What is Learning Support?
Parents, you may be wondering – what exactly is Learning Support? Isn’t that something my child’s teachers do anyway, to support their learning? Why is this an entirely different service? Read on to find out how Learning Support can benefit your child.
Learning Support is a highly individualised approach to learning. It aims to address specific academic difficulties in order to help your child become an independent, confident learner. These difficulties may include:
- Reading fluently
- Spelling
- Understanding what they have read
- Solving word problems
- Understanding how numbers work
- Calculating.
Some schools may have an in-house Learning Support Team, who create Individual Education Plans (IEPs) to support your child’s needs at school. However, many schools do not or are unable to provide sufficient support to bridge these learning gaps.
True or False
Learning Support is ONLY for children with diagnosed Learning Difficulties such as Dyslexia
False! Because Learning Support is individualised for each child, the support provided is tailored to their specific areas of need. Some children may benefit from specialised support with phonemic awareness (the ability to segment, blend, or manipulate individual sounds in words), whereas others may benefit from learning how to extend their sentences to make them more interesting. Some children may be working on developing number sense, whereas others may be developing strategies to master times tables or to decipher word problems.
The support provided is not limited by any specific diagnosis, especially since many individuals with the same learning difficulty may require support in different areas!
Learning Support at The Energy Source
We utilise a personalised approach to help your child overcome their difficulties and to achieve meaningful success. Our support is based on careful assessments of needs, and includes collaboration with parents and schools to help learners reach their full potential. In addition, support from our multidisciplinary team ensures that learners benefit from in-house expertise across a variety of services.
Our Literacy Support encompasses:
- Multisensory teaching to help learners achieve success with reading, writing, and spelling.
- The Orton-Gilingham approach, which helps learners make connections between letters and sounds.
- Evidence-based strategies and methods utilising The Science of Reading.
- Creative Writing, aimed at exploring sentence construction and organisation of ideas to bring writing to life
- Guided Reading, which introduces key comprehension strategies to help learners become skilled readers
Our Numeracy Support helps your child to:
- Develop an understanding of mathematical concepts through, first, concrete materials, followed by pictorial representations and finally in an abstract form.
- Develop an interest in the subject through games and hands-on activities aimed at reducing maths anxiety.
Other Services:
Talk to us about screenings or assessments to find out more about your child’s learning needs.
Your child will be empowered to play an active role in their own learning journey, and to develop confidence in their abilities. They will be equipped with tools and strategies that can be used in the classroom to address the multitude of challenges a typical school day presents. They will be supported in achieving meaningful success through authentic, enjoyable learning experiences that work towards developing a passion for lifelong learning.
This article was written by Nameeta Annand Raj, our Learning Support Lead (Literacy & Numeracy)