Tailored Tutoring
Compassionate Coaching
Effective Advocacy
Our experienced team is dedicated to understanding your unique learning journey, offering personalized support and guidance to help you thrive. Together, we'll build the skills and confidence you need for a brighter future, while ensuring your educational rights are protected every step of the way. Choose the ABC Tutoring & Coaching Center - your partner in fostering growth, empowering dreams, and achieving excellence.
Ashley Barlow Co.
So parents have professionals that know their child AND special education advocacy at the IEP table with them.
Our tutors and coaches help students make meaningful progress AND
Work as special education advocates …
You don't have to do it alone.
real talk:
Tutoring and Coaching Center!
Here you’ll find tutors and coaches that are exceptionally trained to help your child make progress in areas of academic, behavioral, and functional development AND to provide special education advocacy services. That is, our professionals work with children in areas such as reading/literacy, math, executive functioning, self-regulation, and social/emotional learning; and they are trained special education advocates that can attend meetings, train and prepare caregivers for meetings, and provide additional IEP supports.
Welcome to the Ashley Barlow Co.
Tutoring, Coaching, and IEP Advocacy
How It Works
Complete a short intake form and book a 15-minute intake call.
Step One
Complete your intake call and receive personalized recommendations for coaching and tutoring that benefit your unique situation.
Begin your ABC Tutoring & Coaching journey by attending your first session.
Step Two
Step Three
Start the Intake Process Here
Discover What's Essential
Specially trained and experienced tutors
Experience personalized success with ABC Tutoring Center's specially trained and experienced tutors. Embrace your potential as our passionate educators guide you through mastering skills and fostering a love for learning, turning challenges into triumphs.
Advocacy at school for continuity and continued growth
Ensure continuity and foster growth with steadfast advocacy at school. Navigate the educational landscape confidently, knowing your rights and needs are championed for sustained success.
Connect learning to the home environment
Strengthen the learning experience through collaborative partnerships with caregivers. Together, we create a supportive environment that nurtures growth, fosters resilience, and empowers success.
By the end of 3rd grade, 74% of struggling readers will not catch up.
The Stats
01
did you know:
When children have positive experiences with reading, they are “more likely to have a higher reading self-concept” and to be confident readers.
03
Lesnick, et al, 2010
02
“A number of studies have demonstrated that systematic, explicit, decoding instruction that emphasized synthetic phonics yielded better results than other instructional methods. A remedial instruction that has deep historical roots and is being widely used is the Orton Gillingham approach.”
Joshi et al, 2022
Willingham, 2017
04
A Gallup analysis of USDOE data indicated that 130 million adults, or 54% of Americans, have low literacy skills and read below a 6th grade level. 22% of American adults read below Level 1.
- Are specially trained in their area of expertise
- Are trained by ABCo in special education advocacy
- Collaborate with one another to provide the best supports
- Use research-based, multi-sensory curricula to teach academic skills like reading and math
- Have developed efficient programming that makes sense
- Help you learn skills and strategies and can support you at the IEP table and beyond
- Care about supporting the student at home, in the community, and at school
Our Tutors and Coaches:
Behavior Matters
Meet Marissa
with Marissa Rothermel
My name is Marissa Rothermel, MS. Ed. I have been working in special education for 15+ years across a variety of settings and with students from all over the US, all with different learning and support needs. I have chosen to embrace the virtual space for special education service delivery since 2020. I was raised and educated in New York State (Albany area) and currently hold several special education certifications in states across the US. I have experience teaching youth from a variety of different backgrounds, differing abilities, and of different ages, both in- person and online, and take pride in a very strong track record of success. I am passionate about helping students get their needs met and growing as individuals - and I believe in full transparency with home. I form strong relationships with families and caregivers because ultimately, I believe that the home is the foundation of all learning. My job as a special educator and advocate is to support students on all fronts, and make sure that they and their families receive the education and can access the supportive services they are entitled to. In 2022, my family and I made the decision to "try a new way of living" and left the mountains of NY behind to embrace coastal living in South Carolina. This move is very much representative of my teaching and advocacy mindset - to always try something new, as you never know what you may learn along the journey. As you get to know me, you will find that my positive attitude toward challenging issues, and my enthusiastic approach to the experiences I provide my students and families can be empowering. I strive to provide a highly personalized level of learning for each student, seeking to establish a strong rapport with both the student and their families. I am passionate about quality education through the virtual medium and embracing a technology-forward way of life.
