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 and Numeracy 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.
Small Group Literacy and Numeracy Lessons
2025 - 2026 Programme Options
1) Reading, Spelling, and Writing Intervention (Kindergarten - Gr 12)
This intervention programme is closely aligned with the Orton-Gillingham approach to literacy learning, as well as the most current evidence-based principles of structured literacy. Together, these methodologies are crucial instructional approaches for students with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and other reading and writing challenges. Instruction is explicit, systematic, and cumulative, targeting the foundational components of literacy in a carefully sequenced manner.
Key instructional areas include penmanship, phonemic awareness, phonics for both encoding (spelling) and decoding (reading), syllable awareness, morphological understanding (prefixes, suffixes, and roots), syntactic knowledge (sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation), and vocabulary development.
Designed specifically for students diagnosed with dyslexia and/or dysgraphia, as well as ADHD, or those who are reading and writing significantly below grade level, this program offers targeted support to help learners build confidence, independence, and the skills they need to thrive in school and in life.
2) Reading Comprehension, Spelling, and Writing for the Older Student (Gr 4+)
Led by certified teachers trained in the SRSD (self-regulated strategy development) approach to writing and the EBLI (evidence based literacy instruction) approach to reading and spelling, students are guided 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.
3) Math Fluency and Word Problems (Gr 1 - 12)
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).
Programme Schedule:
All literacy and numeracy lessons are designed to run sequentially from the academic year. Students attend twice per week for 60 minutes.
Semester One: September 22 - December 13th, 2025
Semester Two: January 12th - March 20th, 2026
Semester Three: March 30th - May 14th, 2026
ALL group lessons start at 4:30 pm or 5:45 PM
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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.