The Importance of Lifelong Literacy
Learning is primarily done through reading, writing, listening, and speaking. As students progress through elementary school, middle school, high school and college, reading and writing become independent, self-structured activities that are used to learn new concepts and communicate what they know. Having a solid foundation in reading and writing is essential for academic and vocational success. Students do best if they receive support as soon as they begin to struggle, as students are challenged to do more complex reading, writing, and thinking at each level.
Elementary School Learners
Elementary students undergo rapid brain development while building the foundation of the complex neural networks that allow people to read and write. This means they have to link visual, movement, sound, meaning, and grammar information in disparate regions in their brain. Students often need special language instruction in pattern recognition to learn all of the complicated spelling rules in English that come from German, Latin, and old English roots to be able to recognize the word in the written form and connect it with the concept. Additionally, students may need visual and interactive instruction to make sense of the abstract concept of storytelling.
Middle School Learners
During middle school, students are at a pivotal point in brain development where they are building the neural architecture to support advanced critical thinking. Engaging with more complex academic ideas through texts and communicating those ideas through writing at this age is crucial, and it can be challenging for many students. Education increasingly becomes more reading and writing centered in middle school, high school, and college, so supporting students now helps prepare them for all of their future educational and occupational endeavors.
High School Learners
During High School, the teen brain is exceptionally malleable and responsive to the influence of experience. High school students are developing their worldview based on the information they encounter and the learning experiences they have. Personal goals, ethics, societal values, philosophical concerns, and deep analysis are all ways of thinking that develop during this time. High school students are also learning the fundamental concepts in adult courses of study in the sciences, humanities, mathematics, and the arts. High school students actively learn most new concepts from texts and lectures. High school students may need support with comprehending complex text structures, writing essays, developing critical thinking and writing skills, and building vocabulary.
College and Adult Learners
The pre-frontal cortex of the brain, responsible for higher-level thinking and organization, continues to mature until the late 20s. Writing becomes discipline-specific. At this stage, college students and adults must structure the writing process independently. Professors and bosses look for depth of ideas and the art of how those are communicated. Correct mechanics are expected without instruction. Students and employees must be able to learn through text independently.
How Can Mindfish Help?
Mindfish’s Reading, Writing, and Literacy Support programs begin with an assessment and writing review to help any learner set goals and establish a baseline. Then, we work with the student to support them as they build the reading and writing skills necessary to meet their personal and educational goals. We periodically conduct assessments to check in and measure progress.
Our Planning Process
The Initial Consultation and Planning program involves a detailed evaluation of the student’s or adult’s reading and writing strengths and weaknesses. This includes:
- discussions
- a graded writing sample
- a standardized assessment
- a guided reading evaluation
We set goals personalized to the student based on their individual and academic needs. We can structure any program to meet teachers’, schools’, or employers’ requirements or recommendations.
Finding What Works For You
The program begins with a meeting between the student and instructor, during which the instructor evaluates the students’ strengths and weaknesses. By the end of the session, the instructor will identify goals and personalized instruction methods to meet those goals.
For example, the assessment might reveal that students may not experience difficulty with reading speed or when reading for the main idea. However, they may have trouble scanning for details and answering comprehension questions. In this case, we would set a goal of independently scanning and correctly answering comprehension questions on their History tests.
Our plan would include instruction on how to spot detail questions, clarify that a detail question requires matching information without interpreting, model scanning for meaning instead of scanning for individual words, and practice with academic and student-interest texts until the student is able to independently answer detail questions.
Example Goals:
- Achieving grade level on reading comprehension tests
- Writing 5 paragraph essays
- Building academic vocabulary
- Learning phonics to support reading comprehension
The student and instructor will meet regularly to work towards their established goals. We’ll make necessary plan adjustments, be mindful of supporting individual teachers’ and employers’ requirements, and periodically assess to monitor student progress.
How is Reading, Writing, and Literacy Support Customized for Neurodivergent Learners?
Neurodivergent learners may require experience-based learning instead of verbal or written instructions in a group setting. Our experienced tutors partner with students to customize programs to best fit the student’s cognitive profile, learning style, and experiential knowledge of what works for them.
Some examples of how we support students with different types of neurodivergences:
For students with dyslexia, we provide specific instruction in breaking advanced words into syllables, comparing and contrasting word sound with word spelling, finding essential information in the text, and annotating as a strategy for when working memory is challenged by the mental load of word processing.
For students with ADHD, we use strategies to help engage their interest in new texts, learn to track information and store it on paper (as opposed to their working memory), and teach techniques for monitoring their attention..
For students with a history of language disorder, we work on strategies for idea generating, text summarizing, and expression of language in moments where they are thinking of the concept but can’t find the words.
Reading and Writing Skills for School and Beyond
Let Mindfish Instruction Make a Difference
Experience the benefits of reading and writing instruction. Get started today with our Initial Consultation and Planning program.
Our Literacy Expert
Hannah Brooks has taught ACT/SAT prep, ESL, literacy and math to kindergarten-college students and adults. Throughout Hannah’s diverse accomplishments as an educator, one common theme has been her passion for language and her devotion to helping students of all levels, ages, and backgrounds become better readers and communicators. She has taught gifted and talented students in grades K-8, college International students, high school students, and elementary school students.
Hannah is a Certified Cognitive Coach, meaning she is trained to support students with ADHD, Autism, and Dyslexia. She’s tutored international students with suspected learning disabilities and literacy difficulties, provided personalized academic support for students with anxiety, autism, and Executive Functioning deficits in the public schools, and provided remedial literacy and math interventions for students 2-3 grade levels behind in the public schools. At Mindfish, Hannah specializes in supporting students with test anxiety and coaching students with Executive Function deficits.