LearningRx – What Do We Actually Do??
We love brain training and the difference we can make in child or adult’s life. But what do we actually do at LearningRx? How are we different than other learning centers?
The biggest difference is that LearningRx is not a tutoring center. There are many learning centers that focus on tutoring, and this is also the main strategy in school interventions. While tutoring can be helpful, it does not usually address the root cause of an individual’s learning struggle. This is why we focus on strengthening cognitive skills at LearningRx.
You may have tried years of tutoring while seeing little if any improvement. The reason is almost always due to a combination of cognitive skills that are not as strong as they need to be. Cognitive skills are the foundational skills that enable learning and include attention, working memory, long-term memory, logic & reasoning, visual and auditory processing, and processing speed.
For example, if reading fluency or reading comprehension is difficult, the typical strategy is to do more reading or to read and then ask a child questions about the passage to focus on comprehension. While practice can help, these approaches are not addressing why the student struggles in these areas in the first place which limits progress. At LearningRx, we identify the root cause and tailor a training program to address it. For reading issues, long-term memory, visual processing and auditory processing are usually the causes of the difficulties. Long-term memory and visual processing impact word recognition, spelling and fluency. Skills like logic and memory impact comprehension. We average a 3-year gain in reading achievement for the average 10.6 year old because we are removing the obstacles to effective reading.
Another common difficulty we address is attention issues or individuals diagnosed with ADHD. Many factors can contribute to this, but often processing speed is a culprit. Processing speed is the speed at which an individual’s brain functions. For example, if a high school student is listening to a lengthy lecture and has slower processing, this means they need to expend much more mental energy to keep up and prone to zone-out or get distracted. Because we address this root cause along with others, our students have experienced significant improvements in attention and focus.
If you have a child who has had consistent academic struggles, this likely means there are specific cognitive skills causing these difficulties that tutoring does not address.
Don’t simply treat the symptom over-and-over and stay in the constant state of academic catch-up and treading water, give us a call to identify the root cause of the struggle and, more importantly, get your child on the path to much greater success!
