Every child deserves a Reading Future
Reading Futures at Home
If you have a struggling reader at home, you know how hard it can be — not just for them, but for you, too.
If your child struggles with decoding unfamiliar words, has difficulty with reading comprehension, or is reading well below grade level, Reading Futures at Home can help.
Our virtual, at-home tutoring program supports children with a variety of reading challenges, including diagnosed dyslexia. We provide your child with the structured literacy instruction they need to become confident and capable readers.
“It has been amazing! She loves her teacher and loves learning. Her word attack skills are so much better and she always wants to go to her tutoring session. She is a transformed child and learner!”
— Eric, Parent of a Second grade student
Services for Families
For older children (grades 4-12): Advanced word-reading and vocabulary
Older children with dyslexia and related reading difficulties tend to compensate by memorizing common words, but struggle with unfamiliar words and new vocabulary. Some are functionally illiterate — unable to read even simple words.
We teach older students using the “Empower” program, developed at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto—the longest-running dyslexia research center in North America. We provide students with age-appropriate strategies for reading unfamiliar words, including blending, flexibility with vowels, the use of rhyme, and prefixes and suffixes.
Older students with reading difficulties have missed years of vocabulary development and related “orthographic mapping.” Our reading passages, both fiction and non-fiction, are leveled to be accessible while providing frequent repetitions of grade- and content-area- relevant vocabulary.
For younger children (grades 1-3): Fluency and decoding
We teach younger students using Maryanne Wolf’s “RAVE-O” program, which invites children to enjoy reading with delightful decodable stories and whimsical reading strategies such as “ender benders” (suffixes). By teaching children strategies to work with larger lexical units, giving them lots of practice repetitions, and always circling back to reading for meaning, we enable them to read with fluency and focus.
We use diagnostic phonics inventories to meet each student at his or her “just right” instructional level. Our structured literacy program and methods have decades of research behind them. But most of all, our teachers know how to make reading fun for children who have struggled for years.
Our Teachers: just as invested as you are
Our teachers are all certified teachers, with years of experience teaching reading. Most are Military Spouses. They receive intense and structured training and mentoring in our programs.
They are expert in the intricacies of structured literacy – listening for errors and providing supportive corrections in the moment, or working with word parts to unpack those tricky multisyllabic words and make meaning. They have experience working with many different types of children and learning styles, with patience for the intentional and deliberate practice this work takes.
Our teachers are invested in your child’s success as you are. Opening the door to reading, for a child who has been locked out for too long, is magical. It’s what we do.
Working with us
Diagnostics
Our intake process includes an interview, a review of your child’s reading scores and/or neuropsychological evaluations, and some additional diagnostic assessments. We pinpoint your child’s unique learning needs and set shared goals and expectations for growth.
Planning
We match your child with a dedicated tutor based on their needs and interests. Our tutoring sessions are virtual, anywhere from once to five times per week, depending on need. Sessions are typically 50 minutes in length. We provide emailed updates on a weekly basis, along with monthly parent-teacher conferences.
Pricing
Tutoring costs $120 for a 50-minute session, with pro-rating for longer or shorter durations. We also offer a “tutoring buddy” option, whereby pairs of students can work together for a rate of $65 per student.
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We tutored Abe for 45 hours during the summer between 3rd and 4th grade. His mother knew he needed help:
“I knew my son struggled with reading and just attributed it to his age, reassuring myself that he would get there, he just needed time. As time went on and things weren’t changing for him, I was at a loss as to what to do. I was serendipitously referred to Reading Futures through a series of miraculous events and this was a pivotal changing point in my son’s life as well as for our whole family. “
Abe was a bright child who missed out on the foundational reading instruction he needed to be able to decode and read fluently. His school hadn’t identified or addressed the need, instead allowing him to fall significantly behind. His mother was concerned that in 4th grade he would be left behind, losing confidence and interest in school.
His tutor, a certified reading specialist, took the time to figure out how he learned, what his interests were, and where he needed help. After 45 hours with Maryanne Wolf’s RAVE-O and other structured literacy materials, he was transformed. His mom reports:
“He returned to school for 4th grade, able to read independently and at a reasonable pace to keep up with his class. He told me that he felt more confidence with reading and more confidence in school in general because of his newfound knowledge and ability. It feels cliche to say, but it is the truth, this program really changed my son’s life. When I see my son sitting on the couch and reading to himself my whole heart smiles – I am full of gratitude for Reading Futures.”
Case Study
About “the Science” – research and insights
The results speak for themselves!
We have been working with “the Science of Reading” since the early 2000s. (You may have heard of it from Emily Hanford’s “sold a story” podcast.) The approach represents a broad consensus among reading researchers on instructional methods that work.
The programs we teach were developed, iterated, and validated over the course of decades, in large-scale NICHD-funded studies. And we collaborate with leading researchers to advance the science. Our scientific advisor is Dr. Jason Yeatman. He runs Stanford University’s Brain Development and Education Lab. He assists us with program design, data analysis, and continuous improvement.
As an example of the leading science we build on, our work with adolescents is based on a large-scale study involving more than 500 students in grades 6-8 with low-achievement criteria dyslexia. The team at the Hospital for Sick Children delivered significant and meaningful growth in word attack, fluency, and reading comprehension – results that we have replicated consistently in our own teaching.
In this day and age, it’s important to ask for the actual science behind your child’s education. Look for large-scale, well-controlled studies delivering significant results. We’d be happy to share the research behind our work – and the results we’ve delivered so far.