AT Sandbach Nub News we aim to support our community. We promote shops, businesses, charities, clubs and sports groups.

We profile some of these businesses and organisations as well as some of the people and personalities who make the town special in a feature called 'Up Close in Sandbach'.

With the nation's attention turning to homeschooling we caught up with Jo Parkinson who runs a Reading Doctor franchise which helps children overcome reading difficulties.

What is your background and how did it lead to you joining The Reading Doctor?

I decided to go into teaching after raising my own children and volunteering to support readers in their respective primary schools. I then volunteered whilst qualifying as a Teaching Assistant as I wanted as much experience as possible before I went into Teaching.

After working as a Teaching Assistant and Mid-day Assistant for a year or so I decided to go for it and did my PGCE whilst my children were in primary school. I taught for a number of years in Stockport, then as a family we relocated to Sandbach, where I taught in Alsager.

Having taught in primary, predominantly KS1, I was eager for a new challenge, wanting to redress the work-life balance and spend more time with my family. When I stumbled across The Reading Doctor franchise and saw the amazing impact the Reading Doctor is having working with struggling readers, I decided that the time was right to start something new and bring the concept to the North West.

The Reading Doctor was founded in 2012 by Deborah Salsbury, a Reading Recovery trained Teacher. There are now 11 Reading Doctors, mainly down South, with The Reading Doctor Cheshire East being the first in the North.

What makes you passionate about helping children learn to read?

Teaching reading is so rewarding, it is a life-long skill that is critical for socio-economic development. I have a personal passion for reading and firmly believe reading to be central to a child's educational development. Books have always been at the core of my teaching and creating a community of readers is highly important to my ethos.

Throughout my teaching I have worked alongside children with special educational needs, tailoring my teaching to meet their individual needs and found this most rewarding, although as a class teacher to 30 children I found fitting in the whole curriculum frustrating.

Being a Reading Doctor enables me to work on an individual basis with children, to really nurture and develop their ability to read. Reading Doctors are able to support learners to build their resilience, encourage them to take risks with their learning and enable them to develop skills which will open up a lifelong reading journey enhancing each individual.

How has it been operating in the past year with the challenges brought up by the pandemic?

When the first lockdown hit last March the Reading Doctors worked together to develop our online offering. There were lots of late-night zoom sessions collaborating on what is now an extremely effective online offering.

Parents/children who have experienced the online sessions and face to face sessions often chose to stick with the online session when face to face became available as there is no difference in their efficacy.

Do you have tips and advice for parents who will be homeschooling their kids once again?

During the first lockdown we developed our Top Ten Tips for reading which are:

#1 Shhh… Find a quiet, cosy spot for you both to sit.

#2 95% accuracy – ensure the book is at the right level.

#3 Ownership – let the child hold their own book.

#4 Discuss – look at the front cover and ask questions.

#5 Prompt don't tell – encourage self-correction with strategies.

#6 Link the learning – encourage your child to relate events and emotions to their own experiences.

#7 Ask questions – where answers can be taken directly from the text.

#8 Retell or recall – after the first reading of a book, encourage retelling of the story or recalling of information.

#9 Accessibility – make a box of favourite, familiar books your child can return to and read independently.

#10 Model reading – show good reading habits yourself and highlight reading opportunities throughout the day.

What services do you offer and how can people get in touch?

We are all qualified, experienced teachers with a passion for supporting struggling readers to learn to love reading. We use The Reading Doctor method to teach children to read, this nurtures and develops the skills and strategies required for reading, resulting in a pupil who reads a variety of genres for meaning, pleasure and to learn.

Our approach is unique in the sense that we tailor make sessions to suit each individual. This enables us to celebrate the unique strengths and learning styles of each pupil. In turn, we use these to address any weaknesses or gaps in learning. Making reading pleasurable ensures that motivation is developed and maintained.

The Reading Doctor pupils have the social act of reading made explicit to them, we give them real-life examples of why we read and make it meaningful and fun.

We always start with our Initial Assessment, this costs £40 and usually lasts about an hour. It is a complete diagnostic reading assessment which matches the pupil to their correct reading level, ensuring the books they are then reading are at the appropriate level and pinpoints why a child might be experiencing difficulties.

We are then able to make next step recommendations and deliver lessons tailored precisely to the learning needs of the child. Lessons cost £40 for one hour or £30 for 45 minutes and are usually weekly.

We use carefully selected resources to engage and motivate learners. All our resources are dyslexia friendly; we use multi-sensory magnetic letter work, dyslexia friendly books which are high interest/low ability with dyslexia friendly font on a buff background. We also use kinaesthetic methods for spelling high frequency (common) words.

Our offering can either be face to face or online depending on your requirements or government guidelines. Each pupil also has access to an online computer programme (aligned to the curriculum outcomes) to support their learning away from the lesson and gives access to a huge library of books and online reading lessons and games to further support their reading journey.

We also offer School Hubs, working with schools to identify and put targeted intervention in place for those pupils who need it the most.

The Reading Doctors can be contacted through their website.