The National Institute for Learning Disabilities, referred to as the Discovery Program, was established in 1982 to help children with learning disabilities who had experienced frustration and/or failure in one form or another in the Christian School.
The Discovery Program at Trinity Christian School began providing services to families within the school community in 1995. This National Institute of Learning Disabilities program has been awarded the status of NILD Program of Excellence. Typically, these students are of average or above average intelligence; yet they manifest one or more of the many symptoms now recognized as either perceptual deficits or difficulty in language development. These students seem to be unable to learn using traditional teaching methods. They require conditions emphasizing more direct teaching on a one-to-one basis than the average student. Students at Trinity may be recommended for this program by the administration, classroom teacher, or parents/guardian.
Trinity’s initial testing for this program assesses strengths and deficits in perceptual and cognitive processing as well as current academic skills. From this information, recommendations are made for the appropriate educational intervention. An educational therapy program, if needed, can be planned from this testing information, observations, and input from parents and teachers. This program requires a separate testing fee, book fee and an additional monthly installment.
Trinity’s educational therapy centers on stimulating areas of weakness in perception and cognition. Intensive educational therapy is given approximately three hours a week to each student, one-to-one. Techniques are especially designed to improve performance in the classroom. The TCS therapy program is precisely defined around five core techniques that are standard for each student enrolled. Research has been conducted on these techniques from both educational and neurological perspectives and has found the combination of these techniques stimulates and encourages brain activity.
Parent involvement and student cooperation are keys to the success of the program. It is essential that parents become involved in the following areas:
- Observe six sessions of individual educational therapy as soon as possible after entrance into the program.
- Monitor Rhythmic Writing at home the days the child does not have therapy at school.
- Supervise other assigned homework.
- Observe therapy monthly or more often, if possible, throughout the school year.
- Supervise Rhythmic Writing and homework during the summer.
SEARCH & TEACH®
SEARCH & TEACH® is an early intervention program developed to meet the educational needs of young learners before they experience the frustration of learning failure. This differs from NILD Educational Therapy™, which was designed to help students who have documented learning disabilities, and in many cases have already experienced frustration and failure in the regular classroom.
SEARCH is a 20-minute individual test designed to identify 5 and 6-year-olds who are vulnerable to learning difficulty, and to provide profiles of individual strengths and weaknesses in the readiness skills necessary for reading success.
TEACH is a program of 55 learning activities called ‘tasks,’ carefully designed to address the needs revealed by SEARCH. This program helps Trinity to identify deficits and intervene so children can be spared the life-long consequence of learning disorders.
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