My child's school teaches phonics. Why would they need a phonics tutor?

Schools teach phonics, but not always systematically, and rarely one-on-one. If a student misses a concept, falls behind, or just needs more repetition than a classroom allows, those gaps tend to stick around. Kids Up will figure out exactly where the confusion started and fills in the missing skills.

My child is in 5th grade. Is it too late for phonics tutoring?

Not at all. Phonics gaps don't fix themselves, and plenty of older kids are still struggling because of patterns they never fully learned in early elementary school. Kids Up works with students through high school (and even a few college students). We use different materials for a middle schooler or high schooler than we do for a younger student, but the underlying skill-building is the same.

What's the difference between a phonics tutor and a reading tutor?

A reading tutor works on multiple aspect of reading, including phonics, phonological skills, fluency, and morphology. A phonics tutor focuses specifically on phonics, the sound-spelling system and decoding. Most students need more than just phonics instruction, and our tutors are trained to address the missing skills together rather than treating them as separate problems.

How long does phonics tutoring take?

It depends on how many gaps there are and how far back they go. Most Kids Up students complete their program in 4 to 9 months with consistent weekly sessions. Students who come in with significant gaps, or who haven't had much structured phonics instruction before, may take a little longer.

Online Phonics Tutoring for Kids and Teens

Expert Instruction Grounded in the Science of Reading.

What Is Phonics, and Why Does It Matter?

Phonics is the relationship between sounds and letters. It's the system that tells a reader how to translate printed letters into spoken words, and tells a speller how to translate spoken sounds back into print.

Kids Up teaches phonics explicitly. It's one of the five pillars of effective reading instruction identified by the National Reading Panel (2000), alongside phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Without a strong phonics foundation, reading and spelling can feel like an endless guessing game.

A strong phonics tutor doesn't just drill letter sounds. They help students understand the system, and that's what makes the skill last.

Why Phonics is Harder Than it Looks

English has a deep and irregular spelling system, and phonics is where that complexity shows up most clearly.

Take the letters "ea." Depending on the word, they can make a long E sound (eat, beach, dream), a short E sound (head, bread, sweat), or a long A sound (great, steak, break). Now flip it around. If you want to spell a word with a long E sound, you have at least seven options: just an E (being), E-E (these), EE (seem), EA (eat), Y (funny), IE (field), or EY (turkey).

Some kids pick up these patterns naturally, almost by osmosis. Others (including plenty of smart, capable kids) need someone to teach them explicitly. That's where a phonics tutor comes in.

At Kids Up, we never assume a child has absorbed phonics patterns; we check what they know and teach them what they haven't yet learned.

"Our son had a hard time with phonics and reading since kindergarten and we struggled to find the appropriate resources. In second grade we found Daniela and Kids Up Reading and all of that started to change. With Max and Kristina's hardwork over the last two years we have seen significant improvements. Our once non-reader is now a bookworm."

3rd Grade, Arlington, VA

Systematic. Explicit. Multisensory.

Not all phonics instruction is created equal. Here's what the research says works, and what Kids Up Reading Tutors puts into practice every session.

Systematic. Good phonics tutoring follows a clear sequence, building from simpler patterns to more complex ones. Skills aren't introduced randomly or only when they happen to show up in a book. Each concept builds on what came before.
Explicit. Kids Up tutors don't wait for students to figure things out. We teach the patterns directly. We name them, explain them, and practice them until they stick.
Multisensory. Research supports a strong speech-to-print approach, meaning students learn to connect what they say to what they write. When practicing a spelling pattern, students say the sound out loud while writing the letters by hand. Not typing. Handwriting activates different neural pathways and helps the pattern stick in a way that screens can't replicate.

This is also why phonics tutoring at Kids Up always includes spelling. If a child can spell a word, they can almost certainly read it. The reverse isn't always true. Spelling is the real proof that your child has cracked the code.

"Daniela was fabulous with our child who was diagnosed with dyslexia (and ADHD) “late”. Daniela gave us clear updates weekly, coordinated with our child’s school, and was just generally great. Our child went from basically ZERO phonics

to being able to sound words out within the academic year. Highly recommend if your child needs help with reading."

6th Grade, Hyattsville, MD

What Should My Child Know By Now?

Every school does things a little differently, but here's a general map of what phonics instruction covers and when. If your child has gaps, Kids Up Reading Tutors will fill them in, no matter what grade your student is in now.

Individual consonant and vowel sounds

Short vowels (cat, sit, hot) and long vowels (hi, no, go)

Digraphs and trigraphs: two or three letters that make one sound, like sh, ch, th, and tch

Blends: groups of consonants at the start or end of words, like bl-, fr-, and str-
ng / nk endings: bang, flank, think

Open and closed syllables: why "no" has a long vowel and "not" has a short one

Magic E (also called silent E or vowel-consonant-E): the final E that changes the vowel in front of it, so hop becomes hope and kit becomes kite

R-controlled vowels (bossy R): when the R changes the sound of the vowel, as in farm, fork, bird, fern, and fur
Vowel teams and diphthongs: two vowels working together, like ai, ay, ee, ea, ie, oa, oe, oo, ou, and ow

Prefixes and suffixes: word parts that change meaning, like un-, re-, -ing, and -est

Multisyllabic words: breaking longer words into syllables to decode them

The 3 big spelling rules: how spelling changes as you add suffixes

Contractions: the apostrophe and the letters it replaces
Less common vowel patterns: like the many sounds of ough (though, through, thought, rough)

Silent letter patterns: knee, limb, science, wrap

Advanced prefixes and suffixes: Latin and Greek roots that unlock the meaning of harder vocabulary words

"Daniela and the team at Kids Up Reading Coaches has helped my daughter tremendously. Her reading skills have drastically improved

with the phonics tutoring as well as her confidence. I really like that Kids Up has a curriculum that outlines the skills that your child will

master - you can watch the plan being implemented and see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel! I'm very grateful

for the support we've received from Kids Up!"

2nd Grade, Washington, DC