The Lower School
Early intervention is paramount to your student’s education success!
The connections in a baby’s brain are most adaptable in the first three years of life. These connections, also called neural circuits, are the foundation for learning, behavior, and health. Over time, these connections become harder to change. Research has shown that the rapid growth of the brain and its response to instruction in the primary years make the time from birth to age eight a critical period for literacy development and that brain plasticity decreases through childhood.
It takes four times as long to intervene in fourth grade as it does in late kindergarten (NICHD).
Children can be reliably identified even before kindergarten.
“Deficits in phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, verbal working memory, and letter knowledge have been shown to be robust precursors of dyslexia in children as young as age three” (Gaab, 2017).
Psychological and clinical implications of poor reading development can be prevented/minimized if we identify and intervene as early as possible.
Kindergarten – Second Grade
At The Highlands School, we use grades K-2 to lay the foundation for academic readiness.
- Small class setting
- Language-rich classroom stressing expanded oral language
- Multi-sensory: Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Tactile (VAKT) training
- Concept development (spatial, temporal, quantitative, tonal)
- Phonological development (manipulation of sounds through activities)
- Large and small muscle development prior to writing expectations
Third – Fifth Grade
In grades 3-5, students transition from learning to read to reading to learn, and in many instances, students are just being identified as having a learning difference. Using the above strategies, we have seen our students jump 3 grade levels in one year.
We also ensure that every student gets:
- Individualized, structured curriculum and goals
- Teaching that is both in small groups and one-to-one
- Social skills and strategies
- Executive functioning skill training
- Mindfulness training to lower the cognitive load
All lower school students are tested 3 times per year to analyze areas of growth and concern.