We provide educational and consulting services online and north of Boston.
Bridging the area between spoken and written language, Literacy Owl® provides one-to-one literacy interventions while including speech and language support to preschool through high school students.
Our in-person lessons are provided to students residing north of Boston, Massachusetts. Depending on the service provided, we meet our students at their school, home, library, or our location in Andover.
Our virtual lessons are structured the same way as our in-person sessions. Literacy Owl® has been conducting online lessons long before their widespread popularity during the pandemic. Our results have been just as effective regardless of lesson modality.
Please contact us to discuss your student's concerns and needs.
We provide contracted reading remediation services both short-term and long-term to families and districts including intensive summer reading services. Our methodology is based on speech-to-print principles within a structured literacy framework with particular emphasis on spelling and morphology. Our lessons benefit every student and are especially appropriate for students with dyslexia who have been hard-to-remediate or non-responders. Knowing the structure of the English language in addition to having certification/training in multiple programs, allows us to tailor instruction according to every student's exact needs. Within the context of each lesson, targeted support may be provided in the following areas:
A speech disorder refers to problems with the production of speech sounds.
A spoken language disorder refers to an impairment of the acquisition and use of oral language.
A written language disorder refers to an impairment of reading and writing skills.
We are so grateful you came into our son's life! It's been wonderful to see his progress and confidence
grow this year. We appreciate you and all you do! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you so very much for all of your incredible help and encouragement this past year for our sons.
You were simply terrific in all aspects. You located their areas of need and you supported them
enthusiastically through every lesson, even when their focus and energy was less than ideal. You kept
the lessons fun and you inspired both boys to feel confident in their learning. I am really grateful for all
of your thoughtfulness and conscientious care. It was so very needed for both boys, and you pulled
them out of a difficult backward slide. We truly appreciate your impact and you were a pleasure to work
with through it all. We wish you the best and I shall highly recommend you to all.
We wanted to extend our sincere gratitude for the work you've done with our son. Seeing his
confidence and ability grow has been truly amazing after many years of frustration for him. We
appreciate everything you did to encourage and inspire him.
Thank you so much for all the help you have given my son this school year. He has made such progress
since working with you, and we are so so grateful!! He enjoys his time with you so much. We also
appreciate you going above and beyond to make it such a great experience!
Upon my initial outreach and conversation with Sofia, I was impresses by her thoroughness and
diligence in understanding my concerns and developing a plan. She is prepared and organized for each
lesson, quickly built a rapport with my daughter, keeps me updated on progress, and conducts ongoing
assessments to confirm progress and what areas to target next. In less that six months, I have already
observed an incredible transformation and improvement in my daughter's skills, as she went from
initially being behind grade level and needing intensive support to where she is now independently
progressing and on track to meet her second-grade reading and writing objective by the end of the
school year.
When Sofia started working with my son, he was struggling with reading and frequently guessed at
words he didn't know. He was later diagnosed with dyslexia. Sofia quickly pinpointed that my son had
difficulty with basic phonological tasks, along with weak decoding and encoding skills. Informed by this
data, which she continued to collect every six weeks, she provided him with explicit, systematic,
scientifically based instruction that was nothing short of transformational. Over a one-year period, he
made gains in phonemic awareness, irregular/regular word reading and spelling, oral reading fluency
and text reading accuracy. He started reading for fun, something he had never done before. I truly
believe Sofia changed the trajectory of his life.
I can't thank Sofia enough for all that she has done for my daughter. It has changed her academic life forever. She now has a great foundation for easier learning ahead!
We never thought we needed a tutor for our son because he was labeled "gifted"; however, he was not demonstrating an interest in learning to read and we wanted to make sure he was prepared for the first grade. Sofia is knowledgeable and professional. She understands the skills that children need for a strong foundation for reading. Unlike other tutors, Sofia was able to engage our son and he is now excited about reading....and after just a few months!
Helpful resources
| Topic | Reference |
|---|---|
| You can find more information on written language disorders and the relationship between spoken and written language here |
Link Link |
| To understand the signs and symptoms of a written language disorder please visit | Link |
| You can find more information on effective reading instruction and structured literacy here | Link |
| For more information on spelling and the relationship between spelling and reading click here | Link |
| For information of spoken language disorders click here | Link |
Sofia M. FlahertyFounder |
Sofia M. Flaherty is a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist and Reading Specialist. She obtained her Master of Science in Speech Language Pathology with a concentration in Reading Disorders from the Institute of Health Professions, an academic affiliate of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Because her training meets the Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading as established by the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) and The Center for Effective Reading Instruction (CERI), Sofia has received their designation of Structured Literacy Dyslexia Interventionist. Sofia is certified in the Wilson Reading System and has received training in many programs including:
Sofia also provides intervention services to students who have difficulty understanding the language of math and is a licensed instructor of math at the elementary and middle school level. Sofia has worked in private practice and in public schools at the elementary, middle, and high school level providing intervention services to students with spoken, written, and math disabilities. |
