Why tutoring?

After a thorough literacy assessment and/or examination of any educational psychologist, speech pathologist or school reports/learning plans, a term program is individually created to meet the needs of the child. For literacy, this is a systematic, synthetic phonics/linguistic program using Sounds-Write with a multisensory approach. For numeracy, this is a multisensory approach with conceptual understanding at the earliest point of confusion or gaps... No rote memorisation of facts or procedures!

The tutoring is most effective in partnership with the child's school. This includes sharing the learning focus with the child's teacher. We also offer to collaborate with the teacher/s to integrate the learning sequence and supports into the classroom. Our approach optimises the child's learning experience.

Research into effective literacy intervention recommends four to five short sessions per week for up to 20 weeks. While we are unable to provide this level of sessions for each student, by integrating the program with the school and offering activities, games or on-line learning at home allows for the concepts to be reinforced and build automaticity. (This is optional to suit the needs of the family.)

Most tutoring is 30 minutes per week, before or after school on line. Some younger children benefit from more intensive tutoring of 20 minutes twice a week. While this might not seem much, most children with learning difficulties get fatigued or reach their cognitive load between 15 - 30 mins. Pushing children beyond this, without a break, is less beneficial for them. Since the tutoring is supported at home with activities and games, my sessions provide the direct, explicit instruction aspect, with modelling and guided practice, which is then reinforced again after the session at home. The rate is $90/hour.

Coming soon...

Based on the direct and explicit instruction of The Writing Revolution program, this tutoring is for children who have developed their letter-sound correspondences, decoding and spelling to a level that they can participate in class with accommodations. Once these foundations are solid enough, time can be taken to develop skills with sentences, paragraphs, organising ideas with graphic organisers, and developing multi-paragraph writing.

Writing tutoring involves:

• Semester plan of tutoring sessions (20 weeks), progressing through The Writing Revolution program. This begins are sentence structure, moves through paragraphs and into multi-paragraphs for different compositions
• 30-45 minute Zoom session per week
• Writing program individualised and adjusted to support the needs of the child
• A shared Google drive folder for the activities of the program, including templates which can be used at home for school writing tasks
• Integration of the Sounds-Write program for multisyllabic words and vocabulary as needed

The best way to help at home is to use graphic organisers and The Writing Revolution templates for your child's own assignments and reports.

The rate is $90/hour for 30-45 minutes per week.

Coming soon...

Children with SLD, ADHD or ASD can have challenges with their executive function skills. This is the part of the brain that is inhibited with ADHD. Executive functioning include;

• Working memory
• Response inhibition
• Emotional control
• Task initiation
• Organisation
• Flexibility
• Sustained attention
• Planning
• Time management &
• with older children, metacognition and goal-directed persistence

After making an initial enquiry via the Google Form link above, executive function coaching involves a parent survey (and a student one for older children)  to help identify areas of strength and weakness. Once your child is accepted into the program, a BDEFS-CA questionnaire is competed by the parents or students 16+ yrs. This information, along with any educational psychologist assessments, are considered to cover in weekly sessions to improve awareness of these skills and practical application for school and home. 

It is most beneficial for upper primary or high school when the child is keen to succeed and become more independent with their school work. It can be likened to study skills, however, executive function coaching helps the child to understand themselves and how to work best with their relative weaknesses and strengths.

Executive Functioning Coaching is most often a group session with 3-5 students from a similar year group. Groups are students from Yr 7-8, Yr 9-10, or Yr 11-12.

The best way to support executive function skills at home is to be aware of student led goals with each skill and actively providing any necessary resources or help. For example, your child might work best with a diary or a term planner on the fridge. Helping to source such items and refer to them weekly will be beneficial.

The executive function skills program goes for 10-18 weeks and is completed over 1-2 terms (depending on availability). Intake is at the beginning of each semester. The rate is $50/session with one evening 30-45 minute session per week. 

The initial BDEFS-CA questionnaire and one-page report at the beginning of acceptance into a coaching group is a one-off cost of $50, normally $200 for this and a longer report.

One-to-one sessions are available on request, particularly for Yr 11 and 12 students. The rate for individual sessions is $90/hr.

Do parents/carers participate in these sessions?

For Yr 7-10 students, it is recommended for a parent to sit in with the sessions. This helps them to learn about the skills their child is practising and also helps them with their own EF skills at times. 

How are executive functioning skills linked to ADHD?

ADHD is not just about not being able to sit still or always day dreaming, it is a weakness in the development of the frontal lobe and lateral cortex of the brain. This is the area that involves problem solving, higher order thinking and executive function. All children are developing these parts of the brain up until 25 yrs old, however, it is slower and more dysfunctional in people with ADHD. Supports and accomodations need to be in place to support EF skills for children with ADHD, both at school and in life.