Meet them where they are,

not where we want them to be

For many children, learning to read and write is very hard work. Yet, when high-quality instruction is explicit, systematic, and cumulative in its approach, and multisensory in its practice, reading and writing will begin to feel easier. Over eight months, applying this approach to literacy learning will enable us to gently guide our students toward becoming confident, resilient, and proficient readers and writers.

Literacy Clinic Information

As an ally of Mount Royal University’s Bachelor of Education degree, all of our literacy group lessons will be facilitated by Year 3&4 teacher candidates (TCs)who have previously completed an eight-month field placement dedicated to implementing structured literacy in elementary/junior high classrooms. Further to this, each TC has over 16 hours of additional training in a structured literacy approach to literacy and numeracy teaching.

Group Lesson Information: September 2024 - May 2025

Small Group Reading, Spelling, and Writing Lessons

Program ONE: Reading, Spelling, and Writing Lessons grounded in the OG-approach/structured literacy approach to literacy learning:

These Lessons are designed for Students Entering Grade One - Entering Grade Nine

Instructional Focus: penmanship, phonemic awareness, phonics for encoding and decoding, syllable awareness, morphological awareness, syntactic awareness (sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, etc.), and vocabulary development. Designed for the dyslexic and/or dysgraphic learner, or those students who have been identified as below grade level.

  • Monday and Wednesday, 4:30 - 5:30 PM or 5:45 - 6:45 PM, or

  • Tuesday and Thursday, 4:30 - 5:30 PM or 5:45 - 6:45 PM

Program TWO: Reading Comprehension, Spelling, and Writing for the Older Student (Gr 6+)

Led by certified teachers trained in the SRSD (self-regulated strategy development) approach to writing, students will be led through a series of thoughtfully crafted sequential lessons starting at sentence-level development (unscrambling, parts of speech, conjunctions, prepositions, punctuation, etc.), with the end goal of writing both argumentative and persuasive essays. Reading comprehension strategies (annotating, close reading, exploring background knowledge, etc.) will be taught using short stories and novels which will be used to guide our weekly writing lessons. Designed for the dyslexic and/or dysgraphic learner, or those students who have been identified as below grade level.

Entering Grade Six - Entering Grade Nine: Twice* weekly 60-minute lessons

Mondays and Wednesdays, 5:45 - 6:45 PM

*Depending on interest, a 90-minute, once/week lesson on Wednesdays, 5:30 - 7:00 PM, may be offered.

Program One and Two Duration: Lessons are designed to run sequentially from September 2024 - May 2025 over three semesters, but students have the option to attend the first TWO semesters ONLY.

Semester One: September 23 - December 11th, 2024

Semester Two: January 13 - March 19, 2025

Semester Three: April 14 - May 28, 2025

Program One or Two, please REGISTER here: https://forms.gle/8YJ8UbJT8XNaRcSs6

Small Group MATH Lessons: Computation and Word Problems

Program ONE: Math Fluency and Word Problems

Math Fluency and Word Problems: Grounded in a systematic, explicit, and tactile approach to numeracy learning, lessons will focus on developing automaticity with basic math facts AND the necessary reading comprehension skills required to solve single-to-multistep word problems.

Please note that these lessons DO NOT address specific grade-level outcomes. Rather, these lessons seek to support students struggling with number sense (place value and computation) and completing word problems (reading comprehension).

These Lessons are designed for Students Entering Grade One - Entering Grade Six (For older students, please email: literacy@soundsapart.ca)

  • Monday and Wednesday, 4:30 - 5:30 PM or 5:45 - 6:45 PM, or

  • Tuesday and Thursday, 4:30 - 5:30 PM or 5:45 - 6:45 PM

Program Duration: Lessons are designed to run sequentially from September 2024 - May 2025 in three semesters, but students have the option to attend the first TWO semesters ONLY.

Semester One: September 23 - December 11th, 2024

Semester Two: January 13 - March 19, 2025

Semester Three: April 14 - May 28, 202

Math Program REGISTRATION: https://forms.gle/8YJ8UbJT8XNaRcSs6

HYBRID PROGRAMS ALSO AVAILABLE: Your child is welcome to attend ONE reading and ONE math lesson/week

Cancellation Policy: While Sounds Apart provides full credit for classes we cancel, we CANNOT reschedule GROUP LESSONS missed by individual students; the nature of group lessons prevents us from being able to offer this option. Please contact Eryn for more information about missed group lessons.

Withdrawal Policy: Please provide 30 days’ notice to withdraw from tutoring services. Notice provided less than 30 days before the end of the calendar month will result in 0% reimbursement of fees.