Looking for an Orton Gillingham Tutor? What I Learned As A Parent Of A Dyslexic Third Grader
The crumpled spelling test slid across our kitchen table, smudged with ketchup from Mia’s school lunch, on a rain-streaked Tuesday last October. “Three out of ten,” she mumbled, staring at her sneakers. “I’m just stupid. Can we skip homework tonight?” I pulled her onto my lap, and she didn’t even fight me, which is how I knew she was exhausted. We’d been chasing why reading and spelling felt like climbing a glass wall for a year by that point. The school said she was “just below grade level” and wouldn’t qualify for extra support until she failed a full grade. A private evaluation confirmed what I’d suspected: dyslexia. The evaluator said Orton Gillingham was the structured, multi-sensory approach she needed, and sent me home with a single line: Find a trained tutor. That’s when the search started.
I started where most parents do, scrolling Facebook parent groups and tutor directories. The first person I connected with said she’d done an Orton Gillingham workshop, charged $60 an hour, and could meet me at the public library twice a week. I jumped at it, relieved to have something lined up fast. It only took three sessions to see it wasn’t working. She’d pull out generic phonics worksheets, trace letters in sand once to “check the multi-sensory box,” then spend half the session scrolling her phone while Mia worked. After the third session, Mia told me she hated it, that the tutor kept telling her to “try harder” when she mixed up b and d. I canceled the next week, and sat on my couch that night feeling defeated. I’d wasted $180, and still had nothing.
That’s when I learned the first big lesson: anyone can say they do Orton Gillingham. There’s no law stopping someone from putting it in their bio after a two-day weekend workshop. Good OG isn’t just tracing letters in sand – it’s a structured, sequential approach that builds on skills step by step, tailored to how a dyslexic brain processes language. To do it right, tutors need hundreds of hours of supervised practice, not just a workshop certificate. When I started looking again, I asked every person I spoke to two specific questions: How many hours of supervised practicum did you complete for your OG training? Are you certified through the Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators, or another national dyslexia organization? That weeded out almost half the people I talked to right away.
The next problem was money. The fully certified tutors I found in my area charged between $80 and $120 an hour, twice a week. I work part time as a paraeducator at the elementary school, and that kind of cost just wasn’t doable for me. I almost gave up again, until a mom in my local dyslexia support group told me to check the directory on our state dyslexia association website. They list trainee tutors – people who are working toward their full OG certification, have already completed most of their coursework, and work under the supervision of a fully certified practitioner. Most charge half the rate of certified tutors to build their required hours. That’s where I found Clara.
I asked for a 15-minute free phone chat with her before we booked, which I now tell every parent to do. I asked her what she does if a kid shows up to a session frustrated and doesn’t want to work. She told me she keeps a set of 2-minute movement cards in her bag, and will swap the order of activities to start with something the kid already knows how to do, to build a little confidence before moving to new work. That answer sold me. She charged $45 a session, and meets at our house once a week, which saves me the drive to the library and time off work.
I also found out I didn’t have to cover the whole cost myself. Another parent told me that since Mia has a formal dyslexia diagnosis, I could ask the school district to cover half the cost through her IEP, since they couldn’t provide the specific OG support she needed in the classroom. I filled out the paperwork, and it got approved three months ago. That cuts our out-of-pocket cost down to $22.50 a session, which I can actually afford. I never would have known that was an option if I hadn’t asked other parents who’d gone through the same search.
Last week, I was folding laundry in the living room while Clara and Mia worked at the kitchen table. I listened while they started with review: Clara laid out 10 letter cards, and Mia tapped each sound out on her fingers, one tap per sound. When Mia got one wrong, Clara didn’t say “no” – she just said “Let’s try that again, feel the sound in your throat first.” Then they worked on a new vowel sound, built three-letter words with magnetic letters, then wrote them in shaving cream spread on an old cookie sheet I keep for activities. After 20 minutes, they took a 2-minute break to jump rope in the backyard, then came back to read a short paragraph that only used sounds Mia already knew. When she finished the whole paragraph without stopping, she ran in to show me, grinning. That’s the thing good OG does that bad tutoring doesn’t – it meets kids where they are, and builds small wins instead of shaming them for mistakes.
It’s not a magic fix. Mia still gets 6 or 7 out of 10 on most spelling tests, instead of 3, but she still has bad days where she crumples up her work and says she can’t do it. Some semesters Clara has exams and we have to skip a week, and some weeks I forget to make her do the 10-minute daily review she’s supposed to do between sessions. I still lie awake some nights worrying about middle school, about whether she’ll be able to keep up with her peers, about what will happen when we can’t do tutoring every week for the next few years. But right now, this works. I spent three months looking, wasted money on a tutor who didn’t know what she was doing, almost gave up because I thought I couldn’t afford the right help. What I didn’t expect was that the right fit for us wasn’t the most expensive, fully certified tutor with 20 years of experience. It was a trainee who cared enough to learn the method right, who meets us where we are, who doesn’t make Mia feel stupid when she mixes up her letters. If you’re just starting your search, it’s okay to take your time, it’s okay to walk away from something that doesn’t feel right, and it’s okay to ask for help finding affordable options. You don’t need a perfect solution right now – you just need something that works for your kid, this week.
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