FOR BUDDING YOUNG LEARNERS (4½ – 14+)
1:1 Tutoring with a Cognitive Twist!
Code Word Brain offers professional 1:1 online reading, spelling, writing & maths tuition for children aged 4 – 14. For learners who experience difficulty taking in, comprehending &/or retaining even the best teaching instruction, I also offer a clinical-strength, teacher-monitored, online homework program that playfully targets & strengthens the key cognitive skills needed for learning (memory, attention, processing, and sequencing).
Whether you’re home or away, the memory & attention homework takes just 30-minutes; once, twice or thrice each day, 3 to 5 times a week.
1:1 Online Tutoring: FAQs
▪ Reading
▪ Writing
▪ Hand-Writing
▪ Spelling
▪ Phonics
▪ Comprehension
▪ Maths (by request)
I use Sounds-Write phonics & decodable readers to help beginning, developing & struggling students learn to read. This method improves spelling, simultaneously. I sometimes tutor other subjects (like maths) as needed — please ask 
Sounds-Write (lingustic phonics) is a structured, multi-sensory, code-oriented approach to teaching children to read & spell.
As opposed to the widely-used traditional approach of visual phonics where children are taught that letters (rather than humans) somehow ‘say’ or ‘make’ sounds, Sounds-Write linguistic phonics makes learning to read (and spell) far more logical. It begins with the sounds of language (which children acquire naturally from birth) and sensibly teaches that letters are used to represent the sounds we speak. Children are instantly empowered as they realise they already possess half the equation when it comes to learning to read (the sounds!).
When reading and spelling are learned in this way, cognitive overload & learning gaps diminish, promoting understanding and confidence!
Code Word Brain is for you if…
My professional, personalised, brain-based tutoring is for primary school learners and pre-school or kindergarten children, aged 4½+.
However, to fast-track & enhance progress, please also consider the clinical-strength ‘cognitive homework’ if your child falls into any of the following categories:
What is Cognitive Homework?
Most parents tell me that their child is extremely bright, but something seems to be holding them back. They’re looking for some way to improve attention & unlock their child’s true learning potential in the classroom.
Does this sound like you?
Even in a 1-to-1 learning situation, it’s not always possible for a teacher & student to complete something enough times (& well enough) to make it stick. Especially when ’invisible’ cognitive skills, not the lesson or task itself, are the core difficulty.
Improving cognitive skills improves a learner’s overall ability to learn.
The Fast ForWord online reading intervention is a clinical-strength homework program that intentionally trains the foundational cognitive skills required for reading & all learning.
Most reading & learning programs work around the underlying weaknesses that cause learning difficulty, but Fast ForWord targets learning struggles at the core — starting in the brain!
Your child will do 10-minute bursts of memory, attention & auditory processing exercises that double as reading or pre-reading games.
Patented technology will adapt to your child’s strengths & weakness for a personally accelerated learning journey which is monitored daily by Code Word Brain’s professional, qualified teacher.
The minimum routine is 30-minutes a day, over 3-days per week but for optimal results the frequency of 5-days is encouraged, & up to 90-minutes per day can be done for those who are keen for even faster progress!
Fast ForWord research shows 96% of parents report their child has improved in reading, focus, understanding, or completing homework, in 3- to 6-weeks.
Allow 1 to 3+ months to complete this mission
Allow 1½ to 4+ months each (sequential missions)
Allow 1 to 3+ months for each level needed
Allow 1 to 3+ months of experience
Why ‘Fast ForWord’ for Cognition?
Learning doesn’t only happen as a product of teaching — learners need time to explore & test their memory. Fast ForWord & Clear Fluency allow kids the time & space to think about problems and answers in a cleverly scaffolded, non-judgmental & playful learning environment…
Fast ForWord is made by brain scientists to deliver the personalised repetition & novelty that a learner’s brain needs. It nurtures struggle & scaffolds success for a happy-learner habit that lasts! As Aristotle put it… “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.“
Cognitive Homework: FAQs
All children will require a Wi-Fi connection, & a computer, tablet, or laptop. A microphone headset that fully covers the ears will also be required.
I request students be seated at a clutter-free desk or table, in a quiet room of your home (not a bedroom), in a chair that supports good posture.
The Fast ForWord Cognitive Homework Program begins on the 1st day of a month.
You can expect ongoing motivation & support, healthy brain tips, daily ‘cognitive homework; progress emails & colourful weekly progress charts, optional placement test for a snapshot of your child’s phonological, decoding, vocabulary and comprehension skills, completion certificates (if attained) & a program that automatically adapts to your child’s personal level of understanding.
Though every brain is different, a 5 x 30-mins Fast ForWord homework protocol (per week) will generally require a student-commitment of at least 3 to 6 months to build & strengthen neural pathways, create myelin in the brain for faster processing (via ongoing repetition), and consolidate learning — many stay longer to make the most of all learning opportunities and learners who are more than 1.5 years behind in reading may require 10 to 12+ months. Participants have the flexibility to complete 60 to 90 minutes per day (instead of the standard 30-minutes per day) for faster outcomes.
Not sure how long your child will need? Month-by-month pricing can make it easier for you take one step at a time.
Did you know struggling readers need 10-times to 30-times more practice than peers to catch up?
This is difficult using only the traditional means of practice, like after-school tutoring.
