How to Spot Learning Difficulties in your Child

by Brisbane Learning Difficulties Tutor Justin Clark Learning difficulties present in a multitude of different ways and vary wildly from child to child.  There are a plethora of different signs that a child with learning difficulties can display, which change with factors such as age, gender, personality type and, naturally, the type of learning difficulty.…

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What Are The Advantages Of A Private Tutor?

There are so many benefits of a private tutor beyond just the one-on-one interaction and more focussed learning opportunities.  Having just one student means the work can be tailored specifically to that child. It also means that we can take breaks whenever it is best suited to. If a child becomes too tired, we can…

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Tutoring Help During the Coronavirus Outbreak

Having had school closures and loss of teaching time and other ways that COVID-19 has impacted on our lives we understand these are difficult and uncertain times for our children and their learning. However, Hope Tutoring can help families maintain normality and minimise upheaval in their children’s lives. We can help support parents by offering…

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What is Dyslexia?

by Brisbane Learning Difficulties Tutor Justin Clark There is a great deal of confusion as to what is dyslexia, this the best definition in my opinion. Dyslexia is a complex learning difficulty that varies widely from one individual to another.  However, all students with dyslexia will experience some difficulties with reading, spelling and writing.  Some…

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How to Help a Child with Dyslexia to Read

by Brisbane Learning Difficulties Tutor Justin Clark Helping Dyslexic Children to Read One of the most apparent symptoms for students with dyslexia is the avoidance of reading.  This is because, for these students, reading is frustrating because of their inability to decode words and make meaning from what is being read.  Therefore, the reading process itself…

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Homeschooling in Australia

How Common Is Homeschooling in Australia? Homeschooling can be done by parents or by homeschooling tutors. Homeschooling in Australia is growing, there are currently around 20,000 homeschooled students in Australia and the numbers are increasing all the time.  Even more telling is the estimation of about another ten thousand students that are homescholed and not…

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Helping a Child with Aspergers

Author Justin Clark, Aspergers Tutor in Brisbane. Helping a Child with Aspergers to Learn Helping a child with Aspergers to learn requires a sound knowledge of Aspergers and their preferred learning styles as well as how to best manage any social or behavioural challenges. The following blog has been written by Brisbane-based Asperger’s tutor Justin Clark from Hope…

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Phonics, Spelling & Meaningful Texts

Learning to Spell Phonics refers to the relationships between sounds and the patterns of letters used. However, phonics alone is usually not enough for students to decode words. They need a meaningful context to determine how the phonics works. For example, consider the word ‘lead’. We can see the differences in the following sentence: ‘The…

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Inclusive Education & Supporting the Needs of Students with Learning Difficulties

by Brisbane Tutor Justin Clark specialising in Learning Difficulties Inclusive Education Inclusive education is where students of all abilities, stripes, patterns and sizes are accepted and supported within schools.  The goal is to build a democratic and caring schooling community, along with the wider school environment as well.  Inclusion is an ongoing process of negotiation…

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Learning in the Classroom

by Brisbane Tutor Justin Clark Learning Or Classroom Management? Learning in the classroom should be about constructing meanings within social contexts, relationships and languages. However, traditional or behavioural approaches to learning focus on addressing student behaviour and classroom management. Students learn the ‘right’ knowledge through memorisation and practice. This type of learning requires the teachers’…

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The Reading Development Process

by Brisbane Tutor Justin Clark Stages of the Reading Development Process Readers go through three stages of the reading development process – as they develop word recognition abilities. In the first stage they develop a beginning knowledge of the nature of written language and its relationship to speech. They learn how print functions, the letters…

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Developing Phonological Awareness

by Brisbane Tutor Justin Clark What is Phonological Awareness? Phonological awareness is the awareness of sounds in spoken words.  It is also the awareness that words can be broken into onsets and rimes.  These sounds are revealed by abilities such as rhyming, matching initial consonants and counting the number of sounds in spoken words.  These…

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