Sarah

About Me

I am a certified teacher with over 25 years of experience teaching elementary English Language Arts and ESL to students of all ages in the US, UK, Turkey, and China. I have a master's in Education: Reading and Literacy, and I tutor both elementary (all subjects 1-5) and English Language arts for secondary students, with a focus on reading fluency and written responses to text, as well as the PSAT and SAT reading and writing portions of the exam.

Tutoring Style

I am a passionate ELAR teacher focusing on the six pillars Of Reading by Design: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. I also focus on the Six Traits of writing: Voice, Ideas, Presentation, Conventions, Organization, Word Choice, and Sentence Fluency. I adapt my teaching style to the needs of my students, building on their current knowledge to bring each child on-level or advanced instruction. I am patient and proceed at the child's pace so he/she is successful and passes with flying colors.

Success Story

One of my favorite success stories is when I helped a second grader identified with dyslexia. She lacked phonemic awareness and couldn't sound out short vowel words or identify preprimer sight words. We worked together four days each week. After three months, she could read at grade level and approached grade level in writing. Her confidence soared, and she was reading chapter books and writing short stories. She went on to pass her MAPS tests in reading and language arts that year!