How I Became a Speech to Print Tutor

Happy New Year!

January is often seen as a month to get back to basics.  So in that spirit, I am going back to the beginning and sharing with you how I became a reading tutor.

I started my teaching career when my own children started school.  At first I volunteered in their classrooms and eventually was offered a position as a teaching assistant in a 4th/5th classroom. 

From there, I moved to the school’s reading lab and worked with elementary and middle school students who were not reading at grade level.

I loved working in the reading lab but there was one aspect that really frustrated me:  students generally demonstrated improvement, but their reading gains didn’t stick and they were referred back to us year after year.

Why the Way Reading Is Taught Matters

Although I was trained in a number of different reading curricula, I started researching reading intervention programs and discovered there are two very different ways reading is commonly taught:

• Print → Speech (traditional approaches like Orton-Gillingham like we used in the reading lab).

• Speech → Print (the approach I now use).

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The difference may sound subtle, but for struggling readers, it’s huge.

Print → Speech: Starting With Letters and Rules

In a traditional print-to-speech approach, instruction begins with what the child sees on the page.

Children are typically asked to:

• Look at letters or letter patterns.

• Recall rules about how those letters might sound.

• Blend parts together to figure out the word.

For some children, this works.

For many struggling readers, it doesn’t.

Why?

Because reading becomes a visual guessing game:  Students try to

• Remember rules instead of listening to sounds.

• Rely on patterns, context, or word shape.

• Guess when words get longer or unfamiliar.

Over time, this often leads to:

• Inaccurate reading.

• Slow, effortful decoding.

• Anxiety and avoidance when faced with new words.

Speech → Print: Starting With Spoken Language

In a speech-to-print approach, instruction begins with what the child already knows: spoken language.

Children are taught to:

• Say the word clearly.

• Listen to the sounds they hear coming out of their mouth.

• Match those spoken sounds to the spellings that represent them.

• Read the word left-to-right by saying and blending all sounds together.

This shifts reading from guessing to logic and control.

Instead of asking, “What rule applies here?” the child learns to ask, “What sounds do I hear when I say this word?”

While working at the school I also tutored kids privately, so I started using speech to print instruction with them.  And the results were remarkable:

• They learned to read accurately.

• They improved quickly.

• They enjoyed reading real books and stories instead of highly controlled decodable books with no real plot or purpose.

• The gains they made were sustained.

These results led me to leaving my position at the school and focus solely on my private tutoring practice and Success Tutoring was formally established.

Why Speech → Print Works So Well for Struggling Readers

Speech to Print works for all students, but especially well for struggling readers because it:

• Anchors reading in spoken language (something every child already has)

• Reduces memory overload and rule confusion

• Builds accuracy before speed

• Gives children a clear plan when they don’t know a word

Most importantly, it removes the fear and builds confidence.

Children stop thinking, “I don’t know this word.”

They start thinking, “I can work this out.”

That shift changes everything — confidence, independence, and long-term success.

A Simple Way to Think About the Difference

Print → Speech“Look at the word and try to remember how it works.”

Speech → Print“Say the word, listen to the sounds, and match them to print.”

One asks children to guess.

The other teaches them how to figure it out — every time.

When reading instruction aligns with how language actually works, progress feels faster, clearer, and far less frustrating.

Please share this post to anyone you know whose child is struggling with reading and let them know I’d love to discuss how I can help them.