Read
Classical and SAT-must-read texts — Alice in Wonderland, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds — chosen at or just above their current Lexile. Comprehension tracked by data, not guesswork.
Think once, in two languages.
Ages 5–8? See Little DODO →What happens in the ELA Program?
The ELA Program is live, one-on-one English language arts for Grade 3 through high school, taught online. Each 16-week cycle pairs your child with one Navigator, runs every session as The Loop, Read → Think → Speak → Write, and measures reading in Lexile and writing on the 6+1 Trait rubric at Weeks 0, 8 and 16.
16
Weeks
A real commitment
4
Skills
Read · Think · Speak · Write
3
Assessments
Week 0 · Week 8 · Week 16
1
Navigator
Who knows your child
1-on-1
Always
No group sessions, no rotation
∞
The Full Loop
Every single session
By your child’s stage
Two ways into DODO English.
Ages 5–8
Little DODO
Live, one-on-one with a dedicated early-childhood educator — phonetics, fluency, vocabulary, and the love of reading. Built book by book. Where the reader begins.
Explore Little DODOGrade 3+· You’re here
ELA Program
Live, Navigator-led literacy and writing — read complexity, argue with evidence, write with intention. Progress measured in Lexile. A 16-week cycle, four skills every session.
How does LCS or “The Loop” work?
What happens in a single session?
Think
Before they speak or write, they build the argument. What’s the claim? What’s the evidence? What’s the counter? Structure first.
Speak
They take a position and defend it — live, with their Navigator. This is where confidence is built, not performed.
Write
Everything they’ve read, thought, and said now lands on the page. The MCT writing arc — Grammar → sentence → paragraph → essay → academic composition — scored against the 6+1 Trait rubric.
The Journey
What happens across one 16-week cycle?
1Week 0
Entrance Assessment
We start by finding out exactly where your child is — their Lexile reading level, their 6+1 Trait writing baseline, and the specific areas where they need support. No assumptions.
2Weeks 1–15
Weekly Sessions
Each week, your child works through The LCS with their Navigator — someone who knows their progress, their challenges, and what to push next. Sessions run up to 50 minutes, minimum once per week.
3Week 16
Exit Assessment + Progress Report
At the end, you see the growth as real numbers: Lexile level before and after, 6+1 Trait scores for all seven traits, side by side with where they started. You receive a written progress report. Then you decide what comes next.
Lexile Growth
620Lexile start
820after 16wks
+200 Lexile points — approximately one grade level of reading growth
Typical 16-week result: 620L → 820L
The Architecture
How do sessions, cycles and levels fit together?
The LCS System — Literacy · Composition · Speaking — is the curriculum architecture. Five content strands nest under those three branches. Within it, every session runs The Loop, guided by your child’s Navigator. Across each 16-week cycle, sessions accumulate into LCS strand progress. Across multiple cycles, students advance through the seven ELA levels (Levels 1–7), with Level 7 reaching college-tier academic English. Each level takes two to three cycles. Each cycle is 16 weeks.
Literacy
文学精读
Deep engagement with literary classics. Vocabulary accumulation, literary sensibility, the student’s own intellectual treasury. The root of all language output.
LiteratureVocabularyPoetics
Composition
系统写作训练
Systematic writing training: transforming reading depth and thinking into structured, persuasive, precise writing. From sentences to academic essays.
GrammarWriting
Speaking
表达
High-quality 1-on-1 discussion with the Navigator. Students clarify perspective, organise thinking, produce clear and logically rigorous spoken output.
DODO’s own strand — no nested strand, because no book supplies it.
Calibrated against US SAT, SSAT, IB Extended Essay, Cambridge KET & PET, and North American private-school + gifted-school standards. Level 7 = college-tier academic English capability.
Choose Your Combination
How many sessions a week, and which combination fits?
Every combination runs the full 16-week cycle, every session runs The Loop, every student works with one dedicated Navigator. The combinations differ in weekly session count and emphasis — choose the shape that fits your child’s current need.
Summit
全境领航
3× literature + 1× writing / week
Accelerated growth · high-stakes academic milestones
Most Popular
Core
稳健航行
2× literature + 1× writing / week
Most popular · long-term development
Flex 1
文学阅读自由航行
2× literature / week
Building the reading foundation first
Flex 2
大师写作自由航行
2× writing / week
Writing specialisation
Flex 3
课业进阶自由航行
1× coursework-advancement session / week
Runs ahead of the classroom · pairs with any combination above
Each combination runs for one 16-week cycle. Pricing and weekly payment options are detailed in the FAQ.
