You have given our son the confidence he needed to succeed despite his various challenges. He has learned to slow down, tap out words and sing out a song in order to spell words correctly. You have been a cheerleader for him as well as for us. You provided endless support and skilled understanding to help our family navigate the resources of the Ithaca City School District. Equally as important, Zachary enjoys working with you! As he says, “She has games and teaches me tricks.” He will always have this learning disability but with your help and support we are moving forward in a very positive way. It is with much gratitude and respect that we give you the highest recommendation and would be happy to speak with any parents who are considering working with you.
With much appreciation,
Mary Beth and Mike
My son had been having trouble with reading since Kindergarten where he just wasn’t getting it. By the end of first grade his reading was not at grade level and he first received academic intervention services. It was recommended that he go to summer school. By third grade, with lagging progress over the years, he was still below grade level and becoming extremely frustrated and turned off to reading. It was painful to have him try to read aloud, and he avoided it at all costs. At the urging of his teacher we contacted Risa, who was able to fit us in.
My son, who can be quite shy and who was apprehensive and even defensive about the prospect of going to a reading teacher had an immediate rapport with Risa. She put him at ease right away and when I picked him up that first day he was beaming. He seemed to know he was finally going to get the help he needed. He was extremely eager and excited to get to every appointment and we saw remarkable improvements in his attitude and confidence. We also saw remarkable improvement in his reading. In a short time his fluency, decoding and site words improved greatly. His teacher was amazed by his progress. With his improved reading skills his confidence in himself improved. He is now on grade level with good fluency. His spelling has also improved. If your child is having any trouble with reading you owe it to them to get the right help. For us that was certainly Risa.
Maja Anderson
Mom of a Happy Reader
Risa uses an explicit phonics based approach that has provided our son with the tools and strategies to become an independent and competent reader. Reading sessions with Risa are fun - her reading room is filled with whimsical toys that the kids love playing with on their breaks and she has wholesome snacks available for anyone with the munchies. If your child is struggling with reading, we recommend her with great enthusiasm.
Marie and Tony Caudill
When my son Jonah came to Risa at the end of 1st grade, he simply couldn't read. He didn't even know the sounds many letters made. Jonah is severely dyslexic, and that, combined with poor reading instruction that did not follow research-based methods, was a recipe for disaster. Jonah hated school and his self esteem was suffering.
Risa dove in with optimism, enthusiasm and more importantly, a deep understanding of how to individualize instruction using scientifically-based reading research. To our amazement and delight, under Risa's brilliant, patient and kind tutelage, Jonah began to learn to read.
Last year Jonah was invited to attend a private high school on a cycling scholarship that would offer him intensive training. If he hadn't been able to read well enough, he simply would not have been able to go- but he did, and today he's one of the top ten seventeen year old cyclists in the nation. I can say with complete confidence that if Risa hadn't been there for Jonah his life would be radically different and very, very challenging. Risa helped change Jonah's life for the better, enabling him to pursue his dreams. We owe her a huge debt of gratitude and can’t thank her enough.
Eliza Van Cort
John Paul Mead
Our son, Robby, started seeing Risa when he was six years old. He was not able to read and did not even recognize all the letters of the alphabet. Almost instantly, Risa was able to engage Robby in a way his previous teachers had not, to use humor and his natural curiosity to pique his interest in reading. She has been very patient and accommodating with him. In the three and a half years since Risa began tutoring him, Robby has become a voracious reader. He is now reading above grade level, reading for his own pleasure as well as to learn. We cannot say enough about how much Risa has helped our son, and we highly recommend her services to anyone who is struggling to read.
Sandy Thananart and Tim Bael
"Master of her profession." So much more than the curriculum contributes to Risa's success in teaching young readers. Her enthusiasm for reading and learning is simply contagious with children and parents alike. Risa brings the material to the child's level and fosters interest which results in self directed commitment from the child and parents. This commitment allows Risa to address the fundamental concepts of reading tailored to the particular needs of each student. Their ensuing success builds self esteem and interest in reading- and over time the reading transforms from work to fun.
Reluctantly we only allowed our child's term with Risa to conclude when Risa had declared that she had met all of the objectives in her curriculum, of which there are many. Without hesitation we give Risa our highest compliments and recommendation.
Walter Silbert and Jennifer Novarr
Our son Benjamin looked forward to his tutoring sessions with Risa. She created a supportive and safe environment, and honored his personality and learning style.
He went from being a struggling reader, who had fallen behind his classmates and was frustrated, to a fluent reader who proudly earned an 'accelerated reader' ribbon at the school assembly this year!
Maureen Foley and Jason Brenner
Persistence, dedication, insight, skill, engagement, compassion – these are the qualities I have seen in Risa’s work with our daughter over the past two years. She is a wonderful teacher, and has been the catalyst for some real breakthroughs in our daughter’s learning.
When we started with Risa, J was in third grade and had hit a wall in her reading development. The in-school supports she was receiving were not sufficient to counter the challenges she was facing with dyslexia and ADHD. Although she was very resistant to going to tutoring, Risa’s persistent, compassionate, balanced, and often fun approach eventually won her over. With Risa’s guidance, J has learned effective tools and strategies that will support her success as a student, as a reader, and as a writer throughout her life. She is now reading at grade level (in 5th grade) and has tremendous confidence in herself as a reader and a learner.
Risa has truly been a blessing for us and we couldn’t recommend her more highly.
Lisa Schneider, PhD
Director, Engineering Learning Initiatives
Risa is outstanding! With her help, my son is finally finding academic success. After making every effort to improve his reading skills at home and at school, including over two years of Academic Intervention Services in our public elementary school, he was making little to no progress. He was in fourth grade, reading at the second grade level when he started working with Risa. It’s hard to believe but he began to progress almost immediately and in only seven months, he improved by nearly a full grade level! He continues to progress and his improved reading skills have helped him succeed in all subjects. He’s a very intelligent boy that was putting in every effort to succeed but was continuing to fail. With Risa’s help his confidence level has increased dramatically and he understands that he can learn to read and that has changed everything for him.
I highly recommend Risa for any struggling reader. She is an extremely talented professional and I cannot thank her enough for everything she’s done for us!
Margie Malepe
From a very early age it was obvious to me that my homeschooled son was very bright, and a strong learner. Yet though I tried to teach him using the same whole language approach that I’d successfully used with other students for years, he just wasn’t learning to read. He was getting frustrated, and it was beginning to affect his self esteem.
Risa took the time to get to know him as an individual learner; to find out what would motivate him to do the things he found difficult, and to make it enjoyable. In a short time he could clearly sense his own progress, and that was part of why he always wanted to come to tutoring.
Will couldn’t learn to read intuitively; he needed instead a very clear roadmap of the patterns and rules that make up written language. The methods Risa used really sparked his curiosity about how written English works, and he was able to apply his intelligence to understanding and recognizing the new patterns and rules he was being taught.
Will is 14 now and reading and writing up a storm, with remarkable skill and confidence. I’m convinced he would have always been held back by his reading and spelling struggles had we not worked with Risa for those critical years.
Elisabeth Harrod
