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Dyslexia Reading Support tutors, lessons & classes
Read it with me The page is the same. The way in is what we change.
Personally vetted reading tutors for students with dyslexia. Decoding, fluency, and comprehension taught as the three separate skills they actually are, with the right intervention for whichever one is the real bottleneck.
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Dyslexia Reading Support tutors for private lessons & classes
Strommen has been coaching reading work in LA since 2006, and our dyslexia reading-support roster is one of the parts of the practice we recruit most carefully into. Every tutor below was met and vetted by us in person or via thorough video interview, with credentials verified. No marketplace. No automated profiles. Real teachers and reading specialists with real classroom and clinical backgrounds.
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Below are the Strommen tutors who specialize in reading support for students with dyslexia. Photos, ratings, and rates are real. Click any card to read their bio and book a free 30-minute trial.
Kareshma N
★★★★★
Learn English & French with clarity, confidence, and comfort.
- Phoenix
Specialties: Dyslexia Reading Support, Dyslexia Writing Support, Dyslexia Organization Skills, Autism Social Communication, Autism Routine-Based Learning, Autism Confidence Building, Dyslexia Phonics Support, Dyslexia Structured Literacy, Conversational French, French for Beginners, French for Travel, French Grammar, English for Beginners, English for Travel, English Grammar
Offers 30 min free-trial
As low as $25.00/hr Online
Kareshma N. Offers free-trial
Learn English & French with clarity, confidence, and comfort.Bonjour and Hello! My name is Kareshma, and I am an enthusiastic English and French tutor dedicated to helping learners gain confidence and fluency in both...
The three skills — decoding, fluency, comprehension
5 things good dyslexia reading-support work looks like
Five concrete elements that show up in any well-targeted reading intervention for a dyslexic student. Useful for parents trying to recognize what good instruction actually looks like.
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01
The decoding-vs-comprehension distinction
A student who decodes accurately and cannot summarize is a different student from one who guesses at half the words and gets the gist. The first needs comprehension and vocabulary work; the second needs structured phonics. The same student can have both gaps in different proportions, but the diagnostic step (figuring out which one is the bottleneck) is what separates targeted intervention from generic reading help. Good tutors run this diagnostic in the first session, every time.
e.g. Two students, both reading two grade levels behind: one needs phonics, one needs comprehension strategy. Different plans entirely.
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02
Timed repeated readings for fluency
The student reads the same short passage aloud three or four times across the week, while the tutor or parent tracks words per minute and prosody. Reading the same passage repeatedly is uncomfortable for the student in week one and addictive by week three, when the curve of their own progress becomes visible. Fluency gains here transfer to unfamiliar text within one to two months for most students. Most-cited evidence base in the fluency-intervention literature.
e.g. Week 1, attempt 1: 78 WPM. Attempt 4: 96 WPM. Week 4, new passage cold: 92 WPM.
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03
Reciprocal teaching protocols
The student and tutor take turns playing four roles while reading a passage together: summarizer (says what just happened), questioner (asks a question about it), clarifier (names what was confusing), and predictor (guesses what comes next). Cycling through the roles makes the cognitive moves of skilled reading visible and rehearsable. Particularly effective for middle and high school students. Originated in the Palincsar-Brown research in the 1980s, still the standard protocol.
e.g. Tutor reads paragraph. Student summarizes. Tutor asks a question. Student clarifies. Both predict. Next paragraph, swap.
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04
The IDA-recommended hour pacing
For students significantly behind grade level, the International Dyslexia Association recommends one to one and a half hours per session, two to four times per week, for a period of months to years depending on the gap. The recommendation reflects what the intervention research shows is needed for measurable gains rather than what is convenient for family schedules. Strommen calibrates to what families can sustain, but the underlying principle is real: consistency and intensity matter more than the polish of any single session.
e.g. 60-minute sessions, three times a week, sustained for nine months: typical schedule for a student two grade levels behind.
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05
The read-aloud companion model
Parent or older sibling reads aloud, child follows along visually, both stop to discuss. The child gets access to stories above their independent reading level, picks up vocabulary and syntax in context, and stays engaged with grade-level cultural literacy while their decoding catches up. Documented to support comprehension, syntactic awareness, and the general love of reading that is often the first casualty of struggling-reader status. Tutors walk parents through how to do this without it becoming a battleground.
e.g. Parent reads a chapter of <em>Harry Potter</em>; child follows along; both pause when something is funny or confusing.
About Dyslexia Reading Support
Reading is three different skills, not one
Reading looks like one activity from the outside, but for the brain it is at least three: decoding the printed words into sounds, reading those sounds fluently and at a pace fast enough to make meaning, and comprehending what the sentences and paragraphs actually mean. A reader who is strong in all three reads automatically and does not have to think about any of them. A reader who is dyslexic almost always has a bottleneck in one or two of the three, and the bottleneck is rarely the same from one student to the next. The right reading intervention starts with identifying which of the three is actually the problem, because the work for each one looks very different. A student who can decode every word on the page but reads at half the speed of their peers needs fluency work, not more phonics. A student who reads quickly and accurately but cannot tell you what the chapter was about needs comprehension work, not faster decoding. A student who is still guessing at multi-syllable words needs the foundational structured-phonics layer first. Mixing up which intervention to run, or running all three at once for a student who only needs one, is one of the most common ways well-intentioned reading support fails to move the needle.
