PRIDE Learning Center Welcomes a New Regional Director

PRIDE Learning Center Welcomes a New Regional Director

 


MEET Lauren Katnik, Regional Director

 

PRIDE Learning Centers is growing rapidly and we are pleased to announce the addition of Lauren Katnik as our new Regional Director for the PRIDE Learning Centers in Los Angeles and Orange County, California.


Lauren Katnik is a graduate of Chapman University with a BA in Elementary Education and Teaching.  Lauren has an immense amount of experience teaching literacy and working in elementary education for Irvine Unified School District and Oakland Unified School District.  She currently holds a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential and is Orton-Gillingham Certified.

 

Lauren began her career with PRIDE working in the Mission Viejo Learning Center as the Center Director.  As the Regional Director at PRIDE, Lauren manages the day-to-day operations of all four PRIDE Learning Centers.  She works with PRIDE instructors to help students achieve their educational goals; conducts student progress meetings with parents and teachers; selects, trains, and manages staff members; and plans and participates in events that increase community awareness.

 

“I’m very excited to have Lauren join our team,” says Karina Richland, Founder of PRIDE Learning Centers.  “Lauren has a proven track record of commended performance and an unwavering commitment to optimizing student and school success.  I am just thrilled to add Lauren to our amazing team here at PRIDE.”

 

Lauren is ready and willing to answer any questions parents, teacher, professionals or community members have.   Give her a call at 866-774-3342 ext. 1 or e-mail Lauren@pridelearningcenter.com.  Or check out the website at www.pridelearningcenter.com

 

 

 

 

Strategies for Strengthening Your Child’s Production Controls of Attention

Strategies for Strengthening Your Child’s Production Controls of Attention

The production controls of attention regulate the quality and efficiency of our output – the creations, activities, and behaviors that we produce.  They promote good judgment, effective problem solving, and sound decision making.  Based on the work of learning specialist, Mel Levine, MD, I will describe four common forms of production control and provide strategies for strengthening these controls at home.

Previewing control enables us to look ahead and foresee an outcome, a likely result of something we’re about to do or attempt.

Options control entails thinking about choices rather than doing the first thing that comes to mind.

Pacing control regulates output speed, so actions are not too fast or too slow.

Quality control involves monitoring quality of output, so improvements can be made.  In performing a task or trying to behave in a certain way, it is important to know how we are doing (self-monitoring).

Strategies for Parents:

 

*To help develop previewing skills, parents can encourage their kids to come up with a plan before writing a report, starting a project, or drawing a picture.

Children need to preview consciously, to visualize and describe what the outcome or result is likely or desired to be.
*It is often helpful to stress previewing in a child’s area of talent.  For example, a child who is good at carpentry might be asked to draw a rough sketch of what the final product will look like prior to starting the actual work.  Parents should spend time discussing this sketch and helping the child think through possible revisions in advance.

 

*Kids can be helped with previewing as part of their summer reading.  Before reading a book, they should try to preview what its content is going to be based on the book’s title.

 

*To work on the aspects of options control, parents can ask questions like: “What are the different ways we might do this? What do you think is probably the best way? What would be the worst way to go about this?”  This sort of reviewing of alternative strategies can occur before preparing a report or studying for a test. Such techniques can also help with overall problem-solving skills.

 

*The same kind of help can be related to behavioral and social planning (e.g., “What’s the best thing to do about that girl who called you a bad name in school today?  What are some other things you could consider doing? What would work best? Which of these possibilities is a bad idea?”).

 

*To help children with improper pacing, parents should discourage frenetic work patterns by avoiding statements such as: “You can watch television when you finish your work.” Offers of this kind may inadvertently encourage children to work as quickly and carelessly as possible.

 

*It can help a child’s pacing to set aside a certain amount of time each evening (or each weekday evening) for cognitive work.  The whole family should be engaged in such activities.  There is then no incentive to finish quickly, since it will only mean having to find some other brainwork to do.

 

*Kids who need specific help with self-monitoring and proofreading (quality control) can benefit from looking for discrepancies or errors in their work or in the work of others.  They should be required to proofread their own work but only after an interval of hours or days has passed since the work was completed.  It is very tedious for anyone to correct something immediately after completing it.

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Dr. Susan E. Cozolino is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist who has a private practice in Beverly Hills.  She specializes in the assessment of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disabilities in students ages 6 & up.  Dr. Cozolino helps students understand and address learning challenges by conducting thorough assessments, creating individualized learning plans, and recommending and advocating for educational services, modifications and accommodations.  Dr. Cozolino is also an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology.

