1. Psycho-Education Assessment and Intake (conducted by Dr. Heafey)
- Once a student signs up, the family will be sent an intake where they will be asked a few questions related to academic and study habits.
- Included in the intake packet will be a release of information, in order for Dr. Heafey to speak directly with the student’s teachers. Whenever possible, additional homework will be requested which can be used later in the program as well as the students past academic record.
- Once the intake is complete, the student will meet with Dr. Heafey for about an hour and a half to discuss what type of difficulties the student has been experiencing. During this meeting, Dr. Heafey will discuss some of the diagnostic assessments he will be using to discover more about the student’s learning differences and learning style.
- Dr. Heafey will help facilitate the scheduling of two 2-hour meetings over the next 2 weeks, at which time the assessments will be administered, and the data gathered.
- Once all of the assessments have been completed and scored (roughly 1 week after the last 2-hour assessment block), Dr. Heafey will schedule a one-hour session to discuss the findings with the student, and his/her family.
- The results from the assessments will be printed out and given the student and his family; an additional copy will be provided to the Alexander Tutoring, to begin preparing the student tutoring program.
2. Weekly 1-on-1 Tutoring (Alexander Tutoring, (12 hrs)
Your student will be matching with one of Alexander Tutoring’s highly capable staff, create a study schedule and explore academic goals.
3. Test Taking Strategies (Dr. Heafey, (2 hrs)
4. Pre-Test Preparation (2 hrs)
Your student’s tutor will spend extra time preparing for specific tests – which can be spread hourly.
5. Monthly Check-ins (Dr. Heafey, 1.5 hrs)
Once a month, Dr. Heafey will review the notes from your student’s previous tutoring sessions, look at their current progress, and then meet with your student to discuss ways they can improve their study habits.
Thank you for taking the time to learn more about this unique program.
Alexander Tutoring and Unfold Psychology have been working together for many years.
Unfold Psychology (UP) works with students who require special accommodations to ensure their learning differences do not put them at a disadvantage when their performance is compared to the classroom peers. To determine eligibility for accommodations, we must first administer a number of educational and psychological assessments to determine the specifics of the student’s ‘disability.’ Only after a student had gone through the testing, and a definitive diagnosis had been made, would they be referred to the appropriate tutors for additional support. When the students’ difficulty was related to math, or arithmetic, Alexander Tutoring (AT) was always the first referral UP would call.
AT has the best reputation for helping students struggling with learning differences in Math, Psychics, Geometry, Algebra, Calculus, Statistics and Chemistry. Beyond this, AT’s staff struggled with learning differences of their own, and attained a graduate degree in one of the for mentioned fields despite this. They understand the unique needs of students with learning differences, and tailor their study plans to fit the unique learning style of their students. Developing a clear ‘plan,’ however, takes a great deal of time. Understanding how a student ‘thinks,’ or the best way they will learn, is far from straight forward. Sometimes, after months and months of trying, AT would reach out to UP for help, so they could learn the more nuanced elements of their student’s learning style.
Eventually, Sean and Austin (the respective CEO’s of Alexander Tutoring and Unfold Psychology) got together to discuss better ways to approach one another students. The program you are currently interested in is what they came up with!
AP and AT believe every student deserves to be screened for learning differences. The current model, in both public and private school, is to speak up only when there is a clear problem. Sometimes, not even then. Even when a student does find the properly qualified clinician to conduct a psycho-educational evaluation, it often ignores the other reasons a student could be struggling in a class. Nuanced aspects of a student’s personality, such as resilience, motivation and fortitude, deserve just as much attention as vocabulary, math fluency, or working memory.
The current educational model falls short and addresses a student’s specific concern both too late and too slowly. What UP and AT have created is a five-step process to ensure the most comprehensive and time sensitive approach to supporting a student’s educational needs. Presently, we are rolling this new program out by focusing only on students with Math difficulties. The majority of the students referred to us have been struggling with math for months, even years. Eventually, we hope to work with students before they have to experience the frustration of not having the appropriate degree of academic support.
W36S56B6ZG618X4P
