Enrichment Learning Plans

An Enrichment Plan is designed to strengthen one or more foundational skills.  Our clients come to us for enrichment because we can specifically target the cognitive processes necessary for efficient reading and learning.  When we use our approaches to strengthen those skills, in a short period of time, confidence and learning accelerate.
 

Reading Enrichment 

Maggie was in 5th grade when her mother first called Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers. She had always been a good student and wanted desperately to have report cards full of A’s, but she rarely received higher than a B. 

Maggie told her mother that she hated reading aloud in class. She said that she sometimes came upon unfamiliar words, and the other students seemed to be able to read them with ease. At home, she never read anything that wasn’t assigned for school. While her friends seemed to be tearing through the Harry Potter books, Maggie preferred watching the movies.

Even though Maggie did not have a reading problem, reading was not a strong area for her. Because she did better in other subjects, she shied away from reading in the early grades.  Since she only read school material, she was missing out on much of the practice her peers were getting.  She needed a boost. 

Maggie benefited from sessions to improve her symbol imagery. She performed tasks that asked her to image letters and words in her mind, manipulating sounds and letters to build automaticity. With symbol imagery in place, Maggie was able to more easily sound out unfamiliar words. Her sight word memory and spelling skills also improved. 

After 35 hours of sessions, Maggie had increased her word attack skills three grade levels, and her spelling improved by a full grade. Maggie’s confidence soared once reading became easier. She started asking her mother to take her to bookstores for special treats.  On her next report card, she received an A in language arts.

Spelling Enrichment

Max always got 100 percent on his spelling tests. But when he was writing essays, he constantly found himself asking his mother to spell words for him, or simply choosing smaller words he knew how to spell rather than using the first word that came to mind.

Later, as a college sophomore, Max knew that he needed more independence with spelling.  When he asked his mother to find someone to help him, she called Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers. 

Max's reading, comprehension, and vocabulary skills were strong, but he scored well below average in spelling. The majority of the words he spelled were phonetically correct but were not standard spellings: for example, he misspelled possession as possetion and conscience as conshunce. 

By attending 25 hours of sessions to improve symbol imagery, Max was able to improve his ability to imprint spelling patterns in his brain.   Max saw a significant improvement in his spelling, increasing his score by more than two grade levels in just a few short weeks.

Comprehension Enrichment

Jacob was in 9th grade, had always been a good student, and enjoyed reading selective material. Teachers throughout his school years had nothing but praise for his academic performance. However, Jacob resisted doing any reading beyond what was required for school.

Jacob and his parents knew he would often have to read and reread school texts to ensure he "knew" it. When reading textbooks, Jacob was unsure about the most important parts of the chapter. When taking tests, if questions were asked differently than how he studied, Jacob would often miss the question. He was also inefficient with critical thinking skills necessary for "reading between the lines"; such as main ideas, predictions, conclusions, inferences, and evaluations. Now, as a freshman in high school, Jacob found himself struggling with taking notes from a lecture.

Even though Jacob clearly did not have a reading problem, comprehension was not a strong area for him. He was able to memorize what he needed for school, which masked that higher level learning wasn't taking place. When it came to school material, Jacob needed specific tools to learn how to learn.

After 45 hours of work at Langsford Learning Acceleration Center, Jacob's studying became more efficient and he could finally "read between the lines".  He no longer had to cram for the test the night before.  He could read the textbook along with class instruction and truly learn the material. Studying became a review of his knowledge of the material.  Jacob's lecture notes were the ones other students wanted to copy when they were absent from class!

Handwriting Enrichment

Miranda was in second grade when her mother first called Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers.  Miranda was doing very well in all areas of school and very much enjoyed school.  However, her mother was concerned about Miranda's handwriting. Miranda always seemed to be unsure how to form her letters and she was beginning to resist writing tasks. Miranda complained that took her too long to write and her papers weren't as pretty as her classmates' papers. 

Miranda's handwriting significantly improved through sessions to systematically teach her proper letter formation. Sessions began with giving Miranda specific language to describe the types of lines that make letters. She learned to use starting and ending points, and to mentally tell herself the direction to move her pencil. Miranda learned all of the lower case and capital print letters. She also practiced writing sentences with proper letter and word spacing. 

After 25 hours of sessions, Miranda was proud of how her writing looked. She was comfortable with writing tasks in school and was even excited about the idea of learning cursive.

Mathematics Enrichment

"He can get the concepts but can't seem to learn his facts." 

"She knows her facts but struggles learning new concepts in math without repeated instruction." 

These are common statements we hear from parents about their child's performance in mathematics. These students usually achieve adequate grades but struggle more in math than other subjects.

This was true for Emily, a fifth grader at a private independent school. She had always been a good student, but she just didn't seem to enjoy math and was beginning to be frustrated by it.
 

Math is a cumulative subject, so if any part is missing or unstable for a student, it could impact math performance later on. This seemed to be the case with Emily. After an evaluation at Langsford Learning Acceleration Center, it was determined that Emily had some gaps in her knowledge and understanding of math concepts and was relying on memorization. She scored very well in all areas of math except for multiplication. Her parents wanted her to have a little extra help to fill in these gaps.

After 47 hours of learning sessions in math, Emily's score in multiplication soared from the 25th percentile to the 98th percentile!  She was also doing great in school. Emily came home one day and reported that her teacher had just introduced a new concept that involved reducing fractions. Because of her work at Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers, Emily was able to go to the board and demonstrate the process for the whole class. Emily's parents felt her work at Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers greatly increased her confidence level.  Emily even seemed to develop a love for math.

Fluency Enrichment

Fluent reading requires accurate, automatic, and efficient decoding of words.  In addition, self-monitoring for accuracy is a critical factor to becoming an independent reader.

Consider the following scenarios:

Susie correctly decodes each word. She knows and uses phonics rules. She knows many sight words. She reads the words correctly, but the rate is slow. Susie's reading lacks fluency because, though the decoding is accurate,  the pace is inefficient. 

Tim makes reading errors, but stops to correct them, using what he knows about letters, sounds, rules, and sight words. He often hesitates. He starts, then restarts. He frequently rereads. The rate is slow. Tim's reading lacks fluency because decoding, despite self-monitoring, is not automatic or efficient. 

Michael makes frequent errors.  He doesn't recognize common spelling patterns, disregards or substitutes word parts, reverses the order of the words, and seems not to notice any of these errors.  He reads without expression, and without a sense of the meaning or phrasing of the words.  He reads slowly.  Michael's reading also lacks fluency.  The lack of self-monitoring leads to unnoticed inaccuracy and an absent sense of meaning. His reading seems disconnected from the actual words on the page.

Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers prepares a plan of action specific to each student. The plan includes work in fluency, based on a student's fluency profile. Specific activities are drawn from a fluency plan that progresses from the level of letter naming through sound-symbol connections, word patterns, sight words, sentences, paragraphs and pages, into contextual book reading.

Langsford Learning Acceleration Center can help your child become a fluent reader. 

Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers' fluency plan is based on the approach described in Teach Me to Read by Sammie S. Brian, M.Ed., and Mary Catherine F. Welding, M.D. For information, email maryckk@bellsouth.net