualify as having a Specific Language Disability. These non-identified 90% of struggling readers, from mild to moderate, must still cope with the exigencies of school. Diagnostic testing, using a dozen or so tests, can lead to the creation and adoption of a 504 Plan of accommodations to help the student in school outside of Special Education.
Testing includes:
ORAL LANGUAGE SKILLS Listening Comprehension Phonological Awareness Receptive Vocabulary
READING Single-Word Decoding (Actual and Pseudo) Text-Reading Fluency Comprehension
WRITING Handwriting Spelling Written Expression
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BENEFITS OF PRIVATE READING INSTRUCTION By far, the most popular way of teaching reading is via the look-say method. It is the easiest to teach because it is the least analytical. An incedental mini-lesson about a phonic component encountered in the literature may be offered. For at-risk readers, such cursory exposure is neither explicit nor repetitive enough to become internalized. Their visual memories retain orthography as weakly as an hourglass holds sand. An Orton Gillingham lesson offers the reverse prioritization, with independent reading comprising the mini-lesson, while the lesson focus is the practicing of a sound-symbol relationship visually, aurally, orally, and kinesthetically for reading and spelling in isolated words and subsequently in text. Information about its probability of occurrence in English is offered. Frequency of remediation often depends upon the individual. A new Carnegie-Mellon University brain-imaging study of dyslexic students indicates that their brains readjusted themselves to mimic those of competent readers after 100 hours' intensive instruction (www.dysadd.com/RemediationRewires.pdf). Some students are highly distractable or easily fatigued or need several repetitions of a skill before being able to internalize it. Five meeting times a week is ideal, four meeting times a week is recommended, three meeting times a week is adequate, and two meeting times a week is minimal. Most clients elect a twice-weekly lesson schedule. A calendar-year contract is required to secure a permanent place in the schedule, with tuition being paid monthly. By adding 6 weeks' summer instruction, with meetings every weekday, the student achieves the desired 100 hours goal within a calendar year. Credit cards or automatic checking account deduction are acceptable for payment. Lessons are 60 minutes long, comprising 20 minutes for reading instruction and reading comprehension; 20 minutes for spelling instruction and written expression, 10 minutes for related skills such as alphabet order, handwriting practice, and vocabulary development, and finally, 10 minutes for oral reading practice.
Tuition includes:
60-minute Orton Gillingham-based individualized one-to-one lessons in reading and spelling
2 full reading evaluations using a dozen standardized and criterion-reference tests to measure pre and post instruction skills development
4 school visits throughout the year, either for meetings or to conduct observations
Progress monitoring
Loaning of materials for independent practice
Final progress report summarizing student's case, course of study, and skills acquisition during treatment
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