When do you think reading tutoring works best: during the school year or during the summer? I hear both answers all the time. Some parents love school-year tutoring because support happens while the struggle is happening.Others prefer summer tutoring because there’s less school stress, less homework, and more room to focus. My take? The best time is usually as soon as a child is struggling — but I’d love to hear what you think. If your child needed reading help, would you choose: A. During the school year B. During the summer C. Both, if needed Tell me why in the comments.

We have a few students who read perfectly during their tutoring sessions, then bomb their reading test. Knowing it's a test triggers a lot of anxiety. What are your best tips for easing test anxiety, as a parent or as a teacher?

From Partner Reading to Reader’s Theater For many developing readers, the journey from sounding out individual words to reading sentences with ease can feel like a monumental leap. This transition is the heart of reading fluency—the ability to read with accuracy, at an appropriate speed, and with suitable expression, or what experts call prosody. Reading fluency is often described as the essential bridge connecting the skill of decoding words to the ultimate goal of understanding them. When a child reads fluently, their mind is freed from the mechanics of reading and can focus on the story, the characters, and the meaning of the text. However, for students with dyslexia, achieving fluency can be a significant hurdle. Their challenges with decoding and recognizing words quickly mean that reading can be a slow and laborious process. This is not due to a lack of effort, but rather a need for extensive, targeted, and engaging practice. The great news is that building fluency doesn't have to be a chore. With creative and research-supported strategies, parents and educators can make this practice both fun and highly effective. Drawing from the evidence-based approaches in Dyslexia Interventions and Recommendations (Mather et al., 2024), here are some engaging ways to help students build their reading fluency. 1. Team Up with Partner Reading Partner reading, also known as paired reading, is a simple yet powerful strategy that involves a more proficient reader and a developing reader reading a text together. This collaborative approach provides a live model of fluent reading, complete with proper pacing and expression. The supportive nature of reading with a partner can also reduce the anxiety that many struggling readers feel when asked to read aloud on their own. How to Do It: 1. Choose a Text: Select a book or passage that is at the student's instructional level, typically one they can read with about 90–95% accuracy. 2. Read in Unison: Sit side-by-side and begin reading the text aloud together. The more fluent reader sets a comfortable, natural pace.

Here's a game I play with my private students to quickly stop those bad habits. The more competitive the child is, the faster it works!

Encourage the student to improve their reading comprehension by visualizing what they are reading. Explain that this is thinking in pictures, like making a movie. Select a paragraph that uses descriptive language and is at an appropriate reading level. After the student has read the content, ask what images come to mind.