About Andy Schine
Reading, writing and all things language arts have always been my passion, and supporting students in this realm brings me great joy. This is very relational work - there’s no other way to "get in there" than to be bold, trust, and step into the self. This alone is difficult, but faced with any obstacles along the way, and there are many- difficulty with reading comprehension, organization, clarity, sentence structure, to name a few - and writing can seem like a trap!
Writing: My passion is to foster self-confidence in young writers. I believe that keen communication and writing skills are invaluable. Introducing writers to the writing process and accessing tools that every writer has can make all the difference. These are tools that can be honed well into the future, easing communication opening up portals to the world. I support students with assignments they are working on at school and/or introduce them to unique writing projects of my own design.
Reading: Reluctant and struggling readers often find their way to me. I work to discover where a child is struggling and take steps from there to build skills and confidence. We may take a just right pace in a just right book, stop along the way to study the etymology of a word (Understanding word structure can lead to solid gains in comprehension, retention and curiosity!), discuss the work we are reading, and work with phonology and visualization of the words. I am interested in inserting joy, curiosity and ease into the reading process.
I think that, generally speaking, one of the things I bring to the table as an educator is an eye for different learning styles and how to meet students where they are. I am aces with executive functioning work and this is a realm that often overlaps with language arts. This is why I scaffold my projects into manageable chunks and have the students practice with the writing process. This process is something that can, eventually, free up any style of learner to be independent, curious, confident, and process oriented in their approach to writing.