Reading is the most important subject in schools, since it's the foundation of intellectual development.  Children need to be comfortable reading and understanding text in order to be able to accurately interpret and analyze reading materials.  Reading is a fundamental element in all school subjects.

In the tutoring sessions, balanced approaches to literacy learning are used, including shared reading as well as independent reading and writing.  Children who read with me learn to appreciate and love reading as engaging lessons are created, which develop new skills that are cultivated based on their prior knowledge.

Mission

The tutoring sessions strive to achieve the following:

• To gain an understanding of the students' cultural and intellectual background (schema) to build and develop lessons in the balanced literacy framework.
• To have the students move up 1-2 levels in reading for every 3-5 tutoring sessions.
• To help the students enjoy reading, and to foster lifelong reading habits.
• To have students become better spellers and writers by utilizing the balanced writing framework.

My theory of reading is that reading is a meaning making process.  It involves making and confirming predictions by using background knowledge and the three cueing systems (structure, visual, and meaning) to construct meaning. 

I view reading as an interactive process. The reader interacts with the text to create meaning as the reader's mental processes work together at different levels. I believe that the purpose and approach to text differ among readers. Expectations of a story are defined by a reader's cultural influences and experiences, and it affects their interpretation and understanding of the story. The individualistic component of reading is a strong component of schemata, which is the reader's pre-existing ideas about the world. Recognizing and utilizing the reader's schemata helps to create interest and encourage active involvement.