Use Your Words Speech/Language Therapy Services use a highly successful instructional approach geared towards our clients who present with difficulty in reading, spelling, writing, or any combination of the three. The key is to focus on our client’s individual needs using a multi-sensory approach in order to improve their literacy skills.
Our therapy encompasses all learning pathways by creating a multi-sensory learning environment. By focusing on the alphabetic principle (or the relationship between sounds and letters), we are able to help our clients to improve their literacy skills step-by-step.
Reading instruction may target phonemic awareness, decoding skills, spelling, vocabulary, comprehension, sight-word development and/or reading fluency skills. Writing fundamentals will include skill development and reinforcement in creating and developing a paragraph (including topic sentences, supporting details and conclusions), making transitions within and between paragraphs, using graphic organizers as tools to plan a writing piece, creating four types of writing (expository, narrative, persuasive, and descriptive), using words effectively, and developing techniques to detect errors.
We use the Smarter Intervention Curriculum (Smart Alec ©), which is based on the methodology of Orton-Gillingham principles, to teach our clients how to successfully decode (read) and encode (spell) using the Six Syllable Types. The Six Syllable Types framework helps our students grow faster (and stronger) in their reading skills and have them prepared to attack multi-syllabic words. When students understand how syllable types can change the way a vowel sounds, they can read or spell that syllable easier. By teaching our students the foundational rules and the “why” of our language, they will be able to spell and read better than if we only had a system that requires then to memorize words.