Tutoring

  • For families who live in the Portland area, I offer individual and small group, in-person tutoring for children ages 5-12. I’m an experienced teacher and tutor, who loves to form authentic connections and guide children along their learning journey. I work to establish rapport right from the start and weave in games, silly conversation, and art to support your child’s motivation and engagement. I use Montessori materials and approaches combined with systematic, structured literacy lessons to support children in becoming confident readers, spellers, and writers.

  • I have worked in Montessori spaces since 2004 as a lead guide, administrator, and more. I hold a Masters of Education and AMI Montessori 3-6 & 6-12 credentials. In addition to completing my Orton Gillingham Educator’s Training, I am LETRS 1 & 2 certified, and have additional training through the International Dyslexia Association of Ontario. When it comes to literacy, I am compelled to always learn more and you can often find me spending my free time listening to literacy podcasts, watching webinars, and reading books and articles about the latest research.

  • I provide a free, 30-minute initial consultation. To set this up, please get in touch! I am currently scheduling families for Summer 2024.

  • Consult & Initial Session

    During our free consultation, you can expect me to ask a bit about your family history with reading, what you are noticing from your child at home and school, as well as any approaches that you know are supportive to your child.

    During your child’s first visit, I will do some assessment balanced by traditional games or play-based activities or art. This helps your child feel comfortable and lets me get a sense of where we might begin our instruction.

    I will also ask you for any information your child’s school, teacher, or other specialists may have to share. If your child has DIBELS scores or other universal screening data, this can be extremely helpful to get a picture of how to best serve your child.

    Tutoring Sessions

    Sessions are a mix of activities using manipulative materials, exercises to improve automaticity and games.

    A typical session may include components of the following:

    -Phonemic awareness

    -Letter-sound correspondence

    -Review of previous skills

    -Introduction and guided practice of a new skill

    -Practice with irregular words

    -Reading and/or writing at the word, sentence and/or passage level

    Depending on your child’s skill level, I may offer practice with handwriting (cursive or print).

  • I offer tutoring in my own northeast Portland home. Schedule dependent, I am also able to travel to your home or your child’s school.

  • This is entirely dependent on each child’s unique learning profile. For children on the Dyslexia spectrum, tutoring may typically last anywhere between 1 and 3 years with two to three weekly sessions.

  • Sessions are billed on a self-chosen sliding scale of $80-$120/hour. I charge an additional $20 travel fee if traveling outside of northeast Portland.

    Sliding Scale Explained

    Please choose the rate that aligns with your resource level. If you have had structural advantage and access to wealth, consider paying at the higher rate. I recognize that even with this sliding scale, tutoring may not be accessible to some families. Please do not hesitate to reach out to see if we can create a financial agreement that will work for all involved.

  • Yes! During the last 5-10 minutes of our sessions, I typically review the skills your child is practicing and offer caregivers ideas and materials for extending the work at home.

    I offer additional coaching sessions at my tutoring rate. These can happen in person, via phone, or Zoom.

  • Our child works alongside Zil once per week, and in just 8 sessions we have seen a notable increase in their confidence and skill level. We appreciate so much how Zil pays close attention to the interests of our child, and comes ready to creatively approach literacy skill-building through play and connection. We appreciate the session recaps, too, which include at-home suggestions for practice we can do together that offers just the right level of challenge while still feeling fun. I highly recommend contacting Zil to grow your child’s circle of support when it comes to their reading journey!

    ~ Tessa (she/her), caregiver

    “Our son has been working with Zil for the past five weeks, already we have noticed a huge impact on his confidence, fluency and ability to work through hard words. Zil is super creative and does a great job keeping our son engaged and finding activities he gets excited about. I appreciate how as parents we have set activities to do which takes the guesswork about how to support him through the process. I highly recommend working with Zil!”

    ~Charlene (she/her), caregiver

    “Zil instantly put my child at ease during her assessment. My daughter joyfully engaged with Zil while completing the process—I think she thought they were simply playing a game!”

    ~Katie (she/her), caregiver