Reading Tutoring in Tucson, AZ
Tutoring That’s Different ™
Build reading skills and boost confidence
Marmalade Skies’ reading tutors help children build a strong foundation in reading, supporting both skill development and confidence. We meet each student where they are and provide the guidance they need to grow into capable, motivated readers.
From our reading tutoring center in Tucson, Arizona, our trained tutors use the Orton-Gillingham approach—widely recognized as the gold standard in structured literacy. This phonics-based, systematic method is paired with engaging, multisensory activities to help your child develop strong reading skills and a lasting joy of reading.
We enjoy seeing our learners take pride in their success! See how your child can become one of our many success stories. Click below for a free phone consultation and get your child on the path to reading success.
“Within a year at Marmalade Skies, my son went from a third grader with a pre-K reading level to a fourth grader at a mid-third grade reading level. My family and I continue to watch in amazement as the marmalade Skies reading tutors teach him the skills he needs to be a successful reader while also building his confidence and fluency.”
-Parent of an Online Reading Tutoring student
Pre-K Reading Tutoring Programs
Our reading tutoring program for children in preschool is designed to create a foundational love of literacy while teaching the essential reading skills that will set your child on the path for success in kindergarten.
We focus on letter-name identification of both capital and lowercase letters, letter-sound identification for both isolated phonemes and digraphs, writing the letters correctly, and blending letter sounds together to make real words.
Our pre-k reading tutoring program uses all of the senses to make sure your child is having fun while learning to read. In addition to games, we integrate all of the senses (tactile/kinesthetic, aural, and visual) for a complete multisensory experience that your preschooler will love.
We’ll give your child confidence in reading to help prepare for their kindergarten year!
Elementary School Reading Tutoring Programs
Our elementary school reading tutoring programs are designed to instill a love ofreading in young learners by helping them master the essential skills needed for literacy.
We focus on phonics, spelling, vocabulary, and basic reading comprehension, providing personalized instruction that meets each child’s unique needs. As students develop these foundational skills, they gain confidence and begin to enjoy the pleasures of reading.
Our engaging activities and supportive tutoring environment foster a lifelong passion for learning, ensuring your child is prepared for ongoing academic success.
Kindergarten Tutoring
- Word building Games – starting with CVC words
- Rhyme or No Rhyme – Stand up sit down game. Speak rhyming pairs such as “love/dove.” When it rhymes, the student has to stand up. If they don’t (ex. “book/ice”), they have to stay seated.
- Sight Word Bingo – Play for increased fluency using engaging stories
- Phoneme Segmentation Practice – Use blocks or fingers to improve decoding and spelling
- Letter-sound matching with hopscotch – write letters, blends, and digraphs in an extended hop scotch grid for multi-sensory practice.
1st Grade Tutoring
- Word detective – Write target words on sticky notes and post them on the wall. Give clues or riddles such as “find a word that rhymes with “smash.” This game targets sight words, decoding, or rhyming
- Speed-reading – Speed read high-frequency words to build word recognition and fluency. Child tries to beat their time in recognizing a list of sight words. Each time they read the list faster and faster, building confidence and a strong bank of sight words.
- Word Tower – Write word-family words on blocks (e.g., Jenga). As they pull a block, they read the word aloud. If they read it correctly, they keep the block in the tower!
- Silly Sentence Builder – Write nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs on separate cards. Child picks one from each pile and creates a silly sentence such as “The fabulous purple giraffe dances loudly). This game targets vocabulary, sentence structure, and decoding.
2nd Grade Tutoring
- Fluency practice with repeated reading – Choose a short passage or poem. Read the passage three times in a row, improving on speed, accuracy, and intonation each time! Reading Activities That Will Increase Fluency
- Character Comparison Chart – After reading two short stories or books, compare characters using a venn diagram. Focus on traits, motivations, and how they change across the story.
- Cause and Effect Sorting – Write simple cause-and-effect scenarios on cards such as “it’s raining” on one card and “the car is wet” on another card.
- Context Clue Word Detective – Choose sentences with unfamiliar words and ask the student to guess meaning using clues. For example, “The boy was famished, so he ate three sandwiches.” What does famished mean?
3rd Grade Tutoring
- Timed Reading – Read and reread a passage. Time each reading and show student how much they’ve improved in their fluency of that passage.Timed Repeated Readings | Reading Rockets
- Partner Reading – Take turns reading paragraphs aloud.
- Who/What/Why Game – Ask simple questions about characters, plot, and motivations.
