Opening Doors to Reading
Providing effective instruction to develop each unique learner's reading skills
My Services
Cathie Bertola, M.Ed. Literacy
I offer one-on-one, 50 minute tutoring sessions to support reading skill development for students with dyslexia and hyperlexia in Bellingham, WA.
Research-Based Curriculum for Dyslexia
I use the Barton Reading and Spelling System in my work with students who are developing skills in decoding, spelling, fluency, and vocabulary. These children may or may not have a diagnosis of dyslexia.
Research-Based Curriculum for Hyperlexia
I also use Lindamood-Bell's Visualizing and Verbalizing to support students with hyperlexia. These children read accurately, but need to develop concept imagery to support their reading comprehension. Students with hyperlexia may or may not have a diagnosis of autism.
About Dyslexia
Supporting Readers with Dyslexia
Reading skills develop as we integrate phonological, visual, and linguistic information. We form neural pathways through this learning process, and for the majority of readers, a special rerouting occurs over time. Think of the improved route as a reading super-highway localized in the brain's left hemisphere. The skill associated with it is referred to as automaticity, the ability to read efficiently with fluency and comprehension.
For some readers, despite their intelligence and effort, the process of integrating the multiple components of reading is compromised. This learning difference is known as dyslexia. Functional MRI studies reveal that these learning challenges involve an area of the brain that recognizes phonemes, the smallest units of sound in language. Research demonstrates that Orton-Gillingham based interventions are most effective for supporting students with dyslexia.
Orton-Gillingham based programs offer explicit, sequenced instruction. A key feature of these programs involves the learning and manipulation of phonemes through a variety of sensory modalities (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile). This multisensory aspect is well-suited to learners who often visualize in three dimensions and learn kinesthetically, and it results in excellent outcomes. For this reason, I work with the Barton Reading and Spelling System, an Orton-Gillingham based program designed to meet the learning needs of students with dyslexia.