The 6 Best 2020 Online Tutoring Programs for Dyslexia

• Online Tutor for Reading: Best Overall
• Link Dyslexia: Best for Daily Check-Ins
• Awesome Leaps: Best for short lessons
• Lexercise: Best for children
• Wyzant: Best for Tutoring Hourly
• Reading Software for Pride: Best for Self-Study

Specialized reading tutoring is likely to help students who struggle with dyslexia. Although many common strategies for teaching students with dyslexia include historically in-person sensory approaches, new technologies and pedagogical adaptations mean that some of these methods have been able to adapt to the digital age. Below, we have collected a handful of online tutoring programs for dyslexia that provide a range of methods to help students develop their long-term reading skills.

Online Tutor for Reading: Best Overall

Students of any age or grade level are likely to find an extremely beneficial online reading tutor. In order to address dyslexia and related conditions, the service has its own specialized methods and encourages ongoing learning and continuous improvement. Top organizations have certified and/or partnered with the site, such as the International Dyslexia Association, so that students and families can be assured that the program is backed by expert research.

The service focuses its tutoring on five specific areas that have been identified by its experts as crucial to teaching dyslexia learners: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and understanding of reading. The norm is flexible schedules, but learners are asked to commit to 20- to 30-minute practices at least three days a week (five or six are recommended).

Not only do tutors give lessons, but they monitor individual progress constantly and make adjustments to help students keep improving. Prospective students can start with a one-week trial for approximately $39, but will then be asked to sign up for one of three monthly plans (the differences lie in how often students get a live lesson one-on-one and/or can directly message tutors). For the silver plan, prices are approximately $179 per month, about $249 per month for gold, and about $359 per month for the platinum package.

Link Dyslexia: Best for Daily Check-Ins

Dyslexia Connect promises results using the popular Orton-Gillingham Method, without locking students into a long-term contract.

For a multisensory approach based on forming clear links between letters and sounds, all tutors have undergone significant training. Each time, the service pairs students with the same instructors, enabling them to form one-on-one relationships and continuously tailor lessons to meet the needs, objectives, and continuous progress of each student.

Most of the plans for the service include relatively frequent one-on-one check-ins and lessons with students: all plans (except one) involve at least) over an hour and a half of sessions per week, allowing tutors to adjust and strengthen the lessons frequently.

The only exception is the silver plan: students receive either one 55-minute lesson or two 25-minute lessons per week for about $199 per month. The other three plans for two, 55-minute or four, 25-minute lessons per week are around $399 per month; approximately $619 per month for three, 55-minute sessions per week or $819 per month for four, 55-minute sessions per week.

Awesome Leaps: Best for short lessons

Great Leaps specializes in working with students from K-12 who struggle to read and are currently below the level of fifth grade reading.

Tutors will develop an individualized approach to address phonics, fluency, reading comprehension, and more, all of whom are trained, some in multiple techniques. And, based on their present needs and availability, the service works to match tutors with students, prioritizing shorter, more frequent tutoring sessions rather than large blocks of time.

A free, 15-minute session is offered to all new students to get an initial consultation, as well as a reading screening. Rather than being matched by an algorithm, it's completely up to the students and their families to choose a tutor.

Standard prices are approximately $300 per month, including 20, 15-minute lessons (five per week). However, for the first month of tutoring, there are often promotions being run that offer a discount.

Lexercise: Best for children

As with many children's reading programs to integrate games and other activities, Lexercise combines fun, practice activities and games with therapeutic tutoring.

In order to work with children on techniques that help improve reading skills, the service uses its own custom program. It is specifically aimed at younger learners, so parents can be sure that the teaching materials and the live tutors focus on the needs of their children, both on a wider level and on an individual level.

Two types of tutoring services are offered by the site: self-guided and live tutoring. Parents can pay a lower) subscription fee for self-guided lessons to access an online, pre-made version of the program consisting of pre-recorded expert lessons that can be watched at their own pace.

One-on-one live tutoring costs more and includes weekly sessions with the tutor and customized lesson plans with one of the site's experienced therapists. The self-guided program costs about $150 per four weeks, while, depending on the rate of the individual therapist, the live tutoring option runs between approximately $395 and $495 every four sessions.