Strommen's reading-support tutors work across all three layers, and the first sessions are diagnostic by design. The tutor listens to the student read aloud, ideally from a passage at or slightly above the student's current grade level, and observes specifically: which words trigger hesitation, which patterns get guessed at, where the eye loses its place, whether comprehension survives the act of reading aloud or whether the student reads accurately and cannot summarize a sentence later. From that observation the tutor calibrates what the bulk of the early sessions will focus on. The pedagogy underneath is the structured-literacy framework the International Dyslexia Association has documented as the most evidence-backed approach for dyslexic readers, but the specific delivery (decoding-focused, fluency-focused, comprehension-focused, or a deliberate mix) gets matched to the student.
Decoding is the foundation. If the student is still hesitating on common multi-syllable patterns or guessing at words from context cues rather than reading them, the work belongs in structured phonics, and our dyslexia phonics-support page is the right starting point. For students who are past that stage and decode accurately on simple text but slow down on grade-level material, decoding work moves into the harder layers: multi-syllable chunking, the open-versus-closed syllable rule applied to four- and five-syllable words, the morphology of prefixes and suffixes (Latin and Greek roots), and the spelling-meaning patterns that govern academic vocabulary. This is the layer where most upper-elementary and middle-school dyslexics actually live, and where good instruction looks less like phonics drill and more like word study.
Fluency is the middle skill and the most commonly under-addressed. A fluent reader at grade level reads roughly 100 to 200 words per minute aloud with correct expression, depending on age. A dyslexic student who reads accurately but slowly often reads at 50 to 80 words per minute well past the grade level where automaticity should have arrived, and the slowness alone wrecks comprehension because the working-memory load of holding the first half of the sentence is too high to also process the second half. Fluency work uses timed repeated readings, where the student reads the same short passage three or four times across a week and watches their own words-per-minute climb. Paired reading (the student reads aloud with the tutor or parent, matching pace) and partner reading are other established techniques. Reciprocal teaching protocols (where the student takes turns with the tutor in summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting) bridge fluency and comprehension work and are particularly effective for middle and high school students.
Comprehension is the third skill, and it depends on the first two but is not reducible to them. A student who has reached automatic fluency but still cannot tell you what the chapter was about is dealing with a comprehension-specific gap, and the work is different again. Vocabulary instruction (explicit teaching of academic words rather than expecting them to be inferred from context) is foundational. Background knowledge matters more than most reading-program brochures acknowledge: a student who knows nothing about the American Revolution will struggle to comprehend a passage about it regardless of their reading skill. Strategy instruction (text annotation, structured summarizing, question generation, visualizing) gives the student concrete cognitive moves to make while reading. Lindamood-Bell's Visualizing and Verbalizing program is widely used in this space and several Strommen tutors are trained in it. The IDA's recommended hour-pacing for foundational reading intervention is one to one and a half hours per session, typically two to four times per week for students who are significantly behind, with longer-term work tapering as the student catches up. We adapt that pacing to family schedules; the principle is consistency, not rigidity.
A word on parental support. The single most underused resource in dyslexic-student reading recovery is the parent reading aloud with the child, every day, beyond the level the child can read independently. The read-aloud companion model (parent or older sibling reads, child follows along visually, both stop to discuss) is documented to support vocabulary, syntactic awareness, comprehension, and the cultural literacy that grade-level text assumes. It also keeps the child engaged with stories at their interest level while the decoding work catches up to it. Tutors will, in the early sessions, walk parents through how to do this without it becoming a battleground, and which books to pick.
The age range matters. Elementary students benefit most from the full diagnostic-then-intervention sequence, often delivered as a two-track plan: structured phonics for the decoding layer plus fluency and comprehension work running alongside. Middle and high school students often arrive with strong workaround strategies (audiobooks, sight-word memorization, contextual guessing) that have masked the underlying gap; the tutor's first job is often to identify which of the three skills the workarounds were hiding. Adult students who are returning to academic work or who have realized in their professional life that reading is slowing them down typically have specific functional goals (read a contract, finish a textbook chapter, get through a research article) and the work calibrates to those goals rather than to a grade-level curriculum.
Finally, the question of whether your student will catch up to peers. Honest answer: many dyslexic students close most of the gap with consistent, structured, well-targeted reading intervention, and many continue to read more slowly than peers throughout their lives while reading comfortably enough for college, professional work, and a life of books. The latter is also a successful outcome. The goal of reading support is not to eliminate dyslexia (which is a neurological profile, not a deficit to be cured) but to give the student fluent, comfortable access to written language, whatever pace that ends up at. Plenty of dyslexic adults are voracious readers, accomplished writers, and professionals in text-heavy fields; they got there with the right instruction and the right respect for the kind of brain they have.
