Tutoring focuses on what a child learns whereas educational therapy focuses on how a child learns.
A qualified educational therapist will:
- Be familiar with learning challenges
- Know how to work with kids with learning and thinking differences
- Have expertise in an academic subject area or skill, like reading, math or organization
- Understand how emotional and behavioral issues can impact a child in school
During reading therapy sessions, the therapist will take into consideration not only reading skills needing to be addressed, but also how to create a low stress environment in order to ensure retention of skills.
Oftentimes, students with learning differences are faced with a "fire hose" of information during the school day. Students can become overwhelmed if the information proves to be difficult ot understand or remember. Educational therapists break down this information into easier to handle chunks and use various research based strategies to help the child feel success with the information which will increase confidence and decrease stress responses.
The educational therapist spends significant extra time before and after sessions to plan lessons in order for the child to feel success when a concept is difficult. Our educational therapists take a more holistic approach when working with a student not only in learning to read and write, but also supporting social-emotional needs and metacognition skills in order to help students become more confident and empowered learners.