Regina Reading Clinic
Learning to read doesn’t have to be a struggle. If your child is feeling frustrated, act now.
A Service by STG Health Services Inc.
Reduce your Child's Reading-Related Frustrations
Difficulties in basic reading are indicated by trouble with reading words accurately and fluently. Children with difficulties in basic reading are also likely to demonstrate difficulties in spelling.
Children with specific problems with reading fluency may read accurately, but slowly. In most cases, this reading dysfluency also impacts reading comprehension.
Some children may not demonstrate problems with reading words or text accurately and fluently but still may struggle to understand what they read. These children may have specific reading comprehension difficulties.
The Regina Reading Clinic combines research-based strategies into a program fully tailored to the needs of each child. Expert Speech and Language Pathologists, Registered Psychologists, Licensed Educators, and Counsellors work together to help your child read with confidence.
reading is not a natural process
Becoming a Good Reader Requires Proficiency in Many Different Reading Skills
For kids to become comfortable in reading, they need to develop skills in all of the boxes below. Many children also need to learn how to manage learning-related anxiety and use a variety of other skills that help the reading (and spelling/writing) tasks that improve the efficiency of reading, spelling and writing
The ability to notice, manipulate, identify, and work with individual sounds and parts of words in spoken language.
The ability to form letter-sound connections to bond the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of specific words in memory.
The ability to read accurately, smoothly and with expression similar to how we speak.
The ability to read text, process it, and understand its meaning.
The ability to manage stress and anxiety caused by difficult reading tasks.
The ability to apply advanced strategies for efficient reading (using assistive technology).
Specific learning disorder in reading and writing (dyslexia)
Is my Child at Risk?
Dyslexia is the result of the phonological-core deficit, resulting in children displaying one or more of the following difficulties (Kilpatrick & O’Brien, 2019):
- Poor phonemic awareness/analysis (e.g.: identifying first sound in a word)
- Poor phonemic blending/synthesis (e.g.: sounds "k, a, t" make what word?)
- Poor rapid automatized naming (e.g.: naming symbols quickly)
- Poor phonological working memory (e.g.: manipulating sound information of a word)
- Poor letter-sound knowledge (e.g.: automatically knowing which sounds a letter makes)
If your child has been having great difficulties with word-level reading, these difficulties might be primarily the result of one or more of the above phonological-core deficits. Your child might have poor access to the phonemic structure of the spoken language, making learning to read difficult for them. Other difficulties might exist as well, and therefore it is essential to start interventions without any further delay.
Dyslexia runs in the family. Do I need to be concerned?
When a relative has a specific learning disability in reading or writing (dyslexia), it does not automatically result in your child also developing a learning disorder. Yet, dyslexia is a neurobiological condition that seems genetic in origin. This means that individuals can inherit this condition from a parent and it affects the performance of the neurological system (specifically, the parts of the brain responsible for learning to read).
Most individuals with dyslexia experience a variety of academic frustrations including underperformance, difficult behaviour, anxiety and depression, and sometimes immense difficulties learning languages in general. Some individuals even drop out of school. As parents and caregivers, we are not in the business of “waiting to fail.” Therefore, when dyslexia runs in the family it is imperative to start interventions at an early age to prevent a potential underlying learning disability interfering with your child’s learning abilities.
Are you concerned about your young child’s language development and your child has a relative (parent, grandparent, uncle) with a specific learning disability such as dyslexia? Book an intake with an STG Professional to get you and your child started with evidence-based interventions at home!
If your child continues to struggle with any of the above skills - even after consistent and rigorous interventions at school - perhaps it is time to start looking at in-depth interventions by experts.
The Regina Reading clinic is ready to start helping your child with reducing learning stress and improving the various reading skills. Please ask your question using the form below, and an STG professional will get back to you.
How to Help your Child Read Better
Choose Which Service you are Looking for
If your child has not received professional assessment to determine learning difficulties, choose this option.
If learning assessments were completed and interventions are recommended to be the next step, choose this option.
screening and/or in-depth assessment
Knowing Where to Start
Choosing the right interventions relies on the accurate discovery of the difficulties that prevent your child from learning to read. Most families start with booking a screening appointment to determine the next step.
