1. Organization of Dots

2. Orientation in Space

3. Identifying Emotions

4. From Empathy to Action

5. From Unit to Group

6. Tri-Channel Attentional Learning

7. Compare and Discover the Absurd

8. Know and Identify

9. Thinking to Learn and Prevent Violence

10. Learning to Question for Reading Comprehension

The Feuerstein program for children of ages 3-8 is known as Instrumental Enrichment Basic (FIE-Basic) and is also intended to be used with students of any age who have identified disabilities. The following results of the program have been reported in the research literature in several countries:

Significant improvement in students:

• Motor Development
• Reduction of Anti-Social Behaviour
• Language Development: Verbal Concepts, Visual Discrimination
• Logical Relationships
• Knowledge Acquisition
• General Reasoning
• On the WISC-R Intelligence Test: Picture Arrangement, Picture Completion and Similarities.

Training of teachers is an in-depth professional experience over 5 days for each of the 3 levels of the program, and can be scheduled flexibly.

Implementation of the program is also unique and the results were significantly positive in terms of student achievement on state-mandated testing as well as in such areas as general problem-solving abilities. Other examples of implementations have included after-school tutorial programs which have proven to be a valuable supplement to regular-school instruction, again with measurable gains by students. IAET ET Centre is committed to providing not only the training of teachers but also continuous technical assistance throughout the implementation phases to advise educators on such areas as curriculum integration of program, follow-up with students, parent orientation, and evaluation strategies to analyze the effects of the program.

The Standard version of the program contains 14 instruments.

FIE INSTRUMENTS:

• Organization of Dots
• Comparisons
• Orientation in Space I
• Analytic Perception
• Illustrations
• Family Relations
• Categorization
• Numerical Progressions
• Temporal Relations
• Instructions
• Orientation in Space II
• Syllogisms
• Transitive Relations
• Representational Stencil Design

The Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD)

The LPAD is a procedure and a set of instruments that enable us to evaluate the learning process and identify the individual’s cognitive functions, operations and problem solving strategies. The LPAD is based on Feuerstein’s theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability, which proposes that intelligence is dynamic and modifiable, not static or fixed. LPAD offers a viable alternative to static IQ type of tests, because it focuses on the learners’ dynamic potential or propensity rather than their current performance level. The LPAD has an interactive nature with the evaluator actively mediating to the student in the process of assessment.

The goals and procedures of LPAD differ in principle from those of static assessment. The LPAD is process rather than product oriented, it investigates the learner’s process of reasoning rather than the quantifiable answers. LPAD compares the learner’s performance to his or her own performance at different times and different conditions, rather than to the age norm. LPAD evaluates individual learning propensity and cognitive modifiability rather than the current level of performance. LPAD actively produces in the learner a sample of cognitive changes and uses them for evaluation. The outcome of LPAD procedure is a descriptive profile of modifiability that includes the area of cognitive change and degree of change. On the basis of LPAD assessments recommendations are made regarding the psycho-educational intervention, which often includes the Instrumental Enrichment (FIE) program.

NILD EDUCATIONAL THERAPY TECHNIQUES:

Developed by NILD-National Institute for Learning Development, USA.

Goals and objectives:

To improve Reading, Spelling, Vocabulary and Word Analysis skills.

To improve reading inflection, rate and rhythm.

To develop proofreading skills.

To develop understanding paragraph structure.

To improve reading comprehension and language processing.

To encourage application and transfer of spelling rules.

To improve near-point copying.

To improve phonics and promote phonemic and phonological awareness.

To develop syllabication and structural analysis skills.

To visual-motor integration.

To develop sensory integration.

To improve directionality.

To strengthen visual imagery.

To improve long-term visual and auditory sequential memory.

To develop long-term visual memory, strategic thinking.

To improve visual discrimination and sequence.

To improve formation and retention of visual image.

To improve auditory attention, auditory memory and listening skills.

To improve auditory short-term memory.

To develop problem solving ability.

To improve mathematical reasoning and logical thinking.

To develop mathematical vocabulary and concepts.

To internalize basic math facts.

NILD Techniques:

Rhythmic writing
Buzzer
Dictation and Copy
Math Block
Blue Book
Auditory Memory Training Exercises
Sounds of Speech
Let’s Read
Map
Moveable Alphabet

Benefits of the NILD Techniques:

(i) Powerful for strengthening a student’s ability to understand, manipulate and use the sounds of language.
(ii) Development in phoneme understanding, syllabication, spelling generalizations and reading.
(iii) Significant changes in motor coordination, working memory, directionality, sequencing skills and mental calculation.
(iv) Improvement in auditory sequential skills, short-term working memory and vocabulary skills.