What you'll cover
Lessons & classes tailored to Dyslexia Reading Support
Decoding diagnostic and targeted intervention
First sessions identify whether the student's bottleneck is at the decoding layer (still guessing at multi-syllable words, foundational phonics gaps) or further along the reading pipeline. For decoding-stage students, instruction overlaps with structured phonics; see our phonics-support page. For students past basic decoding, work shifts to multi-syllable chunking, prefix and suffix morphology, and the Latin and Greek roots that drive academic vocabulary.
Fluency work with timed repeated readings
For students who decode accurately but read slowly, fluency intervention uses timed repeated readings, paired reading, and partner reading to build automaticity. Reading rate, accuracy, and prosody are tracked session over session. Most fluency-stage students see meaningful gains in eight to twelve weeks of consistent work. Reciprocal teaching protocols bridge fluency and comprehension and are particularly effective for older students.
Comprehension strategy and Visualizing and Verbalizing
For students who read fluently but lose meaning, comprehension work includes explicit vocabulary instruction, text annotation, structured summarizing, question generation, and visualization techniques. Lindamood-Bell's Visualizing and Verbalizing program is widely used in this space and several Strommen tutors are trained in it. Background-knowledge gaps get addressed alongside strategy work; a student cannot comprehend what they have no schema for, regardless of reading skill.
Parent coaching and the read-aloud companion model
Tutors walk parents through the read-aloud companion approach in early sessions: how to pick books at the right level, how to stop and discuss without breaking the flow, how to keep the child engaged with stories above their independent reading level while the decoding work catches up. Documented to support vocabulary, comprehension, and the basic love of reading that is often the first thing struggling readers lose.
FAQ
About Dyslexia Reading Support lessons & classes
Will my child catch up to peers?
Many dyslexic students close most of the gap with consistent, structured, well-targeted reading intervention. Many continue to read somewhat more slowly than peers throughout their lives while reading comfortably enough for college, professional work, and a life of books. The latter is also a successful outcome. The goal of reading support is not to eliminate dyslexia (it is a neurological profile, not a deficit to be cured) but to give the student fluent, comfortable access to written language at whatever pace ends up being natural for their brain. Plenty of dyslexic adults are voracious readers, accomplished writers, and professionals in text-heavy fields.
Do you address comprehension separately from decoding?
Yes, because they are different skills. A student who decodes accurately and cannot summarize needs comprehension strategy and vocabulary work, not more phonics. A student who guesses at half the words needs structured phonics, not comprehension strategy. Most students have some mix of both gaps in different proportions, and the diagnostic step (figuring out the actual bottleneck) is what separates targeted intervention from generic reading help. The first sessions establish which layer of work the student actually needs.
What is the difference between decoding and reading?
Decoding is the act of translating printed letters into the sounds they represent: looking at cat and producing the sounds /k/ /æ/ /t/, blended into a word. Reading is decoding plus fluency plus comprehension, all happening fast enough that the reader is not consciously aware of any of the three steps. A student can be a good decoder and a poor reader if fluency or comprehension breaks down. A student cannot be a good reader without solid decoding. The distinction matters because it tells you which intervention will move the needle.
How often should we meet for reading support?
The International Dyslexia Association recommends one to one and a half hours per session, two to four times per week, for students significantly behind grade level. That reflects what intervention research shows is needed for measurable gains. Most Strommen families settle on one or two 60-minute sessions per week, often combined with daily parent-supported reading at home, which works for students who are moderately behind. For students with larger gaps or shorter timelines (a grade transition, an upcoming evaluation), we recommend the higher-frequency schedule.
Does this replace structured-phonics instruction?
No. For students who still have decoding gaps, structured phonics is the foundation, and the right starting page is dyslexia phonics-support. Reading support as we describe it on this page is for students who are past basic decoding (or working on it alongside) and need the fluency and comprehension layers worked on in parallel. Many families have one tutor for foundational phonics and a separate tutor for fluency and comprehension; the work reinforces itself when both are running.
Can adults benefit from this kind of reading support?
Yes. Adult students returning to academic work or realizing in their professional life that reading is slowing them down often have specific functional goals (read a contract, finish a textbook chapter, get through a research article in their field). The work calibrates to those goals rather than to a grade-level curriculum. Adults typically progress faster than children in the same number of sessions because the cognitive maturity and self-motivation are higher. Several Strommen tutors specialize in adult learners.
What does a typical session look like?
Most sessions are 50 to 60 minutes, usually weekly or twice-weekly. A session might include 5 minutes of warm-up review, 15 to 20 minutes on whichever layer is the current focus (decoding drill, fluency timed reading, or comprehension strategy practice), 15 to 20 minutes applying the skill to a real text the student is interested in, and 10 minutes of debrief plus setting up the between-session reading practice. Progress is tracked in concrete metrics so families see real numbers, not impressions.
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