See pricing details in FAQ →
Ms. Jennifer
The Red Tide · Ch. 4
A Real Session
A real session.
The chapter is open. Ms. Jennifer reads first — Turner mumbling that Mud is a frog in his opinion, and that being enough. She stops and looks at the student. “What is Turner doing here?”
The student says he isn’t really listening. Ms. Jennifer doesn’t move on. “What else makes you say that?” The student scrolls back two paragraphs, finds the part where Mud has already shown the evidence. “He keeps saying ‘in my opinion’ — like saying it makes the thing true.”
A few pages later they hit Baldwin’s beetle. The student reads it herself this time, then laughs. “Wait — that’s what Turner did. In reverse.” She goes back and marks it. The conversation is moving faster than the chapter now.
Ms. Jennifer pulls up Petruchio. They read it aloud twice. The second time she has the student count the soft consonants — w, r, f, v, l, th. Eighteen of them in fifteen lines. “Why those sounds?” The student thinks for a beat. “Because the clothes feel soft.” “For next week — an animal from this chapter. Four lines. One sound, four times. That’s it.”
How We Measure Growth
How will you know your child is growing?
Lexile Reading Level
The same measurement system used by schools across North America — so you can compare progress directly. Students typically advance about one grade level in reading in each 16-week cycle — an average gain of 187 Lexile points.
We don’t say your child “reads well.” We show you they moved from Lexile 620 to 820 in 16 weeks — that’s the difference between Grade 4 and Grade 6 reading territory.
6+1 Trait Writing
The same rubric your child’s school uses — so when you see improvement here, it shows up in the classroom too.
Ideas
2→4
Organization
2→4
Voice
2→4
Word Choice
2→5
Sentence Fluency
3→5
Conventions
3→4
Presentation
2→4
When you ask “has the writing improved?” — we don’t say yes. We show you each trait score, before and after, so you can see exactly where the growth happened.
Questions parents ask
What exactly happens in a 16-week cycle?
The program runs through The Loop — Read → Think → Speak → Write — across 16 structured weeks. Each session involves live instruction with a Navigator, structured practice between sessions, and progress tracking using Lexile and 6+1 Trait frameworks. Your child moves through grade-level content, not simplified material.
How many sessions are there and how long is each one?
Five combinations, all 16 weeks per cycle. Summit is three literature sessions plus one writing session each week. Core — the most common — is two literature plus one writing. Flex 1 is two or more literature sessions; Flex 2 is two writing sessions; Flex 3 is one or more coursework-advancement sessions per week and pairs with any of the others. Literature and writing sessions both run 50 minutes, on a fixed weekly schedule.
What grade levels does DODO serve?
The ELA Program begins at Grade 3 and runs across seven levels to college-tier academic English — each level two to three 16-week cycles. Little DODO is a separate programme for ages 5 to 8, with its own early-childhood educators. Placement comes from the diagnostic, not from your child’s school year.
Is this a group program or one-on-one?
One-on-one. Every child works with a dedicated Navigator for the full 16 weeks. Live sessions are always 1:1.
When is my child assessed — and who does the assessment?
Three times. Week 0: entrance assessment before the first session. Week 8: mid-program check. Week 16: exit assessment. Each is DODO’s own assessment: your child takes it at their own pace in our online classroom, and their Navigator scores it and estimates a Lexile level. Within 72 hours of each assessment you receive the number, a written report in English and Chinese, and a call with the Navigator.
Where will my child start?
At the level the diagnostic puts them, not at the level their grade implies. The 20-minute consultation gives a first read of where their reading actually sits, and the Week 0 Lexile baseline, taken after enrollment, confirms which of the seven levels they enter. Every session runs the full Read → Think → Speak → Write sequence from the first week, whatever the level.
Diagnostic Consultation
Ready to see where your child stands?
The consultation is 20 minutes. A Navigator — not a sales call. We identify the exact gaps and show you what the first 16 weeks looks like for a student exactly like yours.
Book Your ConsultationA free consultation with a Navigator. No obligation.