Who We Are
At Cardinal Reading Strategies, our primary objective, with the Orton-Gillingham tradition as our foundation, is to provide tools, goals, and structure that meet the needs of students requiring either primary instruction or remediation in the reading (decoding) and spelling (encoding) of the English language.
The Orton-Gillingham tradition (structured literacy) is an intensive, sequential, and cumulative approach that teaches the basics of word formation before whole meanings. We teach to students’ strengths while improving their weaknesses through explicit and systematic phonics instruction. As a result, a student’s ability to master reading, writing, and spelling of the English language is fostered, forensically.
With our forensic approach, students can be shown the phonetic nature of the English language and the proper structure of the written language.
Our reading services may include any or all of the following:
Reading Assessments
Spelling
Word Attack Skills
Morphology
Phonemic Awareness
Reading Fluency
Reading Comprehension
Sound-Symbol Correspondence
Writing Skills
Study Skills
Grammar
Articulation
Advocacy
Cursive Handwriting
Keyboarding
Parent Training
Language Training Supplies
Our Skills
It typically takes us six months to raise a student’s reading level by two grades.
Our Services
Structured Literacy
In order to read and spell, a student must be able to translate the written symbol to the corresponding sound that it represents and vice versa. This activity is based upon sound-symbol correspondence, and it is not a naturally occurring process.
Reading Assessments
We use nationally-recognized, norm-referenced assessments to identify strengths or weaknesses (age equivalents, grade equivalents, and percentile ranking) in sight word vocabulary, phonemic decoding deficiency, sound-symbol correspondence, and reading comprehension, fluency, and accuracy.
Advocacy
We have as our mission to advocate for parents in assuring that their child with language-based learning disabilities and specific learning disabilities receives the quality educational services he or she is entitled to under state and federal law.
Additional Services
Digital Supplementals
For each concept studied in our sessions, students are given digital supplementals so that they may practice frequently at home on the smart tablet of their choice. This serves to expedite the language training intervention.
Ad Hoc Consultations
As a client family, you and Cardinal Reading Strategies are both apart of "Team (Insert your last name here)". Feel free to contact us with questions regarding our sessions, digital supplementals, or language training in general by phone or email, at any time.
Sessions Available World-Wide
We have provided structured literacy training to students all over the world. As our highly interactive and multi-sensory content is digital,we are able to conduct language training sessions virtually, with more ease than a face-to-face tutorial. Our digital content and premium conferencing software allow all aspects of a traditional Orton-Gillingham session, including cursive handwriting and simultaneous oral spelling. Students love that they are using a touchscreen computer to handle manipulatives and to use cursive handwriting. Parents rejoice that there is no traffic involved nor the juggling of multiple after school activities. Structured literacy training, featuring each of the five pillars of reading, takes place virtually, in real time and one-on-one with a highly qualified structured literacy consultant, in the security and comfort of their own homes. Our method of intervention is intensely private. Students will never have to explain to their friends who that person is that comes to their house twice each week.