Cheryl made such a positive impression on me with her patience, perseverance and tenacity while we worked together with several children on their English reading and literacy skills.
I am a qualified and experienced remedial teacher and I felt that I was privilege to work alongside someone with such great integrity. Cheryl is a born teacher and someone who has a special gift for working with children who struggle. Her patience and caring helped the children we worked with, not only to improve in their schoolwork (reading, literacy and numeracy skills) but also to gain confidence, grow their self-esteem and most importantly to feel loved and valued. She has such a natural warmth about her that you instantly feel comfortable in her presence. The children respond so well to this, even though they come with a lot of baggage and negative emotions around learning and performance.
Cheryl approaches her teaching with great passion and with the assurance that this is her calling. Any child that works with her will be in good hands.
– E Martin –
Cheryl has such a heart for children, especially those that have learning problems related to reading and English literacy. I cannot recommend her highly enough. The ability to read is the foundation of most learning in a school environment. She has been a life saver for our family. She achieved what no one else in our family could.
T had a real problem with reading, spelling and writing, making learning very challenging. Homework was a constant uphill battle. When he first started reading therapy with Cheryl he lacked confidence, knowledge and skills around reading. He shied away from reading out loud. His ability to read for meaning was limited because he was so focused on decoding one word at a time. The meaning of the sentence was lost on him and it was exhausting. Rereading everything really slowed him down. This meant that he could not work independently. His reading was painfully slow, involved a lot of guesswork, numerous mistakes and was always an exercise in frustration. Understandably, he would avoid reading activities at all costs and would fatigue easily.
Now T feels good about himself and enjoys most of his school work. He can read with relative ease and thankfully can work with greater independence. Although he will probably never be a book worm due to his cognitive issues, he at least is able to read for meaning. He no longer avoids reading and other literacy related activities. We could never have achieved this without Cheryl’s help.
What I appreciated the most is that Cheryl works one-to-one with each child, which meant that she could meet T’s needs from day one. Her patience is endless. She has a wonderful sense of humour and she has an incredible capacity for love. T grew in confidence quickly because of the safe space and supportive learning environment. The fact that he made such rapid progress meant that he was motivated to keep working.
Reading therapy with Cheryl has been such a game changer for us, so much so that she now tutors across all subjects with T.
– Lee R –
I am the foster parent of two children, one with severe behavioral issues and the other with serious neurological damage. Both children had not attended school for years and were very far behind with their education. Neither were able to fit back into the regular school system and as such I had to find someone with the right temperament and skills to be able to tutor my two children. Cheryl Cupido stepped into this role and was a greater blessing than I could ever have hoped for.
Cheryl is a qualified educator but also spent many years in management roles and has great organizational, administrative, mentoring, training and people skills. All these skills came together in enabling her to keep more than just my children’s educational development on a fast track but had the most profound effect on their emotional development too. Both my children carried a deep sense of rejection and shame and in the time spent with Cheryl they both experienced incredible healing because of her constant affirmation and both grew exponentially in self-awareness and self-confidence. Cheryl has a great love for children and a very compassionate heart. She however has firm boundaries and commands respect which the children responded to well, and it was not long before a very deep bond and trust had formed between them. This created the right environment for my sons to be able to tackle the difficulties that they were experiencing in their education and development as a whole.
Both boys were illiterate when Chery began their tutoring and both children progressed roughly at a rate of two grades per year enabling them to catch up with their peers, (a great achievement). She created a happy and stimulating environment in which the boys felt nurtured instead of driven, all the whiles maintaining an incredible pace and demanding schedule. I have to emphasize that managing a child with the type and severity of behavioral issues that my youngest son has requires a gift and not just skill. And to work on a daily basis, with this type of child, is a calling and not a job. Cheryl just had what it took! The love, the patience and natural ability to restore calm and order, minimizing my son’s ability to derail the days program.
Cheryl is one of those irreplaceable people who play a significant role in a person’s life. My boys grew to love her and will always remember how she changed the trajectory of their lives forever and how she so enriched their lives during her season with us. My gratitude has no bounds.
– Tessa B –