SEARCH AND TEACH: Developed by NILD-National Institute for Learning Development, USA.

SEARCH AND TEACH is a program to identify children vulnerable to learning failure and to offer educational intervention before failure has occurred. This is a prescriptive approach designed to prevent problems by building those neuropsychological skills necessary for progress in reading, writing and spelling.

All children vary in development within the various areas necessary for school success and specifically for learning to read. A child may be strong in some areas and weak in others. Programs that work with young children must stimulate and develop these weak areas rather than place undue demand on them. Requiring work for which it is assumed that a child is developmentally ready, and yet is not, will only frustrate the child and often result in failure and a poor self-concept. Children need time and experience with the various areas in order that natural development can occur.

When a child has matured in every area, the demands of learning to read and write are minimized and learning is fun. We can give no greater gift in the process of learning to read than to provide opportunities for children to experience success early in their school career rather than waiting until the sad cycle of frustration and failure sets in before we do anything to help.

IAET Educational Therapy Centre desires to take a proactive position in helping some of our youngest students experience success as they begin the life-long skill of reading. That is why we offer the SEARCH and TEACH Program. SEARCH is for all kindergarten students to determine if they could benefit from some additional help. It is done early in the school year before “formal” reading instruction occurs for the very reasons mentioned above. TEACH is for kindergarten and or first grade students who would benefit from the program of activities that help get them ready to be successful readers.

When there is a lag in visual development the child may have difficulty remembering what he or she sees and this affects his/her ability to see the differences between letters, numbers, and shapes. Motor development affects a child’s ability to move his body. There is not anything physically wrong with their legs, arms, hands, or fingers – it is just that they don’t always work well together. Learning to jump rope, tie a shoe, hold a pencil, cut with scissors, trace, copy and write are all related to motor development. The control needed to sit still can also be affected by this area.

SEARCH, the first part of the program, enables the teacher to identify children who are at risk for learning problems and to assess strengths and weaknesses in those skills basic to school learning. TEACH provides a range of learning activities from which the teacher can select those appropriate to the individual profile of assets and deficits which the scanning by SEARCH has revealed.

This program can be implemented in school or clinical settings. The vulnerable children can learn the basic skills to school learning through maturational processes and formal and informal educational experiences prior to first grade.

SEARCH: SEARCH is used for assessment to establish intervention priorities. This instrument helps to identify the basic components that relevant to school learning. SEARCH includes visual tests, auditory tests, intermodal tests and neurological examination which will help the teacher to plan core areas and teachable skills for an individual child.

The components of SEARCH measures the following:

1. The perceptual skills required for accurate recognition of letters and words.
2. Basic visual-motor skills which become automatic in order to learn to write legibly and fluidly.
3. Ability to chronologically organize ideas necessary for good reading comprehension and study skills related to reading.
4. The ability to tell the difference between sounds that are frequently confused by children.
5. The ability to correctly pronounce the sounds in some common English words.
6. The readiness for learning to read and the accompanying writing that goes with beginning reading instruction.
7. The nature of the reading and writing process and awareness of directional orientation required for many activities in school and life.
8. Fine-motor skills.

STRATEGIES INTERVENTION MODEL:

Learning Strategies Curriculum developed by the University of Kansas Centre for Research on Learning. The Learning Strategies Curriculum has been designed to enable students to cope effectively with such curricular demand to generalize their use of new skills to a variety of settings including general education classes and home and employment settings.

These strategies will be used to enable students to learn study skills and content material effectively to perform academic tasks independently. Each strategy under the system is task specific and is designed to meet specific curriculum demands, developing the student’s ability to gather, organize, store and retrieve information, and finally express it effectively in writing. This strategies are well suited for use with students with Learning Disabilities as well as mainstream students in middle and senior school.

The Learning Strategies Curriculum consists of three instructional strands: the Acquisition Strand, the Storage Strand and the Expression and Demonstration of Competence Strand. The Acquisition Strand enable students to gain information from written materials. The Storage Strand strategies are designed to enable students to organize, store, and retrieve information. Finally, the Expression and Demonstration of Competence Strand includes strategies that enable students to complete assignments, to effectively express themselves in writing, and to take tests.

These strategies will be used to enable students to learn study skills and content material effectively to perform academic tasks independently. Each strategy under the system is task specific and is designed to meet specific curriculum demands, developing the student’s ability to gather, organize, store and retrieve information, and finally express it effectively in writing. These strategies are well suited for use with students with Learning Disabilities as well as mainstream students in middle and senior school. We structure our learning setting so the students can access materials and begin working independently.

