english

Many parents believe that reading and writing are like walking. Sure, some students learn to do them sooner and some learn to do them later, but everyone (more or less) learns to read and write to a high level at some point. Unfortunately, this isn’t true. While some skills, like walking and talking, are innate to people, and almost everyone will learn how without instruction, a history of mass illiteracy clearly demonstrates that children don’t simply learn to read. Often, this historical fact is dismissed because it feels like circumstances have changed. We have education for everyone, so surely everyone graduates school able to read. And this is true - mostly.

While almost all Canadian graduates can read traffic signs, understand the instructions on their pharamacy perscription, and be influenced by written advertising, research throughout the decades shows that half of adult Canadians have low literacy skills, and it’s not getting better. This reduces their ability to find work, secure promotions, and puts them at risk for injury through misunderstanding important instructional text. Worse, adults with poor reading struggle to advocate for themselves within the medical and political system, which leaves them sicker and more isolated. These challenges are even greater for the full quarter of Canadian adults who are functionally illiterate.

So what’s going wrong? Schools often assume everyone learns –and should learn– to read, write, and do arithmetic the same way and at the same speed. As students graduate from grade 1 onwards, teachers will deliver course material while increasingly assuming your student can fluidly decode text.

This means that students who have not yet mastered reading, often find they are left behind in all subjects. bowtie.school can help.

bowtie.basics

bowtie.basics was developed to help primary aged students (12 years and under) who are being left behind. When young students first demonstrate low literacy, schools usually try to provide extra reading and math support to struggling students, but unfortunately, this extra help quickly vanishes as the student is promoted to upper elementary. To make matters worse, these remedial classes are often based entirely in phonics or fully in sight word memorization. Research suggests this isn’t the right approach. At bowtie basics, we take the best of both reading methods. Our students practice phonics, but they’re also continuously exposed to the most common words until they learn to recognize them on sight. We are offering a complete, adaptive remedial reading program that brings young learners to on-grade level reading or beyond. Our teachers help your child learn to both read simple passages filled with common words and how to attempt sounding out new words.

We also take our reading skills off the page. Children are encouraged to engage with literacy in all its forms. We want our students to read comic books, text with their grandparents, and play text heavy, child friendly video games. We help our students tell stories about their own lives and experiences, because what they have to say is interesting and important. Once our students are confident readers, we offer longer, complex texts based on the topics and subjects your student finds intrinsically interesting – not the dusty old books that someone decided they should read a hundred years ago.

bowtie.tutoring

bowtie.tutoring is for older students who want to improve their grades in their secondary ELA class. These tutoring classes offer one-on-one homework help and curriculum reinforcement, so your student can benefit from immediate feedback on their assignements, and they can build necessary vocabulary, grammar, and oragnizational skills. Our tutors work to scaffhold where your student is now with where they need to be to achieve their academic goals.

bowtie.classes

bowtie.classes is a unique, interest-based program that hones the same reading, writing, and analysis skills found in traditional ELA classrooms, but approaches mastering these compentencies through engaging with media that your student finds implicitly engaging. Some of our stand alone secondary ELA courses include:

Set your student up for Academic Success today. Get started with our Bowtie Tutors with an evaluation of where your student is performing right now and feel confident in our plan to build their foundational academic skills, so they can thrive at school. Contact us now, and help your student get started on the right track today!