Application Educational Therapy Cognitive Processing Programs

Phase 2 - Educational Therapy

The Kelter Center staff uses a wide variety of cutting-edge curriculum materials to explicitly teach academic skills to children and adolescents.

Spelling and Reading Single Words

Learning to read and spell is "rocket science" (Moats, 1999). The critical teaching elements for literacy include learning letters and their sounds, spelling patterns and rules of phonics, phonemic awareness, and strategies for developing fluency.

We are widely known for our expertise in teaching reading and spelling. We use a variety of up-to-date, research-based programs that explicitly teach these skills. We have used the LiPS^TM, Seeing Stars^TM and Bernard EASE^TM programs for many years. Sasha Borenstein has developed a systematic approach to teaching spelling that is based upon linguistics and makes sense to students, young and old. Most people think that the spelling of English is chaotic and impossible to deal with; when we open our students' eyes to the principles behind the spelling of English words, they see the beauty and patterns and get excited about exploring our language in depth. We integrate the Language!^TM Program and its activities and have a library of resources which help us to design each student's learning experiences.

Reading Fluency - Reading Quickly and Accurately

We teach reading fluency using the Bernard EASE^TM Program. This program is unique because it not only increases a student's rate of reading, but it also teaches them to consciously monitor their reading and correct their mistakes. Another feature of the program is called comprehension monitoring, being aware of when you are making sense as you read a selection or not, and how to fix up misunderstandings. The Bernard EASE^TM Program also has activities designed to increase Rapid Naming skills, visual scanning skills, as well as reading with correct phrasing, intonation and attention to punctuation.

Reading Comprehension and Writing Skills

Reading to understand is not just passing your eyes over the text. At The Kelter Center we help students develop an awareness of how words form sentences (syntax and grammar), how words can change their meaning based upon the context in which they are found, (semantics or vocabulary development) and we teach them to actively work with a passage, asking questions and finding the answers, predicting and inferring information to truly understand and interpret what they have read.

A journalist or a novelist never sits down and writes an article or novel in one setting. Brainstorming, organizing, flexibility with syntax and paragraph formatting are all tools of a mature writer. Editing, elaborating on ideas, and "rewrites" are all tools of the writing trade.

The Kelter Center teaches writing by directly investigating and practicing writing skills and by developing the underlying thinking and organizational habits needed to become a successful author. We use the Step Up to Writing^TM Program, the SIMS^TM Sentence Writing Strategies and many other resources to again, consciously teach our students the steps to writing.

Mathematics

Problem-solving skills, automaticity with number facts and a strong conceptual mathematics base are essential to academic success in mathematics. Our teachers approach each of these content requirements with problem-solving sessions, games and computer programs. We emphasize the how and why of computing addition through division, fractions, decimals and percents, as well as basic algebra and geometry.

Mathematical concepts are introduced using concrete manipulatives and learning experiments to develop conceptual understanding. These discoveries are then translated to computational skills, which are reinforced using a variety of programs addressing each student's individual learning style. Students will also learn to apply these skills to more complex problem solving situations.

The Receptive Learning State

For any learning experience to be effective, the educator must carefully and skillfully design the learning experience, basing activities upon each child's unique profile of strengths and weaknesses and educational goals. We stay focused upon what each student needs. Further, the educator must consider all aspects of the individual's social and emotional needs, and cognitive functioning including speed of processing, memory skills, motor demands and thinking strategies. Building an environment of trust creates a foundation of safety to explore any challenging learning experience. We want to teach our students to become intellectual risk takers, excited explorers of ideas.

Average Percentile Rank Increase from Pre- to Post-testing

This data represents thirty students in elementary school (grades 1st through 5th) who attended The Kelter Center for an average of 10.6 months from the time of the pre-test to the post-test. Pre-tests showed that students were an average of 3 months to 3.5 years below their age expected scores in word identification and spelling. At post-testing, those same students tested an average of three to five months ABOVE their age-expectancy scores in word identification and spelling, showing an average gain of nearly 1.4 years in 10 months of remediation. Students made an average gain of 1.6 grade levels in reading and 1.4 grade levels in spelling. The success of educational therapy greatly depends on the consistency of the program.