Avoiding the Summer Learning Loss at Pride Learning Center

Avoiding the Summer Learning Loss at Pride Learning Center

 

As the school year ends, many students are busy during the summer months with camps, play dates, recreational activities and vacations. Some students might even be bored during the long summer months. When summer ends, students go back to school and often forget much of what they learned the previous year. This is what we call the summer learning loss.

Studies show that summer loss for all students equals about a month of academic learning. For students with learning disabilities, this loss may amount to as much as 3 months! Weaknesses in memory, processing speed, attention and language cause valuable skills to weaken rapidly. As a result, students will have to spend more time reviewing at the beginning of each school year in order to catch up.

Continuing instruction during the summer months can help greatly reduce learning loss as well as gives students the opportunities to dedicate more time than is possible during the school year to remediate and get ahead. Students can make amazing progress during these long summer months!

Pride Learning Center offers Reading and Writing Summer Programs for students of all ages. We offer an intensive Orton-Gillingham reading and writing program (3 hours M-F), as well as standard sessions (1 hour once or twice a week) between June and August.

Summer Catch – Up Program

Do in 4 weeks what would normally take 30-40 weeks!

Our Pride Intensive offers the most dramatic results. Our reading specialists will provide the needed support to get students at grade level during the long summer months. Your child still gets a summer break, as sessions are typically only 3 hours a day five days a week depending on family choice and goals established at the initial consultation. There are still plenty of hours in the day to play, go to the beach or just relax.

Sample Daily Schedule:
9:00 – 10:00 Orton-Gillingham Reading Instruction
10:00 – 10:30 Technology Based Reading Instruction
10:30 – 11:00 Snack, Fun and Movement
11:00 – 11:30 Writing Instruction
11:30 – 12:00 Orton-Gillingham reading Instruction

Summer Get-Ahead Program

Summer is such a great time to review material and get ahead on next year’s curriculum! We offer programs in reading, writing, spelling and comprehension for those students who want to attend Pride once or twice a week.

Reading Readiness at Pride Learning Center
Pre-K – Kindergarten

Pride’s early intervention program will teach your child to read and get ahead in school. By working through our multisensory, Orton-Gillingham reading program step-by-step, your child will learn alphabetic knowledge and understanding of the alphabetic principles in a fun yet structured environment. Your child will receive a strong and solid reading foundation that will last a lifetime.

Reading and Spelling at Pride Learning Center
Grade K – Grade 8

Pride’s multisensory, Orton-Gillingham reading and spelling program is action oriented and involves constant interaction between our Reading Specialists and your child. Each student at Pride learns to read in a systematic, cumulative, structured and step-by-step process. Each lesson encompasses the skills of decoding, encoding, fluency and reading comprehension. Your child will become a strong and independent reader.

Reading Comprehension
Grade 2 – Grade 12

Pride’s highly successful research-based Reading Comprehension Program teaches students to draw meaning from text and to verbally express their understanding of it. Utilizing nonfiction-reading passages on a variety of subjects, the skills that are taught prepare students for standardized tests and provide valuable practice in nonfiction reading knowledge on a wide range of subjects.

Writing Skills
Grade 2 – Grade 12

Pride’s writing skills program effectively teaches essential skills in careful order: from parts of speech, to sentence structure, to paragraphs, to complete essays. For the reluctant beginning writer, our program provides the essential foundation in thinking and writing skills. For the more proficient and advanced writer, it offers opportunities, strategies, and techniques to apply them.

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Pride Learning Center has locations in Los Angeles, Redondo Beach, Newport Beach and Mission Viejo. For more information visit www.pridelearningcenter.com or call 866-774-3342 ext. 1

Has my Child Reached the Reading Benchmarks for First Grade?

Has my Child Reached the Reading Benchmarks for First Grade?

The school year is coming to an end and as a parent of a first grader your thoughts are probably turning towards second grade.  Is your child ready for second grade reading?

How do you know? 

Here is a list of benchmark reading accomplishments for first grade that was included in a report prepared by a National Academy of Sciences panel titled Preventing Reading difficulties in Young Children, Catherine E. Snow.

