How We Help

WHAT WE DO

Learning Support provides one-on-one tuition for students who are not yet achieving their potential in reading, writing and math. We also provide professional development workshops for teachers and support staff working with students with specific learning differences.

INTERVENTIONS

Learning Support’s individualised programmes meet the specific needs of each struggling learner. No two children share the same set of strengths or areas of weaknesses. Our effective programmes utilise your child’s strengths in order to build on their specific areas in need of development.

INITIAL ASSESSMENT TO IDENTIFY NEEDS

Our starting point is an assessment by Learning Support. This assessment identifies the specific needs of individual students so that a customised programme can be developed. This assessment also helps us to determine which of the programmes we provide would be best for each individual student.

We do not provide an official diagnosis of a specific learning difficulty such as Dyslexia, this can only be done by a registered Education Psychologist. In some cases it may also be necessary to seek a full educational assessment with an Educational Psychologist. You will find names of assessors on our useful links page.

DELIVERY

Our programmes are delivered using a variety of techniques based on the learning needs of each student and include:

• Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP)
• Repeated reading activities
• Reading comprehension strategies
• Phonics programmes
• Memory training
• Assisted technologies such as WordQ for writing
• Maths

The composition of our programmes has been developed in conjunction with the recommendations and input of Educational Psychologists in Wellington.

ENCOURAGEMENT

Underpinning all of the above is providing a learning environment that is:

• Fun
• Encouraging
• Positive
• Friendly

Students with learning difficulties may struggle to get the help and support they need within a large class environment. Over time, this can erode self-confidence. An important element of Learning Support programmes is to provide each student with conscious and positive encouragement throughout each lesson.

Monitoring Progress 

Our tutors complete monitoring testing every two terms with each of our Learning Support students. The tutors then provide parents with a monitoring overview, which outlines the progress their child has made and how that data has informed our forward planning for the individuals coming term of tutoring. This monitoring testing is about showing measureable progress, and providsing set data to track our students. Parents will also see an increase in their child's confidence in regards to their learning which we believe is just as important as what assessment results show. 

Graduating from Learning Support 

Many of our students tend to have tutoring anywhere from 2 terms to 3 years. This is dependant on each students learning needs and the prgoress they make. Our tutors stay in regular contact with parents and schools about each of their students progress and together as a team they will make a decision about when it is appropriate for the student to cease tutoring.