Meet Lorraine
Orton-Gillingham
Certified Academic Language Therapist
Throughout a 20+ year career in education, I have cultivated a rich history of empowering students and fostering language acquisition. From foundational work teaching French and German in the UK to leading language departments and developing innovative programs internationally, my experience displays a long-term dedication to creating effective learning environments and enabling students to succeed. I specialize in helping students overcome learning challenges and unlock their full academic potential.
What Clients Say
"We are so grateful for Mrs. McAndrew! She is experienced, reliable, and truly connects with our daughter, making learning both effective and enjoyable. Her expertise in the Orton-Gillingham approach helped build our daughter’s reading skills and she actually looked forward to their sessions”.
- Current Student
“Mrs. McAndrew is professional, communicative, and genuinely cares about her students. We recommend her to any family looking for a patient, knowledgeable, and encouraging tutor for a child with dyslexia."
- Lauren, parent of a 4th grader
“Her ability to teach the foundations for OG has helped my daughter tremendously in her career at school. Mrs. McAndrew created confidence in her. Mrs. McAndrew was also there to communicate her strengths and weaknesses to me. She is extremely honest and patient."
- Past Student
Lorraine has had a profound impact since she started working with my dyslexic daughter, currently in 7th grade. From my perspective as a parent, she is simply lovely to work with, and her program works remarkably well over zoom, which has allowed us more flexibility with scheduling. However, the most powerful feedback comes directly from my daughter, who truly enjoys her sessions, and feels significantly more confident in her reading and writing ability as a result of them.
- Lily,
parent of a
7th grader
The Process:
What to expect in an OG lesson
What to Expect
in an OG Lesson
An Orton-Gillingham (OG) lesson follows a highly structured, systematic, and multisensory format to ensure a student masters each concept before moving to the next. By engaging multiple senses—sight, sound, touch, and movement—and utilizing tactile tools, such as sandpaper letters or rice trays, we move beyond traditional methods to help students not just learn, but master the code of reading and spelling.
A typical lesson is often divided into several parts, including both review and new instruction. A lesson might start with visual and auditory drills of known letters or morphemes, followed by reading and spelling review. A new concept—such as a new phonogram, a spelling rule, or a syllable type—is introduced in a highly explicit and multisensory way. The student immediately applies the new skill and reviews older skills by reading aloud words and sentences as well as irregular spelled words. A writing component helps strengthen spelling and syntactic skills through sentence dictation.
Let's get started with a free initial consultation
The entire tutoring process is diagnostic and individualized. I will be constantly observing the student's performance and adjusting the pace and content of the lesson based on the student's strengths and weaknesses.
408-416-6662
