The Letter That Changed Everything
A summer tutoring story from Sean David Taylor — the dyslexic reading teacher who never gave up
When I was a child, the letters p, d, b, and q were all the same letter to me. I could not read, write, or decode words — and more than a few teachers quietly assumed I never would. That feeling of being invisible, of being written off, never left me. It became the fuel for everything I do today.
Early in my career, I met a second-grade girl named Yvette. She walked into my classroom with the widest grin I had ever seen and an urgency that caught me off guard — she was ready to start reading that moment. When I asked her why learning to read mattered so much to her, she said something that stopped me cold: her mom couldn't read to her, so she wanted to learn how to read to her mom. That one sentence reframed every lesson I would ever teach.
Yvette and I spent a year laughing, smiling, and learning to read together. By the end of that year, a child who had been labeled "can't" proved that expectation wrong in the most spectacular fashion. She taught me what high expectations truly look like — not as a policy, but as a promise you make to every child who walks through your door.
That promise is why I created the Taylor Method: a deeply personal approach rooted in Orton-Gillingham, Montessori principles, and the latest science of reading research. It is not a program pulled from a shelf. It is built from my own journey as a dyslexic learner, two and a half decades in special education classrooms, and the belief — unwavering — that all children are gifted and can learn to read.
Summer Reading Tutoring — Tucson, AZ
Every child deserves a teacher who understands the struggle from the inside. This summer, let's close the reading gap together — and maybe even discover a love of chess along the way.
First 2 weeks FREE — full assessment & analysis of current performance levels
Ongoing tutoring: $45 / hour
Arizona-certified · Fingerprint-cleared · Orton-Gillingham · Montessori · Science of Reading
Chess coaching also available (25+ years experience)
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