Online Dyslexia Tutoring With Dr Lauren Crumlish

Who is the dyslexia tutor?

The dyslexia tutor is Dr Lauren Crumlish, in every session. She assesses your child, sets the goals, runs each session working with your child directly, and decides when to move on. She holds a PhD from The University of Queensland, received a 2024 Dean's Award for her thesis, and is a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist, the credential issued by Speech Pathology Australia. There is no matching step and no pool of tutors: the person who assesses your child is the person who teaches them. Dr Lauren works with a small number of families and has limited availability. More about her is on Dr Lauren's page.

What does a dyslexia tutor teach?

A dyslexia tutor should teach reading and spelling explicitly, one step at a time, in a planned order. This is often called structured literacy. Phonics, the core of structured literacy, is supported by reviews of controlled trials such as the 2018 Cochrane review of phonics training, which rated the evidence low to moderate. The page on dyslexia treatment and what works sets out that evidence.

Tutoring with Dr Lauren starts in speech, with the sounds in spoken words, and builds from there to letters, spelling patterns and fluent reading. AUSPELD describes the difficulties in dyslexia as typically coming from the sound side of language, which is why a speech pathologist begins there. The full list of what the teaching covers is on structured literacy explained.

Where your child starts depends on what the assessment shows, not on their year at school. No program is named on this page. If a particular program or method, such as Orton-Gillingham, matters to your family, say so in your application.

How often is dyslexia tutoring, and does it work online?

Dyslexia tutoring sessions with Dr Lauren are 45 minutes, typically weekly to fortnightly. Between sessions there is short practice at home, which she plans and shows step by step. With a young child, a parent joins every session. AUSPELD's guide says new material is best reviewed in frequent sessions, preferably daily, which is the reason for the practice. No number of sessions is promised.

On online tutoring, the published evidence is early and should be read honestly. A 2021 rapid review of nine studies found that reading and spelling teaching by video can be feasible and engaging, and may be as effective as teaching in person. The same review rated the studies as low in quality and advised deciding child by child. The first assessment is where that decision is made. What a session looks like on screen is on how online dyslexia therapy works.