  • Makes a transition from emergent to “real” reading.
  • Reads aloud with accuracy and comprehension any text that is appropriately designed for the first half of grade 1.
  • Accurately decodes orthographically regular one-syllable words and nonsense words (e.g., sit, zot), using print-sound mappings to sound out unknown words.
  • Uses letter-sound correspondence knowledge to sound out unknown words when reading text.
  • Recognizes common, irregularly spelled words by sight (have, said, where, two).
  • Has a reading vocabulary of 300 to 500 words, sight words, and easily sounded-out words.
  • Monitors own reading and self-corrects when an incorrectly identified word does not fit with cues provided by the letters in the word or the context surrounding the word.
  • Reads and comprehends both fiction and nonfiction that are appropriately designed for grade level.
  • Shows evidence of expanding language repertory, including increasing appropriate use of standard, more formal language registers.
  • Creates own written texts for others to read.
  • Notices when difficulties are encountered in understanding text.
  • Reads and understands simple written instructions.
  • Predicts and justifies what will happen next in stories.
  • Discusses prior knowledge of topics in expository texts.
  • Discusses how, why, and what-if questions in sharing nonfiction texts.
  • Describes new information gained from texts in own words.
  • Distinguishes whether simple sentences are incomplete or fail to make sense.
  • Can answer simple written comprehension questions based on material read.
  • Can count the number of syllables in a word.
  • Can blend or segment the phonemes of most one-syllable words.
  • Spells correctly three-and four-letter short-vowel words.
  • Composes fairly readable first drafts using appropriate parts of the writing process (some attention to planning, drafting, rereading for meaning and some self-correction).
  • Uses invented spelling/phonics-based knowledge to spell independently, when necessary.
  • Shows spelling consciousness or sensitivity to conventional spelling.
  • Uses basic punctuation and capitalization.
  • Produces a variety of types of compositions (e.g., stories, descriptions, journal entries) showing appropriate relationships between printed text, illustrations, and other graphics.
  • Engages in a variety of literary activities voluntarily (e.g., choosing books and stories to read, writing a note to a friend).

 

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Karina Richland, M.A. is the Founder and Director of Pride Learning Centers, located in Los Angeles and Orange County.  Ms. Richland is a certified reading and learning disability specialist.   Ms. Richland speaks frequently to parents, teachers, and professionals on learning differences, and writes for several journals and publications.  You can reach her by email at karina@pridelearningcenter.com or visit the Pride Learning Center website at: www.pridelearningcenter.com

 

 

It’s Parent-Teacher Conference Time! What should I discuss with my child’s teacher

It’s Parent-Teacher Conference Time! What should I discuss with my child’s teacher

Finally, you have a chance to sit down face-to-face with your child’s teacher. You have a lot that you want to talk about, and a limited amount of time. The better prepared you are going into the meeting, the more beneficial the meeting will be for both you and the teacher. Here are some questions you can think about and then ask your child’s teacher at the next upcoming conference to elicit information and make the rest of your child’s year more successful.

How is my child doing keeping up in class?

Start out by asking the teacher how your child is doing overall. Is he or she ahead, behind, or right on target indicated by grades compared with the average student at the national level? You might want to gain information about this level your child is at. Also ask the teacher if she or he feels that your child will remain at this level- and why.

What information and skills will my child be expected to accomplish by the end of the year?

All children, whether struggling, average, or gifted need to meet higher academic standards and expectations in school. Ask the teacher what your child will have mastered by the end of the school year in reading, math, science and social studies. If your child has already achieved those goals, ask the teacher if there are more challenging academic standards in place in this classroom. If the teacher answers “yes” then ask to please see these. If your child is struggling with the coursework then discuss with the teacher what specific remediation and support is your child receiving. Again ask to see the specific program and what is actually taking place to assist your child in progressing forward.

How are you assessing and monitoring my child’s progress?

Your child needs to be evaluated and monitored during the entire school year to determine progress, remediation needs and advancement of subject areas. During your conference ask your child’s teacher what kind of information he or she is using to evaluate your child and how often these assessments are conducted.

As a parent, what can I do at home to stay involved in my child’s academic progress?

Studies have shown that children who receive regular educational support and encouragement at home do better at school and tend to excel beyond the average.
All teachers welcome and encourage parental involvement, so now is the time to ask how you can help your child at home improve his or her areas of weakness and build on his or her strengths. Ask your child’s teacher to recommend some outside enrichment activities to support his or her learning aside from home and school.

Does my child have friends?

Academics are not the only subjects you will want to discuss with your child’s teacher. Find out how well your child interacts with others, participates in groups and shows value and respect to the teacher and classmates. Talk to the teacher about what you can do to reinforce these qualities, along with what academic lessons you can teach at home to help your child become a more well rounded person.

At the end of the meeting you will want to clarify and summarize all the points discussed during the conference. This way both you and the teacher are better able to develop a mutual understanding and agreement.

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Karina Richland is the Founder and Director of Pride Learning Centers, located in Los Angeles and Orange County.  Ms. Richland is a certified reading and learning disability specialist.   Ms. Richland speaks frequently to parents, teachers, and professionals on learning differences, and writes for several journals and publications.  You can reach her by email at karina@pridelearningcenter.com or visit the Pride Learning Center website at: www.pridelearningcenter.com

 

 

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