MONTICELLO - Tucked into a storefront on Monticello?s Washington Street is a place where children having trouble with their studies can get one-on-one assistance. The Reading Group specializes in dyslexia, attention deficit disorder and gifted students and, in spite of its name, can help students in any subject area, including adults who want to improve their reading.
Executive Director Kathy Wimer remembered a retired man who told her he?d never been good at reading and once he retired from his career in auto body repair, he had time to improve it.
Motivation helps, and so does the one-on-one attention from certified teachers, many of them also retired.
Reading is the problem most often for students who come to The Reading Group, said Mary Rhodes, who has taught special education for 19 years.
"The most common difficulties are in the area of reading: trouble decoding or sounding out words, poor fluency or comprehension," Rhodes said. "Very often tied to that is trouble with written language: written expression and spelling."
The Reading Group is one of the state?s providers for Supplemental Education Services, free tutoring for children who attend schools identified as failing under the No Child Left Behind act.
Starting in October, The Reading Group will be onsite at Thomas Jefferson and Stephen Decatur middle schools in Decatur for the after-school program. The Reading Group will have a classroom at each school, Wimer said.
"For kids in early childhood, kindergarten, first and second grade, we use a multisensory program, Phonics You Can Feel," Wimer said. "It involves all the senses in teaching the sounds, and that has been found to be effective with working with students who are identified with dyslexia and other learning disabilities."
Some children are identified with learning difficulties as early as age 3, she said, and The Reading Group can work with those children to get them ready for kindergarten.
Valerie Wells can be reached at vwells@herald-review.com or 421-7982.
Congratulations! You've turned to the right source for specialized reading instruction. The Reading Group is a not-for-profit learning center located in Urbana and Monticello. We’ve been serving this community for 35
years with highly specialized, one-on-one instruction. We offer lessons to students ages 3 and above, in most subject areas and
for any skill level, including special needs such as dyslexia, speech and language developmental delay, ausperger's syndrome, autism or gifted learning needs.