Provided remotely or in-person, your child works together with an STG Professional on various reading skills. In many cases, the screening results provide enough information to start reading interventions.
When screening results in your child being at risk for a specific learning disability, your child might benefit from an in-depth learning assessment by one of the STG Professional Registered Psychologists. They are specialized in learning-related challenges.
After screening, your child will be provided with recommendations for further assistance. When an in-depth assessments results in a diagnosis of a learning disability, your child receives an in-depth treatment plan.
Does your child perhaps have hearing difficulties that interfere with learning how to read? Let's rule out hearing problems as the root cause of your child's reading difficulties.
Reading Fun for Everyone.
Reading interventions to reduce reading related stress
Comprehensive Reading Program
The Regina Reading Clinic provides specialized and individualized interventions, depending on the needs of your child.
Revisit the basic skills of reading in a way that has been proven to work for kids who struggle to learn how to read.
Intense daily practice using a game-based learning environment.
An essential step for becoming consistent readers and spellers.
From compensatory assistance to dynamically improving reading fluency: using technology will make any reading task more efficient!
Many kids with learning disabilities also require counselling supports to grow self-esteem and reduce performance anxiety.
Book Intake
Ready to book an intake appointment? Fill out the form below and one of the STG professionals will contact you within two business days for a free 15-minute intake call.
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Popular Questions
The Regina Reading Clinic is part of STG Health Services Inc., also known as STG. STG is a collaboration between like-minded Registered Psychologists, Speech & Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Educators, and Mental Health Counsellors. STG uses an integrated approach to treating learning disorders and learning delays.
Learning disabilities are extremely complex. When it comes to language disorders, it is essential to combine expertise from the various professions for providing interventions that best fit the needs of your child. For example, the diagnostic assessment is a neuropsychological standardized assessment to pinpoint the exact learning deficit your child has been experiencing. Those results are analyzed by a Registered Psychologist and Speech & Language Pathologist, who then work with a special education consultant to design an individual treatment plan.
Sure, you can get seek reading intervention in many places in Saskatchewan. However, the Regina Reading Clinic is specialized in diagnosing and treating reading disorders. Prior to immigrating to Canada, one of the STG partners was a pioneer on dyslexia. He operated a clinic in The Netherlands, focusing on the neuropsychological and orthodidactical diagnostics and treatment of severe learning disabilities including dyslexia. Clients from The Netherlands and Belgium visited his practice locations weekly to seek reading and writing interventions as well as to remediate reading-related frustrations.
Your child is assigned one interventionist. This interventionist collaborates with other STG professionals to further tweak your child's treatment. In some cases, for example when a child is experiencing elevated reading frustration and anxiety, a counsellor might be added to your child's team, creating a wrap-around therapy.
Treating learning disabilities takes time and effort. Upon registration, Clients commit to a treatment period of one block of 12 weeks. During these 12 weeks, clients also have mandatory daily practice sessions at home (7 to 10 minutes) using a variety of online and offline strategies. During week 12, progress is evaluated, from where new treatment goals are created when needed.
The Regina Reading Clinic is a private service. Some of the cost might be reimbursed through NIHB or Métis Nation. Collective agreements and private health insurance often cover expenses for diagnostics and treatments by registered psychologists, speech & language pathologists, and mental health counsellors. In many cases, STG uses a sliding scale to accommodate various income earners. Please book a Free intake session to determine the cost of a plan for your child.
Many children are quite frustrated about reading and writing, and therefore they rely on the people they trust the most: their parents. Naturally, parents get involved in these frustrations and often tend to give into the child's frustrations. The Regina Reading Clinic incorporates specialized parenting modules called SPACE Treatment (developed at Yale University) to assist parents with reducing the accommodations they make to manage their child's frustrations, while increasing supports to assist the child in making helpful decisions. This type of support is one unique feature of the Regina Reading Clinic.
Book an intake session with an STG professional to evaluate the kind of services your child was getting. In addition, we can determine how an integrated process might better address your child's learning needs.
