Curriculum

Reading Program:  Lindamood-Bell

This program teaches the sensory-cognitive skills necessary to read, spell, comprehend, and express language. The program develops the five components critical for overall academic achievement: phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Reading Program:  Orton-Gillingham

This reading approach is especially helpful for individuals suffering from Dyslexia and other learning disabilities. The techniques used incorporate multi-sensory, verbal and visual learning cues, teaching students how sound and letter relationships create words in a sequential and cumulative way.

Math Program:  RightStart Math

RightStart Mathematics uses the AL Abacus to provide a visual, auditory, and kinesthetic experience. Practice is provided with math card games, minimizing review worksheets and stressful flash cards. Understanding and problem solving are emphasized throughout the curriculum.

Handwriting Program:  Handwriting Without Tears
This program has proven successful in teaching legible and fluent handwriting for students at levels pre-k through cursive. Letters are taught in a sequence that makes sense developmentally: in groups or similar formation. Children develop their writing skills through multi-sensory play with manipulatives.

Social Interaction Program:  Social Thinking

Social thinking is required before the development of social skills. This approach, developed by Michelle Garcia Winner, uses cognitive lessons and a “social thinking vocabulary” which helps to break down social concepts into more concrete terms, thus helping students to understand the social expectations that surround them.

Visual Thinking: 

Outdoor Program:  Learning on the Log

Learning on the Log is contracted by Hirsch to provide two separate services for our students.  The students attend swimming one morning a week and outdoor programs away from campus each Friday.  Both programs are geared to provide increased regulation as well as improved motor processing and strength.  The activities specifically target growth and development, both for individuals and the group.  Activities are also geared to be highly social and challenge the students to increase their abilities to relate to peers and adults.