Areas of Practice
Reading
Whether you are seeking a boost for your emerging reader or you have a struggling reader or writer at home, Irini is experienced with many literacy approaches and tools. Irini has completed her Associate Level training in Orton-Gillingham, and completed a week-long course in Structured Word Inquiry. She has also received certifications from Reading Simplified Academy and has completed countless hours of coursework by leaders in the field including Dr. Louisa Moats and Dr. David Kilpatrick. Students who have been failed by school systems or even specific reading remediation programs are often referred to Irini with good success. Irini understands the complex cognitive and neural pathways involved in reading to maximize reading success.
Spelling
English spelling is often perceived as difficult. Whether its the lack of phonetic consistency across words, exceptions to rules, or silent letters, English spelling can be frustrating even to native speakers. Irini will teach your child spelling beyond the textbook of spelling conventions. Irini’s clients develop an understanding of the elegant and complex orthographic system of English, and realize they don’t have to memorize weekly spelling lists, only to forget them after a quiz. The understanding they develop lasts a lifetime.
Writing
Writing is a complex task that requires a multitude of skills including knowledge of text structure, organization, critical thinking, clarity, and creativity. This is in addition to knowing how to develop a thesis, research, and provide evidence on topics as well as demonstrate appropriate mechanics, usage, and grammar of the English language. No wonder it’s so hard! Writing tasks are also very taxing on a student’s executive function skills, and are the area where many students with ADHD and executive function disorders break down in their coursework. Irini works with clients to determine where writing tasks are breaking down, and builds their knowledge and confidence to produce well-written pieces. Irini works with students who struggle on sentence-level tasks all the way to thesis papers for upper secondary students.