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:
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An assessment involves a deep look at the many skills needed to be a competent reader and writer. This includes:
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Phonics
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Phonological awareness
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Vocabulary
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Language skills for following directions
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Reading and listening comprehension
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Reading fluency (the ease and automaticity when reading)
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Writing skills
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Working memory (brain's ability to hold and manipulate new information)
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The assessment allows to us to determine:
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Whether your child presents with a language/literacy disorder
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Identification of all area(s) of difficulty that are impacting literacy
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Development of a plan for intervention targeting all area(s) of difficulty
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Intervention follows a structured literacy approach, the literacy approach with the strongest level of evidence:
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Ensures maximum benefit of teaching by incorporating all area(s) of difficulty (phonics, phonological awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension)
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We meet once weekly or more frequent basis (more frequent sessions can lead to faster progress)
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Home practice tasks are provided to encourage progress and generalization of skills learned in session
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Communication regarding areas targeted in intervention with other team members such as teachers and school-board speech-language pathologists, if you so wish.
A few important things to consider:
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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).
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Therefore, there is no reason for a child to struggle all through kindergarten and grade 1
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Check out this list of things to watch for if you think your child may be struggling
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Intervention should be individualized to your child's specifics areas of difficulties
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Early intervention not only leads to stronger readers & writers, but helps protect children from socio-emotional difficulties and heightened academic issues
Do you have questions or concerns about your child's literacy skills? Find my contact information here.