Do you want experienced NY State certified teachers specialized in reading intervention supporting your child’s reading development at your home Susan Littman, Jo-Ann Kalb, and Shelley Padilla will help your child become a more confident reader while addressing decoding (sounding out letters), reading fluency, reading comprehension, and encoding (spelling).
Sounds too good to be true but you have come to the right place. Our reading specialists are trained in a variety of approaches including Great Leaps, Sounds in Motion, Orton Gillingham, PAF, and Shelley Padilla is Certified Wilson Instructor.
If your child has additional oral language, receptive language, and auditory processing difficulties, our language specialists (licensed and certified speech language pathologists) address these issues in addition to reading and writing difficulties. Contact Craig at craig@brooklynletters.com & 347-394-3485 .
Meet our reading support staff:
Susan Littman NY State Certified Reading Specialist, NY State Licensed ELA Teacher, & Literacy Coach
Susan Littman is a NYS Certified Reading Specialist, a NYS Licensed English Language Arts Teacher, and a Literacy Coach, who has helped many students with reading difficulties in elementary and middle schools. Her education includes a Masters in Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a Masters in Literacy with a special focus on reading disabilities from Long Island University. She also has worked extensively in several District 15 schools, including in P.S. 321 and M.S. 821.
Initially, the process begins with an evaluation of your child's readings skills, using standard reading assessments, personal observation and interaction with your child. Input from you, the parents, and your child's teachers, is also vital to get a better understanding of your child's strengths and struggles. Then, based on your child's instructional needs and goals, Ms Littman will develop an individualized reading plan. This targeted intervention is customized to help your child make progress, whether the issues are decoding words and/or reading comprehension.
Ms Littman has created a welcoming space in her centrally located Park Slope brownstone where she sees students after school or on weekends. It is a quiet room where a child can concentrate and where distractions are minimized. Here, in this comfortable, supportive environment, Ms Littman will teach your child the strategies and skills s/he needs to become a confident, competent reader.
LOCATION: Home office at 399 2nd Street (Park Slope) and Ms. Littman makes Brooklyn home visits.
TYPE OF SERVICES: Initial reading evaluation, consultation with teachers and other involved specialists, individualized reading intervention plan
EXPERTISE: Students with phonemic awareness, phonics, and reading comprehension difficulties.
AGES: All ages.
HOURS: Flexible, after school and on weekends.
CONTACT: susan@brooklynletters.com
Jo-Ann Kalb NY State Certified Teacher & Reading Interventionist
After a successful 30 year career teaching grades 1, 2 & 5 in Park Slope, including 10 years as a school librarian, Jo-Ann Kalb became a Reading Intervention teacher in 2003. Jo-Ann is currently a Reading Intervention teacher at PS 10 in Park Slope and is able to work with small groups as well as one on one. She received training in the following research based literacy programs: Great Leaps, Sounds in Motion, Rewards & Orton Gillingham based Wilson Reading and PAF. She uses a combination of programs and strategies gleaned from her long professional career to work with students who struggle with reading, phonemic awareness or dyslexia.
She offers one on one tutoring and group work. Jo-Ann typically recommends at least two sessions per week to see progress with a young reader who is struggling with decoding. She does an initial reading assessment prior to creating a treatment plan. I engage the family in the learning process and leaves follow-up work for the student to complete. Jo-Ann tailors the program to meet the child's individual needs and provides all materials. She can also arrange after-school or summer groups using the Sounds In Motion program: a phonemic awareness program that takes advantage of children's movement while learning consonant and vowel sounds.
Read more about her rave reviews!
LOCATION: Manhattan and Brooklyn (Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Prospect Heights, Bay Ridge, Ditmas Park, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, and Fort Greene).
TYPE OF SERVICES: Initial reading evaluation, reading intervention using research based reading programs.
EXPERTISE: Working with children who have phonemic awareness problems and/or dyslexia.
AGES: 5-10
HOURS: Home-Visits: Mon, Wed-Fri 3:30-7PM, Sat & Sun 10 AM-3 PM
CONTACT: joann@brooklynletters.com
Shelley Padilla, M.S. NY State Dual Certified: Special Educator and Elementary Education & Certified Wilson Reading Specialist
Shelley Padilla is a New York licensed Elementary Education (Pre K, Kindergarten, Grades 1-6)/Special Education teacher earning a Bachelor of Science in Elementary and Special Education from Buffalo State College and a Masters of Science from Adelphi University in Mental Retardation and the Emotionally Disturbed. Padilla found her love for teaching by becoming involved in Special Education since an early age, working as a camp counselor in Special Ed camps, and subsequently has taught several types of special needs children in various school settings around the country, including self-contained classrooms for elementary grades and resource room for grades K-5.
Shelley Padilla has achieved Certified Wilson Instructor status, specializing in working one-on-one with Special Education students in grades 4-12 and has also trained in the Wilson Fundations Program; a phonics-based program for young children (K-3), and currently oversees and supports teachers using this program. Additionally Padilla is training other teachers in the Wilson Reading Program at a K-12 Special Education school on Roosevelt Island, NY.
Shelley Padilla excels at changing the lives of children that have difficulty in reading by allowing them to see how being a better reader can affect many areas of their lives especially in education. Padilla utilizes her skills to collaborate with teachers, therapists and parents in order to maximize the achievements of students in their educational and emotional needs. Padilla really knows how to make learning to read fun and exciting while showing her students all the possibilities available to them when they learn to appreciate the world of reading.
The Wilson Reading System directly and systematically teaches students to achieve success in reading. Unlike traditional phonics programs, Wilson Reading instruction is very interactive and multi-sensory, thus teaching total word construction and not just phonics. Students learn to encode (spell) and they learn to decode (take words apart) as part of their reading process. Evidence shows that when a direct systematic, code-based instruction is skillfully implemented by a Wilson Reading knowledgeable teacher, it is the most effective approach for problem readers.
The ability to read and comprehend depends upon the rapid and automatic recognition and decoding of single words. This is dependent upon the ability to segment words and syllables into phonemes (smallest unit of sound). This system is based on the multi-sensory language techniques and principals first described by Dr. Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham.
LOCATION: Manhattan (Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Murray Hill, Gramercy Park, Clinton, Chelsea, Union Square), Queens, and Long Island.
TYPE OF SERVICES: Initial reading evaluation and reading intervention.
EXPERTISE: Working with children who have difficulty with decoding (deciphering letters when reading), reading fluency, and/or encoding (spelling) issues, including working with students with dyslexia.
AGES: Kindergarten through High School
HOURS: Home-Visits: Wed. after 4, Thurs. after 3, and weekends.
CONTACT: shelley@brooklynletters.com .
RATES
Manhattan: $110-$130 per hour and either Jo-Ann Kalb or Shelley Padilla can work in your home.
Brooklyn: $100-$120 per hour and Jo-Ann Kalb works in your home.
Queens: $100-$120 per hour and Shelley Padilla can work in your home.
Long Island (Nassau County): $100-$120 per hour and Shelley Padilla can work in your home. She resides in Baldwin.
Craig Selinger
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