After 31 years spent working in many different areas of education, helping young people to improve their reading and writing skills, Christine Arter retired and set herself up as a Consultant Reading Specialist, offering Individual Learning Support. She offers a full assessment followed by individual tuition and currently enjoys teaching a wide range of clients.

"At primary and secondary age, I support children with reading, comprehension, phonics, spelling and writing, as well as helping some pupils work towards their Year 6 SAT exams," says Christine. "I also help pupils with dyslexia who, in spite of their ability and sustained effort, will always find reading a struggle."

It's not just children who benefit from Christine's expert help - adults can also attend a writing workshop or concentrate on higher order writing skills such as sentence structure, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and the editing of written work.

Where children are not making the expected levels of progress in Literacy, Christine offers a full assessment of the child's skills. "I believe that such an assessment is extremely important because it is not usually offered in school, and it enables me to quickly pinpoint areas of difficulty," she explains. "For example, I frequently find that children aged nine or 10 have not fully mastered even the basic phonic skills - consequently they will not be able to cope with more advanced sounds such as the 'oa' sound in boat, or 'aw' in awful."

Some pupils may also have poor visual or auditory memory skills, and therefore find it difficult to learn spellings, or listen to and comprehend verbal instructions. A full assessment enables Christine to understand a student's particular difficulties and to commence an individual learning programme, designed specifically to meet their needs.

"It is extremely rewarding to see students' confidence with words soar, as they begin to experience success!" says Christine. "If you are worried about your children's reading or writing skills, it is important to seek help before they experience feelings of failure. Take that first step before it is too late."

For more information about Individual Learning Support contact Christine Arter on 01527 62522.