The Reading Clinic was founded in 2002 by Jan MacLean, an Occupational Therapist and the mother of children with reading and math learning disabilities. Her journey to find the best treatment for her own children prompted an extensive review of the available research. What she learned is that the most common form of reading disabilities are neurologically based and believed to be responsive to specialized, intensive treatment. Unfortunately, this approach was not available in Ontario, so Jan and her children traveled to intensive intervention clinics in the U.S. and other provinces in Canada where her children received intensive daily instruction for eight weeks. Having experienced tremendous success, Jan’s children returned to their regular classrooms in Kingston with the reading and writing skills they needed to continue their education.

Her children’s success convinced Jan that this type of service needed to be available in Eastern Ontario, so she became committed to learning the necessary skills to become a Specialized Reading Therapist. After investigating a variety of programs, Jan teamed up with Jennifer Harrison and together they trained in a number of Multi-Sensory Structured Language Programs, including the Orton-Gillingham Approach. Together, they blended the best practices and principles of the various programs to create the Yes! Reading Program. The Yes! Reading Program is structured and sequenced, but also flexible enough to meet the individual needs of each student. It is also a program that continually evolves as the science of how we read continues to educate us as to the best methods of intervention for struggling students. The program employes methods recommended by the International Dyslexia Association and meets the requirements of the Orton-Gillingham Approach.

The Reading Clinic is Eastern Ontario’s only intensive reading clinic for students with reading difficulties and Dyslexia. Our goal is to teach struggling readers to decode text and attain fluency skills at a grade appropriate level. Providing instruction at a young age is the key to preventing these children from falling further and further behind.
Since 2012, The Reading Clinic has expanded to offer specialized one-to-one programming in written expression. We see strong results in response to evidence-based, intensive remediation by qualified instructors. For more information on this program, click on the, “Written Expression” tab.