Thank you for visiting ClassicalStartTutoring.com.  

 

With experience in classroom teaching of English, Speech and Drama, and home education, I have devoted over twenty years to using traditional methods to build strong up reading, writing, and speaking skills in students of all ages. Further, I have expertise in Orton-based reading instruction, which is proven to curb dyslexia.  I began tutoring part-time in 2016 and full-time tutoring online using Zoom in 2019.

 

Early readers and struggling readers learn best with systematic training in the 45 sounds of English (as they are written in 70 letter groups or phonograms). With multisensory instruction learning the 70 basic phonograms and ​28 spelling rules, over 90%  of the 500,000 words in English can be sounded out logically and reliably.  Additional phonograms will be taught as needed. 

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This method of direct instruction in phonics was originally developed by Samuel Orton and expanded upon by Romalda Spalding and Wanda Sanseri.  You may be familiar with The Writing Road to Reading by Romalda Spalding.  I use Mrs. Sanseri's expansion of Mrs. Spalding's work: Spell to Write and Read.

 

My homeschooled children are my magnum opus.  My son scored 35/36 on both the Reading and English sections of the ACT. This was the main factor in earning an $8,000 merit award at the University of North Texas Honors College.  

 

A first-grader I tutored for two hours per week went from well below grade level to the A/B honor roll and earned Most Improved Speller and two other end-of-year awards (May 2017).

 

Several students have stayed with me for over two years, moving from struggling readers to A-level English skills. in both reading and writing.  Writing students learn traditional grammar with sentence diagramming as well as structure and style with checklists.