At Foundations Tutoring, our one-on-one, online tutoring offers specialized instruction tailored to each student’s unique needs and learning style. This personalized approach ensures that we focus on what your child needs to learn, avoiding repetition of what they already know, and presenting information in a way that matches their learning preferences.
Tutoring Frequency and Effectiveness
We recommend three 55-minute tutoring sessions per week for optimal results. However, even two sessions per week can lead to significant progress. To achieve effective results, students should attend at least 100 minutes of tutoring each week. Consistent, sufficient tutoring helps build new neural pathways in the brain, making your child an efficient reader and speller over time.
Increasing the frequency of sessions often leads to nearly double the progress, ultimately saving time and money. Our programs are customized based on ongoing progress monitoring, and we conduct in-depth parent conferences every six months to discuss your child’s development.
Hands-On, Multisensory, and Interactive Learning
Our online tutoring is hands-on and interactive, keeping your child engaged and responsive. This approach maximizes attention and fosters active learning. Connecting hands-on activities with appropriate language usage accelerates progress, ensuring that learning is both effective and engaging.
Diagnostic and Mastery Learning
Our tutoring is highly diagnostic, allowing tutors to pinpoint and address specific learning challenges. Unlike small group settings, our individualized approach quickly identifies where a student is struggling and provides tailored solutions.
We focus on mastery learning, which means teaching thoroughly and efficiently. This method allows your child to progress at their own pace, ensuring no gaps in their understanding and building a solid foundation for future learning.
Systematic and Explicit Instruction
Our programs follow a systematic approach, introducing new concepts only when the student is ready. This ensures that each lesson builds on previous knowledge, promoting consistent success. We provide explicit instruction, directly teaching students what they need to know, rather than relying on assumptions or rote memory. Skills and concepts are carefully sequenced to enhance understanding and retention.
Mentoring and Support
One-on-one tutoring also provides the added benefit of mentoring. Our tutors build strong relationships with students, offering both academic support and personal encouragement. Our team is composed of skilled, caring individuals who are dedicated to transforming your child’s learning experience.
Ongoing Assessments for Continuous Improvement
Your child’s progress is closely monitored by both their tutor and a Case Manager. We use standardized testing to compare their reading skills with national benchmarks and periodically review progress with you. Our assessment methods include:
- Diagnostic Observations: Continuous monitoring allows us to adjust the tutoring program as needed.
- DIBELS NEXT: This set of short fluency measures tracks progress in phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.
- Pre and Post Barton Tests: Brief tests measure mastery of skills taught through the Barton curriculum.
- Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT): This standardized test assesses reading accuracy, rate, fluency, and comprehension, helping us evaluate progress and tailor interventions.
Ongoing Assessments
Your child’s progress is continually monitored by not only his tutor, but also a Case Manager who provides another pair of well-trained and experienced eyes. In addition, we administer standardized testing that compares your child’s reading skills to other students the same age (nationally normed), and periodically meet with you to review your child’s progress. Here is a summary of the data we collect:
- Diagnostic Nature
The diagnostic nature of our instruction allows us to continuously observe student progress and make any needed adjustments in the student’s individual program. - DIBELS NEXT
We regularly sample your child’s reading progress using DIBELS NEXT. DIBELS stands for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. They are a set of short one-minute fluency measures designed to monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills. There are seven measures designed to indicate progress in the five critical reading areas: phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, fluency with connected text, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. - Pre and Post Barton Tests
We administer brief reading and spelling pre and post tests to demonstrate mastery of the skills and concepts that have been taught as your child progresses through the Barton curriculum/levels. - Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT)
This individual standardized reading test yields scores for reading accuracy, reading rate, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. It is helpful in order to a) compare a student’s reading skill level to that of other students the same age nationwide; b) determine the strengths and weaknesses in a student’s profile so as to choose and “tweak” the correct intervention; c) evaluate a student’s progress in reading over time.