Ddfocus Reviews 13

Melanie has provided excellent support over almost two years to my child via weekly lessons. Those lessons have been so engaging and rewarding that my child’s mood is inevitably improved by attending them.

Melanie has helped immensely with my child’s wellbeing. She has helped them to cope when having to write was becoming an extremely challenging barrier to participating in school. In particular, Melanie’s patient and tailored approach has been invaluable in building my child’s confidence through developing strategies to assist with spelling and writing.

Melanie has provided extremely useful advice in dealing with my child’s school and helped me to understand what is likely to assist my child’s learning and emotional wellbeing at school.

Our experience with Melanie has been fantastic and I highly recommend her.

Professional and experienced - such a great choice

Melanie came highly recommended to us and we are delighted that we used her. She was always so quick to respond to us and advised us to have orthoptic tests on the NHS for our son before his assessment which we wouldn't have otherwise known about. Even when we had to keep changing our appointment with Melanie as we waited for the NHS, it was never a problem and she was always quick to respond and really flexible. The assessment, together with the constructive advice and strategies Melanie gave us, has given our son so much more understanding about how his brain processes information and so much more confidence in how he learns. It has helped us enormously in our approach to the school in letting them know what support he needs. She is personable and really 'got' our son and helped him realise his strengths and where he needs support.

My son was tutored by Melanie for 4 years when he was at primary school. He is now 16 and doing his mock GCSE’s. All of the strategies and processes he has been taught by Melanie have worked well for him over the years and his predicted GCSE grades are very good. Thanks Melanie.

Melanie was recently recommended to me by my daughters school for a Dyslexia assessment. She made my daughter feel very comfortable throughout the assessment process and has provided an extremely detailed report which offers plenty of recommendations on how to support my daughter going forward. I would highly recommend Melanie, she is very approachable, extremely skilled and i cannot thank her enough for how quickly she responded to our request for an assessment and report.

Melanie supported our son with dyselxia tuition for over 2 years and formed a great bond with him. From not reading at all at the start, he now reads all the time. Melanie's expertise and enthusiasm made all the difference.

I am very happy with how my son is doing. He enjoys his lessons, loves Melanie and is making progress.

My son had quite a complex profile, after years of developing strategies to compensate for his difficulties. Melanie understood this, and pursued her investigations to get to a diagnosis - all in a sensitive and considered way which made him feel very comfortable and heard.

Our son has been working with Melanie Smith for just over a year now.
Almost immediately we saw a marked improvement in his confidence. There is also an improvement in applying himself; he works really hard because he now knows the satisfaction he receives from doing well and even notices himself improving.
Our son is also excited to go to his lessons, running in, barely saying goodbye to me or my husband!
From the thorough report we received at the assessment to feedback now, DD Focus has been absolutely invaluable to us. We are so grateful to have Melanie guiding and tutoring our son through his dyslexia.

Melanie is a fantastic specialist teacher. My son who is dyslexic has learnt so much working with her in Maths and English that his confidence and self esteem have been greatly increased. I would recommend Melanie to anybody who has children with dyslexia.

Mrs Smith supported my daughter from year 1 to year 6, as she had dyslexia and dyscalculia. She was incredibly kind, loving and inspirational. My daughter loved going to her lessons and became a confident speller, and reader and actually enjoyed maths. Her support was tremendous and I don't know what we would have done without her.

Melanie has helped my son considerably. From the initial assessment and diagnosis of dyslexia to the very high quality weekly sessions with bespoke homework, she has been fantastic. My son's progress in handwriting and writing stamina has been significant. Melanie is very warm and friendly and creates a very supportive and safe environment. Melanie is also well-versed in the emotional aspects of dyslexia and has advised and supported us at various times where the journey has been particularly difficult. I have recommended her to friends and would do so again.