Individual Lessons are structured literacy interventions led by highly qualified literacy specialists who are trained in evidence-based methods such as the Orton-Gillingham approach. We use explicit, step-by-step instruction to teach the skills needed for reading and writing rather than relying on memorization, guessing, or exposure alone. While tutoring may support students with homework or test preparation, Individual Lessons are designed to build long-term educational growth and functional literacy skills. Our goal is not assignment completion, but developing the skills your child needs to become a confident, independent reader and writer across all areas of their life.

Each Individual Lesson is a 45-minute structured literacy session that may take place in person or virtually (placement dependent). Lessons are broken into four parts: a check-in, skill warm ups, main instruction, and student choice time. SEL Check-In: Lessons start with a brief social-emotional check-in to help your child feel comfortable and ready to learn. This can look like writing a personal journal entry, identifying feelings using tools such as A Little Spot of Feelings, or repeating affirmations and mantras. Skill Warm-Up: Next, students participate in a multi-sensory review designed to strengthen automaticity with previously taught skills. All students begin with a kinesthetic phoneme-grapheme drill to review vowel sounds and their target skills. Students may also map sounds in a word using Play-Doh, break phonemes with a weighted ball or toy sword, build words on an alphabet arc, or write graphemes in a sand tray. “Must Do” Instruction: The majority of the lesson is dedicated to explicit instruction aligned with your child’s current instructional goal. Using structured, multisensory literacy methods grounded in the Science of Reading, students are manipulating letters, reading aloud, writing, speaking, and thinking throughout the lesson rather than passively completing worksheets. Student Choice: Your child have about ten minutes to practice their skills through play-based reinforcement at the end of their lesson. This might include a literacy board game, a decoding card game, digital word-building activities, puzzles, or high-movement games.

Both! Your child can attend lessons at either our cozy location on Main Street in Bristol, VT or log in from anywhere for a virtual lesson. *Availability dependent.*

To get started, you will complete our online registration forms( ~5 minutes). The forms include a few basic questions about your child, their current reading and writing abilities, and any support they may already be receiving. After submitting the forms, a member of our team will personally reach out to learn more about your child, answer your questions, and share additional information about our availability and literacy specialists. Finally, you will schedule an intake session so we can better understand your child’s strengths, areas of need, and learning profile. After the intake session, your chid will be all set to start receiving support through Individual Lessons!

Individual Lessons are intentionally structured into eight-week intervention cycles. Each cycle is custom-designed using your child’s learning profile, previous skill gaps, current abilities, and even their personal interests. Skill-Based Instruction: During the first four weeks of your child's intervention cycle, they will be explicitly taught the skills connected to their instructional goal through systematic, evidence-based teaching. They work on areas such as phonics patterns, decoding, spelling, fluency, and written expression. Application-Based Instruction: The following four weeks shift toward application-based instruction so your child can use their new skills in a functional literacy sense. This is when you may see your child reading connected text, writing sentences, or applying a newly learned phonics pattern within authentic literacy tasks. For example, a student learning consonant digraphs would move from practicing the sounds in isolation to reading passages that contain those patterns and writing with them. Students advance from skill-based instruction to application-based instruction once mastery is demonstrated rather than after a set amount of time, and cycles may continue as needed to ensure true proficiency.