A remedial learning plan is designed to build one or more weak, or missing, foundational skills. As a course of action, we identify those skills, through an assessment, and build a individual plan of action. We then use research proven approaches to build and develop the reading and learning skills identified in the initial assessment.
Reading and Spelling
When Andrew’s parents first called Langsford Learning Acceleration Center, they were concerned that he might have to repeat first grade. His reading skills were weak, and despite some tutoring, he had not been able to make the necessary progress.
When reading, Andrew had difficulty sounding out unfamiliar words. He was also having trouble recognizing words he had seen before. After spending time sounding out a small word like “cat” on one page, Andrew would see the word again, fail to recognize it, and struggle again to sound it out.
An assessment at Langsford Learning Acceleration Center identified that 7-year-old Andrew was struggling with a pre-reading skill called phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize the sound units or “phonemes” of words. When asked to identify the sounds in the word “top,” Andrew was unable to name the three sounds /t/ /o/ /p/.
Converging evidence from thousands of National Institutes of Health-funded research studies has shown that phonological awareness, the conscious sensitivity to the sound structure of language, is a key component in the reading process. Phonological awareness enables us to read and spell, as well as to correct reading and spelling errors phonetically. When phonological awareness is weak, children and adults have difficulty progressing to the next steps: phonics, word recognition, and fluency.
Andrew needed structured, sequential, multi-sensory educational therapy in phonological awareness. He needed a more precise and concrete way of getting the auditory information contained in spoken words to his brain so that he could process that information more efficiently. First, we helped him discover the motor actions of his mouth and the sensory input involved in forming a word like “top.” This multi-sensory approach linked concrete information — the different sensations of the mouth — to what had been abstract speech sounds.
Second, symbol imagery was used to give Andrew a second, more fluid way of connecting sounds to print. Andrew performed tasks that asked him to image letters and words in his mind, manipulating sounds and letters to build automaticity. With symbol imagery in place, one can improve the ability to remember sequences of letters, which is necessary to develop sight word recognition. This, in turn, allows for rapid processing and quick self-correction. When reading is fast and accurate, fluency is maintained and guessing is reduced.
What were the results when these techniques were used? After 107 hours of sessions, Andrew gained nearly two grade levels in reading accuracy and three grade levels in word attack (his ability to sound out an unfamiliar word). In context, he was reading nearly a full grade level ahead of his peers!
Andrew achieved full remediation and could function at average or above-average levels. More significantly, the learning skills he developed are lasting.
“Andrew now sounds out the words (in syllables) that he cannot readily recognize.”
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Comprehension
“It’s like it [the words] went in one ear and out the other.”
Karen, a 48-year-old social service worker, found in graduate school that she did not have time or energy to read textbooks four and five times. She had done this throughout her education in order to memorize the information needed to pass a test.
Cory, a 12-year-old sixth grader, had always been a good student, but his grades were beginning to slip. His mother reported that Cory always had difficulty learning new vocabulary, and he worked very hard for the grades he received. He sometimes had trouble socially because he took language literally.
Karen and Cory’s problem is explained by something Aristotle wrote in 348 B.C.: “Man cannot even think without mental images.” To amend Aristotle ever so slightly, it is impossible to comprehend what we read without mental imagery. Conversely, it is also possible to obstruct comprehension by making too many mental images.
Both Karen and Cory needed to improve dual coding — the ability to link words and pictures in the mind — so they could make mental “movies” as they read or listened to language. Virtually without exception, those who do not make accurate “movies” do not comprehend the whole of what they read or hear. Typically, a few facts or parts can be grasped or memorized, but the whole — the main idea or principle content — is not fully understood. Consequently, interpretation or “reading between the lines” is also out of reach.
Children’s books, by and large, are designed to aid comprehension by representing words with illustrations. As reading levels become increasingly difficult, there are fewer and fewer illustrations. It is assumed that readers are creating their own pictures, but this is not always true. With dual coding in place, concept imagery can be developed so that learning can happen.
At Langsford Learning Acceleration Center, we employ a technique of questioning that stimulates imagery when reading and listening. Beginning with single words, the method continues through sentences, paragraphs, and whole texts. With these processes developed, and the resulting concept imagery added to the reading and listening process, Karen and Cory began to study texts successfully. They could write about and discuss what they read. They then drew inferences, predictions, evaluations, and conclusions from the material. In essence, they began not only to comprehend, but to learn.
“Before I came to Langsford Center, I felt I had reached a dead end road to my learning ability. Now I have the tools to work with — it is up to me to do the rest.”
After 50 session hours learning and practicing, Karen’s reading comprehension reached the superior level and her listening comprehension improved from low-average to average functioning.
