Does your child struggle with reading or spelling?

Does the Individual

• Have difficulty associating sounds with letters.

• Have difficulty sounding out words.

• Look at the first letter of a word and guess the rest (i.e. sees FROST and says FRIEND).

• Spell phonetically (i.e. ENUF instead of ENOUGH, FUNKSHUN instead of FUNCTION).

• Make reading errors where sounds are omitted or changed (i.e. sees PURPLE and reads PUPIL, or sees STREET and reads SWEET).

• Forget words he/she just learned from a previous sentence.

• Read very slowly, trying to sound out each individual word.

• Have weaker reading comprehension than oral comprehension.

• Write using words far below that of his/her vocabulary ability, because simpler words are easier to spell.

 How We Can Help

If any of these signs sound familiar, the individual may benefit from intensive instruction in the Seeing Stars®* Program.  This program uses Socratic questioning to stimulate sensory information related to spelling and reading, both isolated words as well as contextual text and spelling.  This program offers  systematic, structured instruction that moves through a progression of tasks, starting with isolated phonemes/graphemes to simple and complex single syllables, affixes, multi syllable words, orthographic expectancies and contextual integration.   When the auditory modality is supported and augmented by the visual and motor modalities to a sufficient degree we have seen changes in the way the brain processes stimuli.  Our goal is to help our students develop self-generating, self-correcting reading and spelling skills and subsequently feel success and pride in his/her reading ability.

Is the struggle rooted in weak language comprehension, weak expressive and or receptive language, difficulty with written expression?

Does the Individual

• Have difficulty understanding what he or she reads or hears, causing him/her to have to read the same text more than once.

• Struggle to find the words to effectively express his or her thoughts and ideas, either verbally or in writing.

• Weakened ability to follow sequential oral directions.

• Struggle to get jokes that other kids his/her age understand.

• Tends to be a black/white thinker.

• Struggle with critical thinking skills.

• Understand and following conversation.

How We Can Help

If any of these signs feel familiar, the individual may benefit from intensive instruction in the Visualizing and Verbalizing Program®*. The program helps individuals overcome weak concept imagery by training them to create images in their minds of what they are trying to understand. Through the use of Socratic questioning, students can better make the connection between language and imagery, better able to develop the mental representations and increase their conceptualization. When they begin to see the “big picture,” they are more able to understand and think critically about what they read or hear and what they wish to communicate.

Throughout this program, students will begin to develop a sense of success and self-confidence, emerging as a stronger reader and communicator. Amazingly, much of this transformation is not only present in the classroom, but also in the social arena with family and friends.

Is math a challenge for your child?

Does the Individual

-Struggle with learning math facts.

-Have difficulty understanding numerical relationships.

-Struggle to grasp what operations to do first and why.

-Have difficulty conceptualizing what is to be done when reading math word problems.

How We Can Help

When we can begin to conceptualize and view math as a process and not something to just memorize, we can broaden the understanding of how numbers work together and begin to truly grasp the underlying concepts in math.

The On Cloud Nine®* Math Program teachers students to develop an image and concept of the math processes. Connecting language and math concepts through the development of mental images allows people of all ages to improve their skillset and understanding of math computation as well as conceptualization. This program is unique in that it teaches students to not only compute, but to actually understand the relationship of numbers.