When you learn that your child has a learning disability, you feel confused, lost, and alone.
How will my child get through school? Will my child ever go to college? Will the teachers ever understand? And most important, where can I go for help?
If this sounds like you, Dr. Osborn can help.
Students with LDs may struggle in many subject areas, but writing typically presents the greatest challenge. When we write, we need to generate ideas, plan, organize, remember, prioritize, write, and reconsider our writing and our ideas, all at the same time. That complex process puts a huge burden on our executive functioning skills. Because 90% of learning disabled (LD) children have marked deficits in their executive functioning skills, learning disabled children (LD) often have trouble doing all the things good writing requires: planning, organizing, remembering, and composing. As a result, they often get frustrated. Some withdraw. Others get angry. And these behaviors can lead to poor school performance, as well as a sense of personal inadequacy, a loss of self-esteem, and even shutting down.
At WCP, Dr. Osborn improves your child’s writing and English language arts performance while simultaneously developing confidence, motivation, and independence. She uses a multi-modal and flexible approach to writing instruction designed to improve skills, advance grades, and boost confidence. Our services for students include evaluation of inherent skills, assessment of school performance, instruction designed to remediate skills, and exercises to advance writing proficiency and foster independence. Our services for parents include strategizing IEP and 504 meetings, advocacy, and accommodation design.
“Susan was a life saver.”
Lynne, parent of ASD freshman at Rochester Institute of Technology
Schedule your free 20-minute phone consultation with Dr. Osborn to learn how The Writing Center of Princeton can help your child.
SERVICES FOR STUDENTS
ASSESSMENT
Professional evaluation of your child’s writing strengths and weaknesses, attack strategies, and writing process. In addition, I assess your child’s reading strategies and close reading skills, both essential to good writing. Because LD students often struggle to understand what teachers expect of them, I also evaluate the teacher’s writing instruction.
After evaluating your child’s skills, I identify a plan of action within the context of your child’s immediate writing goals and your aspirations for your child’s academic career.
BASIC REMEDIATION
Basic remedial skills target areas of weakness and are aimed at quickly improving writing performance and grades. Lessons designed to advance basic inferential thinking skills and improve ability to plan, detail, and elaborate written responses. Special focus on improving organization, identifying strong evidence, mastering grammar and punctuation basics, and improving motivation and confidence.
In addition, I improve your child’s ability to break down and strategize writing assignments.
MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL WRITING SKILLS
Practice includes advancing critical thinking and organizational skills, and improving students’ ability to show connections between ideas. In addition, Dr. Osborn focuses on enhancing students’ ability to write in detail and to elaborate written responses. Special attention paid to improving reading comprehension and close reading skills.
In addition, I help your child develop the hallmarks of writing sophistication. This includes practice writing complex and varied sentences, and practice using parallel structure, coordination, and subordination to boost your child’s writing performance and grade.
If your child is taking AP Literature or AP Language, I show your child how to develop college-level reading and writing skills and how create template essays that ensure success on the AP exam. Tricks for remembering the names and purposes of rhetorical devices are offered.
In addition, Dr. Osborn offers AP Language and AP Literature Boot Camps. Curriculum introduces students to the AP curriculum, fundamentals of AP-level essay writing, strategies for approaching multiple choice questions, techniques for improving vocabulary, and study tips. Click here for more information.
COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY WRITING
Dr. Osborn works with your child at every step of the essay writing process, from brainstorming ideas that will best market your child to all the colleges on the list and on through every step of the writing process including organizing, drafting, rewriting, editing, polishing, and proofreading. Special focus paid to developing narrative arcs that are compelling, cohesive, and distinctive without compromising your child’s voice and intention.
In addition, I show your child how to exploit the opportunities presented in the supplemental essays to make sure that your responses increase your value and boost admissions chances.
Strategizing disclosure and requesting accommodations at college also addressed.
CREATIVE WRITING
Instruction includes plot and character development, point of view, dialogue, setting, tone, and atmosphere. Genres include but are not limited to creative nonfiction, memoir, personal essays, short stories, novels, and poems.
SERVICES FOR Parents
GETTING STARTED
Dr. Osborn knows that helping a child with a learning disability (LD) can be emotionally difficult. That’s why she works with you to find a qualified neuropsychologist or educational evaluator and to help you understand the learning implications of your child’s academic evaluation.
In addition, Dr. Osborn helps you explore school options and helps you make the best course selections for your child. Assistive technology options addressed.
ACCOMMODATIONS AND ADVOCACY
Dr. Osborn helps design academic accommodations that best suit your child’s needs and aspirations. Planning and strategizing IEP and 504 meetings also covered.
Dr. Osborn also advocates with you or on your behalf at IEP and 504 meetings.
COLLEGE APPLICATIONS
The college application process can be especially fraught for learning disabled (LD) students who may feel ambivalent about leaving home and going to college. Dr. Osborn guides you through this difficult time with empathy, discretion, and intelligence.
At the same time, she guides your child through every aspect of the college admissions process. This work includes building a strategic college list, brainstorming college essay topics, writing and revising essays, writing impactful extracurricular lists, choosing letter recommenders, disclosing learning disabilities (LDs), and building confidence.
WCP works with students and college applicants from all over the world via Skype, Zoom, FaceTime, phone, and Google docs.
WHAT MAKES DR. OSBORN DIFFERENT FROM OTHER LD WRITING AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS TUTORS?
1. Experience
Dr. Osborn is a veteran educator and college counselor who has worked in the Writing Program and English Department at Rutgers University, in the lab at The New Jersey Center for Research on Writing, in Admissions at Vassar College, and as a private tutor.
In addition to her degree work, she has completed graduate work at Columbia University’s Teachers College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Bank Street College of Education.
Dr. Osborn is also an acclaimed and award-winning fiction, popular, and academic writer.
2. Personalized Service
Dr. Osborn helps you identify and clarify your child’s writing goals. At the same time, she nurtures and designs a plan of action based on what best fits your time frame, your child’s learning style and personality, your schedule, and your aspirations for your child.
3. Set Your Own Schedule
Dr. Osborn doesn’t like package plans and she knows you don’t either. WCP doesn’t offer them and never has. You are free to schedule as many or as few appointments as you wish.
4. Unlimited, 7-day a Week Text Support with Dr. Osborn
Once you sign on with Dr. Osborn, you are welcome to text her whenever you wish, about whatever questions and concerns you have related to your child’s school work, essays, and college application strategy, and college application essays.
5. Emotional Support
One of Dr. Osborn’s most important responsibilities is to be here for you and your child, and she takes that responsibility very seriously. Whether you need to vent or just need to talk things over, you can rely on her.
“When we found out that our child was autistic and had ADHD, we thought he’d never go to college. But he really grew with Susan, both as a learner and a person. She really became Paul’s advocate. Best of all, throughout the process, she listened to us with intelligence and sympathy. And we’re proud to say that in March, our son earned a $20,000 a year scholarship.”
Deb and Keith, parents of Rochester Institute of Technology freshman
Schedule a complimentary 20-minute consultation with Dr. Susan Osborn.
I look forward to speaking with you about the many ways we can advance your child’s writing skills and English language arts performance and boost your child’s college admissions chances!
Susan Osborn, Ph.D.
All instruction is conducted in a private, distraction-free environment.
