Neurodivergent Learners
Neurodivergent Learners
All students learn differently and have unique learning styles. We take in new information through one of three modalities: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Everyone has a unique learning profile and absorbs material through a combination of these modalities. Sometimes students have trouble in specific areas due to a learning disability. A learning disability is a processing problem caused by genetic or neurobiological factors which modify how our brains function. These modifications can impede our ability to process information and impact our lives beyond the classroom. We can support students with the following learning differences: ADD, ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, Nonverbal learning disorders, Executive Functioning Deficits, Memory and Processing Deficits.
What is Executive Functioning?
Executive Functioning encompasses the cognitive and mental processes necessary to initiate and sustain goal-directed behavior. These skills include planning, organizing, prioritizing, strategizing, paying attention, and storing information in our working memory. It also encompasses metacognition, our ability to understand our learning processes, an essential puzzle piece. This aptitude helps us to figure out how we learn best and what we need to be successful. These neuropsychological processes enable us to monitor and control our behavior to stay focused and complete tasks on time.
Executive Functioning Skills Training
We teach EF skills by creating healthy routines for students. We start by finding a daily planner, paper or digital, where they can regularly write down all their homework to track when things are due. Frequently, schools post assignments online on websites (such as Schoology). We determine which specific skills the student needs to focus on and target these skills. We emphasize the development of these abilities and the creation of a weekly routine to reinforce them. Our lessons revolve around helping the student strengthen these cognitive muscles and slowly learn how to do these things independently. As they improve and become more competent, we fade the assistance to the point where the student operates entirely autonomously.
Reading, Spelling, and Writing Interventions
Our tutors are trained in the Lindamood-Bell programs Seeing Stars, Visualizing and Verbalizing, and On Cloud Nine, and know how to put each one to work for your child. Seeing Stars helps kids who struggle to sound out words or spell accurately by building the mental picture-forming skills behind strong phonics and reading fluency, so reading feels less like guesswork and more like something they can actually do. Visualizing and Verbalizing is for children who can read the words on a page but have trouble understanding or remembering what they just read; it teaches them to form mental images as they read or listen, which strengthens comprehension, following directions, and expressing their own ideas clearly. On Cloud Nine takes that same imagery-based approach into math, helping children who freeze up on word problems or rely on rote memorization instead build a real, visual understanding of numbers and how they work. Because our tutors are comfortable across all three programs, we can pinpoint exactly where your child is getting stuck and tailor a plan around it, rather than offering one-size-fits-all tutoring — the goal is steady, visible progress your child can feel, not just a grade going up on a report card.