- Word of the Day – Expand vocabulary by selecting at least one word from a shared text to discuss and use in conversation.
- Contex Clues Detective – While reading with your child, find unfamiliar words and work together to guess their meaning from the text.
- Stop-and-Jot – After each page of the story, student writes down one thought, question, or connection, building comprehension and understanding.
4th Grade Tutoring
- Book Club – Choose a book to read together over the week. Discuss connections, make logical predictions, identify themes together.
- Sticky Note Tracker – While reading, the student uses sticky notes to mark new vocabulary, confusing sections, or “wow” moments. When relevant, they write a few sentences to practice written expression and make meaningful connections between their reading, thinking, and writing.
- Character Conversations – Pretend to be the character of a story being read together. Take turns asking and answering questions in character. The questioner may ask “What would you do if you were____?” and “Why do you think you did __________ in the story?”
- Book vs. Movie – Read a book together and then watch the movie. Talk about the differences and similarities; what you liked about each or found interesting. For a list of books turned into movies, click here: 4th grade books so great, they made a movie | GreatSchools
- Theme Tracker – While reading together, identify emerging themes or lessons and jot them down.
Later Elementary Years Tutoring
- Talk-Back Reading – Take turns reading aloud, then pause to reflect. Ask “What was the most important idea in that chapter?” Discuss: “Would you have made the same decision as the character?” This helps build inference and perspective-taking.
- Theme Tracker – As you read together, identify a theme such as perseverance, justice, and friendship. Track examples in the story that support the theme. At the end, you can talk about how the theme developed and what the character learned.
- Debate the Text – Read a section and take opposite sides of an issue or character choice. For example, “Should the character have told the truth?”
- Double-Entry Journal – Divide each page of the journal in half. On one side, the student identifies a quote or passage from the book; on the other, they report their reaction, thought, or question.
- Vocabulary Stretch – Choose 3 to 5 new or interesting words from a book each week. Look them up together, then challenge each other to use them in conversation all week.
Middle School Reading Tutoring Program
Our Middle School Reading Tutoring Programs are designed to help students navigate more complex learning demands by enhancing their reading skills. We build upon the foundational skills acquired in elementary school, introducing a broader vocabulary and deeper comprehension of both literary and academic texts.
Our reading tutors focus on teaching students to use context for better understanding. We also focus on improving your child’s spelling, fluency, reading comprehension, accuracy, and speed.
Our reading tutors also prepare middle school students by ensuring that their reading, decoding, and comprehension skills are at grade level so that they will be better prepared for the rigors of high school.
Specialized Reading Tutoring for Students with Learning Differences
Dyslexia Reading Tutoring
We specialize in tutoring students with dyslexia, from grades pre-K through 8th, using a systematic and phonological approach that targets sound-to-symbol correspondence, symbol-to-sound correspondence, spelling, decoding, fluency and reading comprehension.
We fill in the holes of your child’s foundation so that your child can catch up to grade-level reading.
ADHD Reading Comprehension
Our reading tutors have both the patience and expertise necessary to instruct children with ADHD in reading comprehension. Learners often struggle with challenges in working memory, focus and attention, information processing, and distractibility.
Our reading program, implemented by our reading tutors, addresses each of these challenges so that the student can learn to read quickly and efficiently. Our students also retain what they have learned and enjoy reading!
Autism Reading Comprehension
At Marmalade Skies Tutoring, we provide individualized reading support for children on the autism spectrum, blending structured literacy instruction with a calm, encouraging environment.
Our tutors use clear language, visual support, and positive reinforcement to help each child strengthen decoding and comprehension skills—building not just reading ability, but real understanding, confidence, and engagement along the way.
Things your child will learn in our Reading Tutoring program:
- Read fluently with accuracy and expression
- Summarize what they’ve read in their own words
- Think critically about characters, ideas, and plot
- Write more neatly and legibly
- Spell both foundational and more advanced words with confidence
Our Unique Approach to Reading Tutoring
We get your child
Our Tucson, AZ reading tutors meet your child where they’re at and build upon their current skills. We make sure that tutoring is a fun, enjoyable experience for your child. This helps your child feel confident, encouraged, and excited about reading.
Experts in Learning Differences
We specialize in helping children who are reading below grade level. Whether your child is simply struggling or has a specific learning difference, we provide individualized instruction tailored to their unique needs. Different minds learn in different ways—and we understand how to teach in a way that makes sense to them.
Our team has deep expertise in supporting children with dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, and autism. By honoring each child’s learning style, we help them build skills with confidence and reduce frustration along the way.
