TESTIMONIALS
DIAGNOSTIC
READING CENTRE
of Calgary

Dr. Vavra was a great resource to our daughter who was struggling with written expression and story writing. She was able to appropriately assess and recognize the areas in which our daughter required assistance. With proper planning she was able to completely rebuild our daughter’s confidence and made every session a fun learning experience. By putting into practice what she has learned and now understanding the structure and flow of writing, our daughter was able to overcome her obstacles with writing and the anxiety surrounding written assignments. Our daughter learned valuable skills and obtained many reference tools from Dr. Vavra for future use. We saw a complete change in our child’s attitude towards writing and are very thankful we sought Dr. Vavra’s help. We have and will continue to recommend the Diagnostic Reading Centre to family and friends and thank Dr. Vavra for her thoughtful approach to learning.

I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to Dr. Vavra. Your passion, compassion, and knowledge are a gift. I truly love the way you connect with our daughter. If it was up to her, she would come to the Diagnostic Reading Centre every day of the week to work with you! She has gone from not wanting to write - to enjoying, understanding, and utilizing the multi-faceted skills you’ve introduced to her.
Thank you again, for all you do!

We have been working with Dr. Vavra for a year now. The entire experience has been worthwhile and very meaningful to our family. Our son needed help with his literacy skills. We were concerned about his transition from Elementary school to Junior High as well. His time spent working with Dr. Vavra has made a significant difference in his proficiency in reading, writing, and spelling over the year. As a parent, I feel that our son is learning and gaining skills and strategies that will benefit him throughout his schooling and provide him with a deeper understanding of how he can better prepare himself to handle his school work while overcoming what has challenged him in the past in regards to his literacy. Dr. Vavra brings such a wealth of experience and expert knowledge to her work. She is genuinely interested in her students and making her time with them engaging, positive, and special to their needs. Our son looks forward to his sessions with Dr. Vavra.

It is like magic how Dr. Vavra blends her vast knowledge and expertise to create meaningful, thoughtful, engaging and fun lessons to teach and help build my daughter's literacy skills all while providing her with strategies and activities that are practical, make sense and most of all really do work! However, this may not be the greatest gift of working with Dr.Vavra. She is caring and compassionate and displays a genuine interest in getting to know her students. This time and effort makes it possible for her to build a relationship with them based on positivity, encouragement and support. In the relatively short time my daughter has been working with Dr. Vavra, I have seen her confidence increase and the belief in herself that she is a competent reader and writer begin to soar. My daughter is always eager and excited to attend her weekly sessions and at the end of her time, she enthusiastically shares with me what she has learned that day with a great big smile and a sense of accomplishment. Thank you, Dr. Karen, for all of your incredible work! I am so very grateful.

Dr. Vavra holds the key to reading success! The diagnostic approach Dr. Vavra has designed was able to uncover the unique way my daughter was struggling. Karen’s calm and caring disposition helped my daughter feel completely comfortable during the analysis and tutoring sessions that followed. The difference in my daughter’s confidence has been incredible! She went from feeling like she was not smart enough to feeling like she was one of the top students in her class. Thank you Karen for all your amazing work, we are so very grateful.

Coming to work with Dr. Karen is one of the best parts of my week! She makes reading and writing so much fun that my hour with her simply flies by. The strategies and tricks she teaches me are all super helpful with my reading, writing and spelling, but the best part is they all make sense in my mind for why I use them. Dr. Karen is always kind, patient and helpful, and we often share a good giggle together as we work. If any of my friends or classmates needed extra help, I would definitely tell them to go see Dr. Karen. I feel lucky that I get to work with her!

Tai’s words when asked if she was glad she went through the process with Karen: “I am glad because, I feel like I am at the top of the class now, and I found out I really like reading”.

Karen is a wonderful help to me. She always has a fun activity planned that gives massive knowledge to help with your struggle. Karen is not a dead serious person. She is really nice, really talkative, and will share tons of stories with you. Karen identifies what you struggle with and has dozens of strategies to help you improve. Seeing Karen has made me more confident at school with my school work. She takes your interests and makes projects around that. For example, I am a big fisherman and love to fish so Karen made a whole project that included fish that I would enjoy working on. I am very lucky to have her as my teacher but also my friend.