The special patents, computerisation & digital enhancing of the language and reading activities in Fast ForWord allow learners to exercise the frontal lobes, auditory processing areas and the ‘map’ parts of the brain at the same time…
This means learners can build speedy fibre-tracts that connect one side of the brain to the other… & build processing maps… & build language skills — all at once!
Fast ForWord is unique because it strengthens key pathways in the brain that help children (and adults) to:
1: Pay closer attention to teachers & tasks
2: Absorb information faster, and
3: Remember what has been practiced, read, or taught.
Fast ForWord has more than 55 patents in neuroscience and education, and more than 250 research studies verifying its effectiveness.
The Fast ForWord missions seamlessly address reading and language skills such as phonemic awareness, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, comprehension, sentence/paragraph building (and more) while concurrently developing the cognitive skills essential to all learning… memory, attention, processing, and sequencing.
Clear Fluency (formerly known as Reading Assistant Plus) is the only online reading software that ‘listens’ to students as they read. It intervenes when they need help, tests reading comprehension and provides non-judgmental feedback after each recording. The practice of oral reading is essential for overall reading development. That’s why Clear Fluency is the perfect partner for Fast ForWord. For learners still working towards basic word reading skills, Clear Fluency can be used as a powerful listening comprehension tool — a learner’s grasp of listening comprehension is an indication of how well a child will understand text once other early reading skills like phonological awareness & decoding have been mastered. Clear Fluency is suitable for beginning through to advanced readers & highly beneficial for English Language Learners. A microphone-headset is required.
At Code Word Brain, I specialise in using brain plasticity protocols for daily gains in language, reading, and cognitive skills.
While you’re never too old to learn, the brain develops more rapidly during childhood which makes it the ideal time to harness brain plasticity (also called neuroplasticity).
Regardless of an individual’s learning diagnosis or symptoms, research shows that when learners gain access to brain plasticity interventions sooner rather than later, learning consolidation is helped. The more specific the practice, the better the results.
Frequency, repetition, novelty and intensity are integral parts of a brain plasticity protocol.
For superior results, I help fast-track learning with the powerful, neuroscientific hub, mySciLEARN. This delivers personalised, easy-to-follow, game like, ‘language & reading’ practice in quick 30-minute bursts via the intelligent, web-based interventions, Fast ForWord & Clear Fluency.
Children receive more repetition & corrective feedback than a teacher could deliver in the same amount of time!
The minimum protocol required to uphold the principles of positive brain plasticity (the ability of the brain to rewire and improve) is 3-days of Fast ForWord per week @ 30 minutes per day. Five days per week is encouraged for optimal results & learning can be further accelerated with multiple sessions per day (up to 60 – 90 minutes a day in total). When Clear Fluency is chosen as a secondary mission to Fast ForWord, it requires no minimum protocol, but 20- to 30-mins/day over 1- to 5-days/week is recommended.
I offer flexible protocol options to ensure each individual learner has access to the frequency, repetition & intensity of learning needed to strengthen & increase neuronal connections in the brain so that associated learning becomes easier & faster.
More than 30 years of research shows that weak auditory processing is at the core of most reading struggles.
The ability to read starts with how the brain perceives and processes sound.
Often the auditory neurons in the brains of struggling readers are not firing fast enough to allow the child to hear the first part of a sound &/or process the rapidly changing acoustic features of speech.
The symptoms of Auditory processing disorder (APD) include difficulty following directions, inattentiveness, and learning or reading difficulties. Children with APD can have mild or severe weaknesses in one, some or all of the areas below:
Auditory discrimination: The ability to notice, compare and distinguish between distinct and separate sounds. The words sixty and sixteen may sound alike, for instance.
Auditory figure-ground discrimination: The ability to pick out necessary and relevant sounds from extraneous background noises. Are you able to hear the person chatting next to you among a noisy group or if the kettle is boiling?
Auditory memory: The ability to recall what you’ve heard, either immediately or when you need it later.
Auditory sequencing: The ability to understand and recall the order of sounds and words. A child might say or write, “hostipal” instead of “hospital”, or hear the number 356 but write 365.
In Fast ForWord Foundations I & II, speech sounds, words & sentences are initially digitally & acoustically enhanced to stretch and emphasise the rapidly changing phonetic elements of natural speech. This allows children extra time to discriminate between the paired sounds, syllables & words being presented which often sound very much alike (i.e. knee vs me / line vs lime). As sound representations are retrained in the brain, auditory processing skills begin to improve & the game sounds become less & less enhanced until, finally, they’re practiced at normal speed.
The quality of support a developing reader receives is vital & that’s why Fast ForWord is only part of the comprehensive reading & language therapy I offer your child at Code Word Brain.
During online tutoring time/s, 1:1 Sounds-Write tuition is included as an option for all students, as is reading-breath coaching & sitting posture.
The cognitive homework program is teacher-monitored and can be done on its own (without tutoring). However, for a more comprehensive tutoring experience, you may wish to consider both 1:1 tutoring & cognitive homework – this would allow your child to continue practicing specialised phonics, reading, grammar, spelling, memory, attention, fluency, speed, & accuracy in between each of our scheduled 1:1 teacher calls.
Code Word Brain’s unique teacher-led learning routine is boosted by linguistic phonics, breathwork and neuroscience — allowing children to not only improve language and reading but also brain health, auditory processing skills, memory, anxiety, impulsivity and sleep —
for brilliantly brighter school days!
