Program Descriptions
At Spark Educational Therapy we strengthen your child’s underlying weaknesses with research-based, proven therapies so your child becomes a confident, competent learner.
Building Executive Functions Skills
Goal setting, planning, organizing, prioritizing, self-monitoring, and flexibility are essential for success in the classroom and in everyday life. We all use these executive function skills to help us learn, work, and manage the tasks that face us each day.
Research studies suggest that well-developed executive function skills are actually more predictive of academic success than measures of intelligence. Thankfully these cognitive skills can be spurred to development with instruction and repeated practice.
Rx for Reading
Students will master the five essential components of reading – phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and reading comprehension during these one-hour small group or one-on-one twice-weekly sessions. These components are taught systematically so readers develop decoding and encoding skills to become proficient, confident readers.
Rx 4 Math I
Students will build and strengthen number sense, math fluency, math vocabulary, and problem-solving strategies during these two weekly 60-minute small group or one-on-one sessions. Students will be challenged to apply their growing understanding of number sense to novel problem-solving activities that challenge thinking and reasoning.
Hands-on, research-based, number-sense activities will be utilized as the core content in this dynamic intervention while mediation, Socratic questioning, and the strengthening of cognitive functions will serve as the core methodology.
Rx for Writing
Rx for Discovery Writing is specifically intended for students in grades 4-12 whose basic written expression skills are below expected standards. Rx for Writing will build and strengthen grammar and writing mechanics, semantics, syntax, and composition writing skills with an emphasis on the writing process.
During two 60-minute, weekly small-group or one-on-one sessions, students will master basic grammar and writing skills. Though handwriting and spelling skills are utilized and applied, these skills are not explicitly taught in this intervention.
Students will be challenged to apply their growing understanding of grammar to the creation of sentences, paragraphs, and compositions. Students will be implementing grammar, spelling and usage rules when editing their own written work as well as the written work of others. Language and higher-level thinking skills will be developed and supported in this interactive, small-group intervention that covers research-based writing content. Mediation, Socratic questioning, and the strengthening of cognitive functions will serve as the core methodology. In this dynamic intervention, students’ written expression skills will be honed while their thinking and language skills will be strengthened, all within an atmosphere where writing skills are explicitly taught so anxiety and reluctance to write are reduced and thinking is maximized.