Services: Literacy

Literacy is a person's ability to read and write. Literacy is a complex constellation of many skills and is crucial to academic success. Literacy difficulties are extremely common, with 1 in 5 children diagnosed with dyslexia (a neurologically-based reading disorder) and many more who struggle without such a diagnosis. 

What you can expect:

• An assessment involves a deep look at the many skills needed to be a competent reader and writer. This includes:

  • Phonics

  • Phonological awareness

  • Vocabulary

  • Language skills for following directions

  • Reading and listening comprehension

  • Reading fluency (the ease and automaticity when reading)

  • Writing skills

  • Working memory (brain's ability to hold and manipulate new information)

• The assessment allows to us to determine:

  • Whether your child presents with a language/literacy disorder

  • Identification of all area(s) of difficulty that are impacting literacy

  • Development of a plan for intervention targeting all area(s) of difficulty

• Intervention follows a structured literacy approach, the literacy approach with the strongest level of evidence:

  • Ensures maximum benefit of teaching by incorporating all area(s) of difficulty (phonics, phonological awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension)

  • We meet once weekly or more frequent basis (more frequent sessions can lead to faster progress)

  • Home practice tasks are provided to encourage progress and generalization of skills learned in session

• Communication regarding areas targeted in intervention with other team members such as teachers and school-board speech-language pathologists, if you so wish.

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A few important things to consider:​

• Studies have shown that children with dyslexia (psychologist's diagnosis) can be identified by 5 1/2 years of age with 92% accuracy (find more information here).

  • Therefore, there is no reason for a child to struggle all through kindergarten and grade 1

• Check out this list of things to watch for if you think your child may be struggling​

• Intervention should be individualized to your child's specifics areas of difficulties

• Early intervention not only leads to stronger readers & writers, but helps protect children from socio-emotional difficulties and heightened academic issues

Do you have concerns about your child's reading or writing? We are always happy to chat via phone or email to answer any of your questions or to book an initial assessment for your child. Complete our referral form here.