- Dyslexia
Your child is bright. So why is reading this hard?
What Is Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a learning difference that affects the way the brain connects sounds to the letters and words that represent them on a page. It is not a vision problem. It is not a sign of low intelligence. Many children with dyslexia have exceptional verbal reasoning, creativity, and problem-solving ability and significant difficulty getting any of that into written form.
The core difficulty is phonological: the brain hasn’t built a reliable connection between the sounds of spoken language and the symbols that represent them in print. This makes reading and spelling feel effortful in a way that is genuinely neurological, not a matter of effort, attitude, or trying harder.
Dyslexia is lifelong. But it is not a ceiling. With the right intervention, students with dyslexia become accurate, capable, confident readers. We’ve watched it happen for over 37 years.
Why Tutoring Alone Hasn’t Worked For Dyslexia
When a child struggles with reading, the instinct is to find a tutor. It’s a reasonable instinct. It’s also almost always the wrong tool for this particular problem.
Traditional tutoring re-exposes a child to content they couldn’t retain the first time. If the reason they couldn’t retain it is that the phonological foundation was never properly built, more exposure to the same material produces more of the same result.
Tutoring assumes the foundation is there. For a child with dyslexia, it isn’t.
| Traditional Tutoring | Structured Literacy at SLC (LiPS and EMS) |
|---|---|
| Re-teaches content your child missed | Finds the specific reason reading is hard |
| Assumes the foundation is there | Builds the foundation that was never developed |
| Uses the same approach that didn’t work in school | Uses a multisensory approach that creates a new route to reading |
| Measures output (grades) | Measures the underlying skill (phonological processing) |
| Can continue indefinitely without closing the gap | Designed to end, because the skill is built, not managed |
Traditional tutoring
- Re-teaches the content your child missed
- Assumes the foundation is there
- Uses the same approach that didn't work in school
- Measures output (grades)
- Can continue indefinitely without closing the gap
Structured Literacy at SLC (LiPS® and EMS®)
- Finds the specific reason reading is hard
- Builds the foundation that was never properly developed
- Uses a multisensory approach that creates a new route to reading
- Teaches your child what sounds feel like- how their mouth makes each one
- Measures the underlying skill (phonological processing)
- Designed to end- because the skill is built, not managed
Signs to Watch For
You may already know something isn’t adding up. Here’s what dyslexia actually looks like.
Most parents arrive at SLC not with a diagnosis, but with a feeling. Their child is clearly intelligent, articulate, curious, full of ideas, but the moment reading or spelling is involved, everything changes.
These are the signs that bring families to us:
- Takes much longer to read than classmates, even simple texts
- Reads slowly, word by word, rarely reads in phrases or with fluency
- Spells the same word differently in the same paragraph
- Avoids reading aloud, or becomes visibly anxious when asked
- Strong verbally and can discuss ideas confidently but written output doesn’t reflect their intelligence
- Exhausted after school, despite the day seeming straightforward to peers
- Letter or number reversals, especially past age 7
If several of these sound familiar, you’re not imagining it. And you don’t need a formal diagnosis to reach out.
- How EMS Works
What makes EMS different from everything else that’s been tried
- Who Is EMS For?
You Might Be In the Right Place if Any of These Sound Familiar
EMS is designed for students of all ages who are struggling with French reading or spelling despite adequate instruction and genuine effort. The families we see most often in this program fit one or more of these descriptions:
- Your child is in a French school (public or private) and is falling behind in French language arts, reading, or writing – despite working hard
- French tutors have helped temporarily, but the improvement doesn’t stick
- Your child reads French words out loud but doesn’t retain what they’ve read, or cannot spell words they’ve studied repeatedly
- Your child has been assessed and received a diagnosis of dyslexia or a reading disability, and the school’s support has not been sufficient
- Your child is an adult – a federal employee, a professional, or a post – secondary student – who has struggled with French for years and was told their difficulty was a matter of effort or aptitude
- Your child has received a negative learning prognosis in French and you are looking for a genuine alternative
A note on adult learners
EMS was originally developed in part for anglophone federal employees in Canada who, after multiple attempts to learn French as a second language, were still unable to master the language. It has helped many adults overcome a difficulty that was consistently misattributed to lack of willingness, intellectual laziness, or inability to learn none of which were true. If this is your story, we want you to know: the program is available to you at any age.
- The Programs
Two programs. One in English. One in French. Both built on the same proven science.
LiPS - English Reading and Spelling
The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program (LiPS) is SLC’s primary reading intervention for English-language students with dyslexia. It is one of the most research-validated structured literacy programs available.
LiPS works by teaching students to feel the physical movements their mouth makes when producing individual sounds- simultaneously connecting auditory, visual, and tactile pathways. Students don’t just memorize rules. They understand sounds at a level that makes decoding automatic and durable.
The program is ideal for a child who has been told to “sound it out” for years without result. This is what sounding it out actually means when it’s taught correctly.
Every LiPS session at SLC is delivered one-on-one by a trained specialist, at your child’s pace, sequenced to build each skill before the next is introduced. Every concept is fully mastered before the next is introduced. Students move forward once the foundation is solid.
EMS - French Reading and Spelling
| Standard French Tutoring | EMS at SLC |
|---|---|
| Re-teaches vocabulary and grammar rules the student has already seen | Builds the foundational visual-auditory processing skills French requires |
| Assumes the student’s reading mechanism is intact | Addresses the specific reason the reading mechanism is not working in French |
| Improvements are often temporary | Improvements are structural- built into the neural pathway, not stored in short-term memory |
| Works well for students who just need more exposure | Designed for students for whom more exposure hasn’t worked |
| Uses the same teaching modality that wasn’t working in school | Uses simultaneous multisensory delivery that creates a new route to French literacy |
| Can continue indefinitely without closing the gap | Designed to end when the skills are genuinely built |
Enseignement multisensoriel simultané (EMS) is SLC’s structured literacy program for students struggling with French reading, spelling, or writing. Based on the Orton-Gillingham method, one of the most rigorously researched approaches to reading remediation in the world. It was designed specifically for students whose standard French instruction has not produced lasting literacy.
EMS works by engaging multiple neurological pathways simultaneously: visual, auditory, tactile, and kinaesthetic. The program builds processing connections that French literacy requires. This is not a learning style preference. It is a neurological strategy for students whose phonological processing of French has not developed properly through standard instruction.
Every EMS session at SLC is delivered one-on-one. The pace is your child’s pace. The specialist adapts in real time to what each student needs, session by session. Every concept is fully mastered before the next is introduced. Every student moves forward only when the foundation has been built.
Which program is the right fit?
If your child is struggling in both languages, start with an Introductory Call. We’ll help you figure out which program is best for your child.