Wyzant: Best for Tutoring Hourly

Wyzant is a general tutoring platform that links students in a wide range of subjects and specialties with tutors, including reading tutors who specialize in working with dyslexia students.

In their tutoring, students and families can narrow down search results to instructors who use specific techniques or approaches, allowing a high degree of specificity that is often important for finding the right match. Tutor profiles also include information about their experience (including certifications, training, etc the number of hours they have logged on to the platform, and previous student ratings.

The site provides instructors and students with an on-platform classroom to use in lessons, including interactive whiteboard and screen sharing, as well as chat options. Tutors on Wyzant each set individual rates of their own. Payment for dyslexia specialists is slightly higher than for some of the other subjects: according to the site, the average rate is between approximately $35 and $50 per hour, but many tutors charge about $70 or more per hour.

With that being said, however the site has a one-hour guarantee: if the student is dissatisfied, the first hour with a tutor is free.

Reading Software for Pride: Best for Self-Study

The Pride Reading Program has a simple consultation and tutoring match scheme for students and families looking for a slightly more independent approach that pairs prospective students with the best fit among the trained tutors of the service.

Students and their families receive recommendations on where to start tutoring after a placement evaluation, which the site offers free of charge, and can work with tutors to tailor the sessions to their outcomes. To meet the needs of each unique student, tutoring schedules and the curriculum are worked out individually.

In addition to its more traditional one-on-one tutoring, through a set of programs that students can work through at their own pace, the Pride Reading Program also has self-guided instruction. Eight digital program packages are offered by the service, each tailored to address particular components and learning levels.

All these packages use the same Orton-Gillingham multi-sensory approach as live tutors, making them ideal for learners with dyslexia or other learning disabilities. Pricing is available upon request for both services.

How We Chose the Best Tutoring Services for Online Dyslexia

Dyslexia tutoring has really gone online only in recent years, since many of the well-supported approaches involve sensory learning in some form. We have emphasized tutoring services in our selections here which build on tried-and-true approaches and find ways to adapt them to a digital online classroom environment. Many of our choices specifically use popular approaches to dyslexia learning and employ tutors who are experienced in those techniques.

With the understanding that students with a wide range of needs and knowledge will come to these services, we have tried to cover several different styles of learning and specific needs. Whether students need a more or less self-guided (Pride Reading Program) or more or less flexibly planned (Online Reading Tutor) approach, there are options to suit their needs here. The emphasis here is on finding a service that can help students improve their skills, regardless of their starting point, for lifelong reading.

What Is a Tutoring Service for Online Dyslexia?

An online dyslexia tutoring service is a platform that targets students who deal with dyslexia or related learning disorders with their reading tutoring. It may be a smaller sub-section of a wider website, but many of these services are completely specialized because the skills required for tutors in this field are more specific than a general reading tutor might need.

How much do tutoring services for online dyslexia cost?

Online tutoring programs for dyslexia have a wide variety of costs, like every other online tutoring program. While some platforms charge monthly subscription fees, others allow tutors to set their own hourly rates. The one thing that is true across the board is that because of the more advanced training that is usually required, specialized and licensed dyslexia reading tutors are often more costly than regular reading teachers. For example, depending on the type of guidance required, tutors tend to charge between $35 to $70 per hour. Monthly packages tend to range between $300 and $700 or so.

What features do tutoring programs for online dyslexia have?

Since multimedia and sensory methods are frequently tailored to a digital-only curriculum by online dyslexia tutoring programs, they are likely to use a range of strategies to work with students, along with the anticipated communication video chat and screen sharing. Most programs will include phonics lessons, multi-sense strategies (i.e. hearing or tracing letters and sounds while also reading and/or saying them), and other approaches to develop fluency and awareness of reading.

• Online Tutor for Reading: Best Overall
• Link Dyslexia: Best for Daily Check-Ins
• Awesome Leaps: Best for short lessons
• Lexercise: Best for children
• Wyzant: Best for Tutoring Hourly
• Reading Software for Pride: Best for Self-Study

Specialized reading tutoring is likely to help students who struggle with dyslexia. Although many common strategies for teaching students with dyslexia include historically in-person sensory approaches, new technologies and pedagogical adaptations mean that some of these methods have been able to adapt to the digital age. Below, we have collected a handful of online tutoring programs for dyslexia that provide a range of methods to help students develop their long-term reading skills.