What kind of results can you expect?

When the Learning Strategies Curriculum are taught significant gains will be realized both in behaviours associated directly with strategy and in reading comprehension. This will enable the low achievers to perform at levels that are competitive with those of their typically achieving peers. Our experience indicates that student performance will markedly increase.

Students can witness all the cognitive processes as well as the overt behaviours involved in performing the skill. Each aspects of the skill and the cognitive processes involved must be presented clearly and explicitly. Students are encouraged to ask questions to ensure their understanding of our demonstration.

Students are asked to perform parts of the cognitive processes and overt processes involved in the skill while also instructing themselves on what to do. Finally the students are given ample opportunity to practice using the new skill in materials that are, in large measure, devoid of many of the demands of their regular course materials.

Students can build their confidence and fluency in performing the skill. They will receive the most important instructional element of the entire teaching process. Research has shown that students make the greatest gains when they receive elaborated and well-timed feedback. Such feedback will help the low-achieving students in mastery of the targeted skills.

Learning Strategies Curriculum:

1. Fundamentals in the Sentence Writing Strategy:

This is used by students to write four types of sentences: Simple, Compound, Complex, and Compound-Complex Sentences. This will help them prepared to respond many of the complex writing demands in secondary and higher secondary schools. The instructional methods associated with the Sentence Writing Strategy were designed for teaching students who have difficulty with learning the basic principles associated with sentence construction and written expression. Thus, through these methods, students learn a set of steps and key formulas that help them recognize and write different types of sentences. Instruction in this strategy is systematically sequenced so that students who have difficulty learning have ample opportunity to practice identifying and writing different types of sentences. Instruction in the Sentence Writing Strategy has been designed from a remedial perspective.

2. Proficiency in Sentence Writing:

The Sentence writing strategy is used to teach students the basic principle associated with sentence construction and written expression. The instructions in this strategy help them recognise and write different types of sentences.

3. Word Mapping Strategy:

The Word Mapping Strategy is designed to help students learn how to predict the meaning of unknown words by identifying parts of words that have meaning and use the part to predict the meaning of the word. The process aims to improve comprehension. These skills are critical when students are reading a text in school and when they take standardised reading comprehension tests.

4. The Fundamentals of Paraphrasing and Summarizing:

The purpose of teaching this strategy to the students is to make them how to translate information into their own words; for finding the main idea and details of each paragraph. Paraphrasing means putting information into our own words and we can paraphrase a single word, a phrase or group of words, a whole sentence, a whole paragraph and a whole page.

5. The Lesson Organizer Routine:

The Content Enhancement is an approach to planning instruction for and teaching content to diverse groups of students. It involves making decisions about what content to teach, manipulating and translating that content into easy-to-understand formats, and presenting it in memorable ways. This Lesson Routine is explicitly introduced to the group of students, so students can understand how the teacher’s use of the routine and their own participation in the routine can markedly improve their academic performance.

This approach includes the following: (a) Thinking deeply about what students need to know; (b) Selecting the central concepts that make the details and facts hang together; (c) Identifying relationships among the concepts; (d) Selecting and constructing instructional devices that will enhance the content and

(e) Presenting the content in a way that actively involves students while enhancing their learning.

The Lesson Organizer Routine is a part of Content Enhancement Series.  This is used to introduce and build a lesson in which students (a) Understand the main idea of the lesson; (b) Relate the lesson to their background knowledge; (c) Understand how the lesson is structured and how the information is organized; (d) Distinguish the most important parts of the lesson content from the less important; and (e) Understand the tasks and expectations associated with lesson.

6. The Self-Questioning Strategy:

The Self-Questioning Strategy has been designed to help students deal more effectively with the complex reading demands of elementary, secondary, and higher secondary settings. This Strategy is taught in the Acquisition Strand. Using this strategy students can improve their understanding and recall of information in a reading passage. Research has shown that students’ comprehension and retention scores increase in proportion to the quality and quantity of the questions they ask themselves while reading passage.

This strategy requires that the students actively interact with the material rather than passively read it. The division of the reading passage into small units and the alteration of activities i.e. reading, questioning, predicting, reading, answering, etc. require that students verbalize the new information that they are learning. This is another process that can enhance understanding and recall. Thus, the Self-Questioning Strategy can help students become better readers-better able to understand and remember what they read. Additionally, use of the strategy should help them become more successful in situations in which they need to gain information from written materials.