Deborah Sensel-Davis | Dyslexia Tutoring

Dyslexia Tutor

I am a Scottish Rite Certified Orton-Gillingham tutor. In 2008, I completed the 32° Masonic Initial Level Training Course, a program accredited by the International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council (IMSLEC). Certification for my Orton-Gillingham Advanced Teacher Training was awarded by Children’s Dyslexia Centers, Inc. in 2011.

I have been tutoring students at the Children’s Dyslexia Centers of Cincinnati since 2008 and began supervising new scholar/tutors for the Dyslexia Center in 2009. I opened my private tutoring practice in 2009. I continue to expand my knowledge of how to best teach students with dyslexia via professional conferences, workshops, and online seminars, as well as from each encounter with the unique set of deficits, skills, and gifts each student brings to the tutoring relationship. My clients have ranged in age from kindergarteners through seniors in high school.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, my journey into understanding the specific learning needs of students with dyslexia began when I started volunteering to “help” in the classrooms of my three elementary-aged sons. In 2004, I became employed as an Instructor’s Assistant for Cincinnati Public Schools. Over the next four-and-a-half years I assisted at three different schools, assisting children in kindergarten through high school. These students came from a multitude of backgrounds and almost all of them struggled with reading, spelling, and writing.

In 2006, when my nephew was diagnosed with dyslexia, my sister encouraged me to read Sally Shaywitz’s book Overcoming Dyslexia. A lightbulb clicked on. I recognized that many of the students I had been hired to “help” for the past few years were probably dyslexic.

In 2007, I embarked on my formal training to become an Orton-Gillingham tutor and have now had the pleasure of watching many frustrated, dejected, and angry students develop into curious scholars of the English writing system. Some have even been known to pick up books to read for pleasure. A few found joy in writing.

I grew up in a suburb of Cincinnati, attended public schools and graduated from Finneytown High School. In 1985, I earned a BFA in Painting from Michigan State University, followed by a Master of Science Degree in Medical Illustration from the Medical College of Georgia. I currently live in the north-central area of Cincinnati, sharing a backyard with urban deer, red-tailed hawks, and coyotes.