- Dyslexia
Your child is bright. So why is reading this hard?
Something about reading just isn’t clicking. More practice, more patience, and more tutoring haven’t changed that.
Our dyslexia intervention programs identify the foundational difficulty affecting how a student reads and spells. Through structured, multisensory dyslexia reading programs in English and French, we help students build stronger, more reliable reading skills.
What Is Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a learning difference that affects how the brain connects the sounds of spoken language with the letters and words that represent them in print. It is not a vision problem or a sign of low intelligence. Many children with dyslexia have strong verbal reasoning, creativity, and problem-solving abilities but experience significant difficulty expressing those abilities through reading and writing.
The core difficulty is often phonological. The brain has not developed a reliable connection between speech sounds and the written symbols that represent them. This can make reading, decoding, and spelling feel unusually difficult and effortful. It is neurological- not a matter of attitude, intelligence, or simply needing to try harder.
Dyslexia is lifelong, but it is not a ceiling. Effective dyslexia programs use structured, explicit instruction to strengthen phonological awareness, decoding, spelling, and reading fluency. With the right intervention, students with dyslexia can become accurate, capable, and confident readers. We have watched it happen for more than 37 years.
How Dyslexia Reading Programs Differ From Traditional Tutoring
Traditional tutoring can be helpful when a student understands the foundational skills but needs additional explanation, practice, or support with current schoolwork.
Dyslexia-related reading difficulties often require a different approach. Structured dyslexia intervention programs focus on the underlying phonological and decoding skills that make reading and spelling possible. Instead of repeating the same material, these programs teach foundational reading skills explicitly, sequentially, and through multiple sensory pathways.
| Traditional Tutoring | Structured Literacy at SLC: LiPS® and EMS® |
|---|---|
| Reviews or re-teaches current school content | Identifies the foundational reason reading or spelling is difficult |
| Generally assumes the underlying reading foundation is present | Builds phonological awareness, decoding, and sound-symbol connections |
| Provides additional explanation and practice | Uses explicit, sequential, and multisensory instruction |
| Often measures progress through homework completion or grades | Measures growth in underlying reading and phonological processing skills |
| May continue as ongoing academic support | Provides targeted intervention with defined skills and progress goals |
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
Common Signs of Dyslexia to Watch For
You may already feel that something isn’t adding up. Your child may be intelligent, articulate, curious, and full of ideas, but the moment reading or spelling is involved, everything changes.
Dyslexia can look different from one student to another. However, some common signs may include:
- Taking much longer than classmates to read even short or familiar texts
- Reading slowly, word by word, with limited fluency
- Difficulty decoding unfamiliar words or connecting letters with their sounds
- Spelling the same word differently within the same piece of writing
- Avoiding reading aloud or becoming anxious when asked to read
- Understanding and discussing ideas verbally but struggling to express them in writing
- Forgetting words they have previously read or practiced
- Becoming unusually tired or frustrated after reading and writing activities
These signs do not confirm a diagnosis on their own, but they may indicate that a student needs a closer assessment of their reading and phonological skills.
If several of these signs feel familiar, you do not need to wait for a formal diagnosis before contacting us. An introductory consultation can help determine the most appropriate next step and whether one of our dyslexia intervention programs may be suitable for your child.
- How EMS Works
How EMS® Supports French Reading and Spelling
- Who Is EMS For?
Who Can Benefit From the EMS® Program?
EMS® is designed for children, teens, post-secondary students, and adults who continue to struggle with French reading, spelling, or writing despite appropriate instruction and genuine effort.
EMS® may be suitable if:
- Your child attends a French school and is falling behind in reading, spelling, or writing despite working hard
- French tutoring has provided temporary support, but the improvement has not lasted
- Your child can read French words aloud but struggles to understand or remember what they have read
- Your child repeatedly studies spelling words but has difficulty retaining them
- Your child has dyslexia or a reading disability and requires more structured French literacy support
- You are a post-secondary student or professional who has experienced persistent difficulty with French reading and written language
- Previous instruction has not identified or addressed the foundational reason for the difficulty
A note on adult learners
EMS® is also available to adult learners. The program was developed in part to support anglophone federal employees in Canada who continued to experience difficulty learning written French despite repeated instruction.
For some adults, these challenges were incorrectly attributed to effort, motivation, or aptitude. EMS® provides a structured, multisensory approach to French literacy and can be adapted to the learner’s age, goals, and existing skills.
- 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.