Debut Year a Big Success for Learning Center at TLS

The debut year for the Learning Center at The Lexington School – a school within a school for children with language-based learning differences such as dyslexia – exceeded all expectations, measured by raw data and smiling children.

The Learning Center, which opened last year with 16 students and a 1:4 teacher-student ratio, uses the Orton-Gillingham approach – a multi-sensory form of instruction that incorporates visual, audio, tactile and kinesthetic techniques to help build pathways for learning in the brain.

In two or three years of this instruction, students can return to a traditional classroom with the skills needed to succeed.

“It was a great first year,” Head of School Chuck Baldecchi said. “Children had an opportunity to learn in a way they never learned before.
“The results were dramatic and heartwarming because kids were bounding out of the car to go to school and that had never happened before for these families.”

The popularity of the program shows in the numbers. The Center added four students in January and will start this year in an expanded space with 28 students and seven teachers.

TLS added a summer program with 15 students – some without a diagnosis for dyslexia.

Data shows that students improved dramatically in one year, according to Center Director Jane Childers.

Students who previously improved only a half-grade in a school year, doubled and even tripled their improvement.

“The hard numbers back up what we have seen anecdotally,” Childers said. “It has been an amazing thing to watch. Kids who had a lot of anxiety… as soon as they had a little success under their belts, the anxiety melted away.

“We saw frowns turn into smiles.”

Info: 278-0501 or www.thelexingtonschool.org.