Can I Get A Side of Success With My Orton-Gillingham Tutoring in Atlanta?

Yes, I kid you not. I'm not exaggerating - or (what my little pre-school clients would like to say) telling you a fib - but it is true. Somehow the byproduct of tutoring our clients in Orton-Gillingham has been not just reading, but a side of success and confidence.

I've been doing this for over a decade now, and the first question that I ask parents is not what subject their child needs help on. If that were the case, I would open up a tutoring franchise and call it "Mc Tutoring" (it's a little catchy isn't it - maybe I should trademark this before somebody else does). I do something that is more important than finding out what the solution is… This helps me in helping them.

Once I've spoken to the parent, I get ready to meet the student. This opportunity is one that I find very special because it allows me to really work with who I enjoy working with most in my life: children. You see, in my childhood  I keenly observed each and every adult around me and noticed who liked working with children, and who liked making a paycheck. Every time I was around someone who liked children, there was a glint in their eyes that made them so approachable. When I was around an individual who wanted to make a paycheck, I noticed that they would count the minutes until their time was up. I've always loved children - and have a special place in my heart for those who are very capable of doing great things, but just do not know how to get there. That is the reason why I love working with children using this methodology.

For years, I've mastered the art of working with kids who have issues with reading. I pride myself on being "the one" who taught them how to read. I help them understand that there is nobody there to judge them and that I will stand beside them when they are finished to tell their mom and dad everything great that they did, and whisper every page of homework left to do. There are contagious smiles, giggles and laughter that comes with each time I work with children. I pre-judge some children, thinking that a concept that I think is hard will be hard for them - and then they make it look easy. I applaud them for being patient - and understanding and knowing that this one sacrifice that they have made early in life - giving up soccer, tennis, ballet or dance for the next few months will result in something bigger than any ribbon or trophy that can be placed in their living room. When they are done working with me, I expect that they will hold their head high and tell me without any reservation, "I can do this". I've achieved this with parents whose children were "below level" for one year and tested for gifted another. I've seen this with children who could only read words that had one syllable for 2 years in elementary school and became proficient readers in computer programming languages for adults.

The sky is the limit - I want this for each and every child I work with and hope that great things come to those who wait…patiently for success!

The Secret To Success… A Story of Orton-Gillingham

Some of what I do is routine, the other part of what I do is sheer instinct. Never in my life could I have imagined being at the helm of creating and developing the intellectual and behavioral limits of children - until today.

I was besieged by a litany of comments that were made by a team of educational professionals that I have worked with on a special project. My client, "R", had struggled with reading and was in an educational environment that lacked the structure to provide her with the remediation and skills needed in order for her to become a well-versed, fluent reader. She also had not been exposed to the knowledge base that her peers had already learned and so - I was given the task: to create a system where she would learn what typically takes most children 5 years to learn, in 9 months.

This was not an easy task. I racked my brain for weeks and spent hundreds of hours creating a plan that I thought was ambitious and crafty, but would require more endurance than willpower. My team of professionals and I had meetings upon meetings and discussed the matter before the actual implementation. We talked about the pros and cons - obstacles and distractions, laughter, tears and all. It was inevitable that I would have to conjoin two conflicting methodologies to solve a problem that nobody had diagnosed was there  - but only I was able to see it. How could this be? This client has spent thousands of dollars on therapy and psychologists here in Atlanta? How could they miss it? I don't now and frankly, I didn't care anymore. All I know is that the client had put the future of her daughter's life in my hands. As always, I felt like the "fixer" - and that's all I know how to do. Fix other people's mistakes.

So we have spent less than four months working on the plan. After hours of phone calls/meetings/emails and text messages - everything (surprisingly) went as planned and all goals and objectives were achieved. When I picked up the phone in the last week, my team had inundated me with the important details of what has happened and was excited to share with me the significant milestones that she had clearly reached. Even the conversation with my client's mother started off in the most jovial manner where she stated, "the psychologist cannot believe how much she has improved in one quarter. She doubted that it could happen." I'm sure that may be the mentality that most people have in education - but I do not feel that it is the norm.

At the end of the day, it's times like these where I feel that sometimes learning is not about setting limits like in Calculus class, it's about discovering your potential for being limitless! 

JATP Admissions 2014-2015

It's been a rather exciting year! We have kicked off with such an amazing start and have had some of the most focused parents consult with us. I'm happy to say that these parents will reap what they sow and believe me, there is quite a bit of great planning and results driven goal setting since the inception of this journey.

I'm happy to say that I've invested a great deal into researching the best and most updated products that have been added to our process. (Actually traveling to another country to grab an amazing product to help with intellectual development was quite nice as well!) One client actually told his mother, "There's so much that Ms. Christine does, we play games and have so much fun and I'm learning at the same time:)". I smile when I see the children work through every activity and can see the improvement in speed, agility, and mental flexibility every time we work.

If you would like more information about JATP Admissions Consultation for 2014-2015, feel free to call me at 404-964-8533.