Marissa "Riss" Rothermel, MS. Ed. was raised and educated in New York State (Albany area) and currently holds several special education licenses and certifications in states across the US. She is passionate about helping students get their needs met and growing as individuals, while encouraging and supporting family involvement. Riss has been a special educator for over 15 years and specializes in behavior support, as well as supports for nonverbal learners. Her special interest areas also include virtual education, music in education, and sensory support. In conjunction with ABCo., Riss offers Behavior Foundations consultation - working with families to support behavior needs in the school and home setting, developing plans and support documents, and meeting with teams to discuss behavior intervention strategy. When dealing with challenging, surprising, or confusing behaviors, let Riss help you navigate your approach!
“If only I could teach this child how to read, prove to them that she can do it, and then advocate for better programming,” I thought!
A Note From Ashley
Eureka! What if tutors and coaches were also special education advocates?!
I’ve worked in education over the past 25 years, as a teacher and a special education attorney, and I keep seeing the same theme. Parents and students get frustrated by the lack of progress or supports as school, so they get outside help. Students make quick progress in tutoring and coaching for many reasons, which are normally very specific to the child.
And that’s the problem. Neither the parents nor the children as equipped to talk about those very specific reasons. They can’t tie in the student’s success in private tutoring – what works and why – to arguments at school. They say to me all the time, “If it weren’t for the tutor, he wouldn’t be reading. But school doesn’t see it.
Students with dyslexia are denied eligibility and don’t know where to go. Students with intellectual disabilities are told they can’t read and are taught sight words and “functional reading” curricula. Students with executive functioning struggles are viewed as disinterested, lazy, and sometimes disrespectful. Families are frustrated, confused, and overwhelmed and just want help.
What if the help came from private tutoring and school? That’s what we’ve created for you!
Our tutors and coaches will help you learn skills – reading, other academics, executive functioning, and more – AND they’ll sit at the IEP table with you. They’ll help you understand why programs work, how your child works best, and how to get what you deserve at the IEP table!
Doesn’t that sounds exciting? Whether you’re super frustrated with the lack of progress and supports at school or just looking for some extra help, or like to go the extra mile, you’re in the right spot! I’m so excited to welcome you to our Tutoring and Coaching Center!
Book an intake call now, and I’ll be in touch to match you with the right tutor or coach!
I was in an IEP meeting when the idea of a tutoring and coaching center hit me. My client was being denied access to the general education classroom because of reading deficits, but the reading deficits were a direct result of the reading instruction the school had chosen.
Start the Intake Process Here
Skills like reading and self-regulation are getting in the way of inclusion. We teach skills and then advocate for continuity of strategies and supports at school.
Is This Right For You?
Schools give the “song and dance” about so many programs that it’s hard to know what’s right. Our specially trained tutors and coaches will make sense of it all for you.
Imagine a world in which the programming that your child gets at school mirrors, supports, and builds on what they’re doing in their productive outside tutoring.
Your tutor has special insights into the way you learn.
Your tutor can ask questions about the material and the way it is presented in the context of what she’s doing in tutoring.
If your tutor is also your advocate, you get more continuity between home and school.
is that a yes?
Start the Intake Process Here
Your tutor, who is specially trained in his field, has the curricular knowledge,
Your tutor, who is specially trained in his field, has the curricular knowledge, teaching expertise, and advocacy skills to get fast results.
teaching expertise, and advocacy skills to get fast results.