Cory attended 96 session hours and saw tremendous success. His silent reading comprehension improved by two grade levels and his listening comprehension increased more than three grade levels. Cory also improved his receptive vocabulary nearly two years - all in three month's time.
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Visual-Motor Processing
“I know Carl is intelligent, but he can’t seem to put down on paper what he wants. He hates to write or draw anything because the final product doesn’t look the way he wants it, so he quits.”
Even though 15-year-old Carl had excellent motor skills and no visual impairment, he had difficulty drawing shapes, letters, and numbers. Sometimes his letters were written upside down or backward, and his skills in drawing and copying were poor. Creating or interpreting charts, graphs, maps, and tables frustrated him even more. In fact, the legible copying of assignments from the chalkboard to paper often challenged Carl more than the assignment itself.
His difficulty is one shared by many others and, surprisingly, the cause relates to language. Carl and others with similar problems do not use an inner language to analyze and describe what they see. In turn, they are unable to replicate or copy what they observe in writing or drawing. This results in drawings that are distorted or lacking details.
The middle illustration below is what Carl reproduced when shown the stimulus on the left. The drawing on the right is what Carl produced after 20 hours of sessions at Langsford Learning Acceleration Center.
People who can easily copy this drawing seem to process the task without conscious thought by “inner verbalization,” using an inner language to describe what they see. They perceive the illustration as a series of rectangles connected at the corners by diagonal lines. When Carl produced the middle drawing, however, he saw and drew separate lines on a page. With no means of organizing the visual information into meaningful units — that is, without utilizing language to describe what he was seeing — he was unable to copy the drawing accurately.
Visual-motor sessions at Langsford Learning Acceleration Center integrate language into the process by asking a client to describe the types of lines that form drawings and symbols and verbalize the distance and direction of those lines. This questioning process is really a dialog, because clients are asked both to respond to verbal directions and to generate directions themselves. This results in more normal functioning ability in people who have had great difficulties with copying, drawing, or handwriting.
“Now, all of a sudden, Carl was following directions that enabled him to copy accurately, approximate distances in inches, and understand directions, even in terms of the hands of a clock! To say the least, I was amazed."
After 20 hours of work at Langsford Learning Center, Carl progressed from low-average to superior functioning in his ability to draw shapes. This new-found ability extends into Carl's daily life in his ability to describe mental pictures which are now proportionately correct. In math, Carl can correctly align columns for computation and copy shapes for geometry. His written work is significantly more legible than it was.
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Mathematics
“Math used to be hard. Now I am teaching the class how to do math.”
For 9-year-old Jean, math had always been difficult. As a 3rd grader, she was expected to know her basic facts. At school it was assumed that she could easily perform operations such as 12-5 or 7x3, and to be able to apply this knowledge to problem solving.
In math class, Jean would do well immediately following the day’s lesson. Homework involving skills that she had just learned didn’t pose too many problems. However, once the class moved on, Jean tended to forget how to do the previous lessons. Her performance on tests tended to be inconsistent — she would do well on a topic that was just covered in class, such as long division — but simple addition or subtraction problems would be more difficult.
Jean’s difficulty in math is not an uncommon one. Too often, clients fall behind in one area of math — which tends to create bigger problems down the road due to the cumulative nature of the subject.
In the primary grades, math is often taught using many different types of manipulatives. Eventually, the manipulatives are left behind, and the transition from the concrete experience of manipulatives to real world math is often missed.
At Langsford Learning Acceleration Center, math clients move through three basic yet critical steps to develop mathematical reasoning and computation. First, manipulatives are used to experience the concrete elements of math. Second, imagery and language establish a concrete connection in the sensory system. Finally, clients practice written computation to apply math to problem solving.
The concept of numbers is explored and built upon as clients move through imaging numerals into addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, decimals, fractions, and percents. Word problems are interwoven throughout the program and strategies to solve them are developed with clients.
A key component to the success of our clients is that there is a transition from “doing” math with manipulatives to thinking about math in an abstract way. At Langsford Learning Acceleration Center, clients develop techniques to help them think with the manipulatives, making the shift to paper much easier.
Jean’s progress came with time, and the results were significant. After 92 hours of sessions, Jean gained from the 25th to the 63rd percentile in her overall concept of numbers, and from the 16th to the 55th percentile in basic operations, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
“Before I did not think math was fun. Now it is my favorite subject."
Older clients can also make significant gains in math skills. Seventeen-year-old Kendall improved his basic operation skills from the 13th to the 53rd percentile in only 44 session hours. He was able to perform high school math with much greater ease so that he could continue on to more complex math in the sciences and statistics.
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