We designed our curriculums around the way students with academic barriers learn best.

Correctly determining the starting points of instruction in each basic skill is essential. To help you determine these points, we provide you with placement tests for reading, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, written expression and math. Test items correspond to the learning goals and objectives that accompany each curriculum. This allows you to determine that point at which the student’s learning starts to break down, or the point at which you begin instruction.

The placement tests for science and geography contain questions about the content. The student’s responses to these questions give you a sense of the level at which to begin instruction.

Learning each subject and skill requires the use of certain brain functions. For example, the top three functions involved in learning to decode and spell words are:

• phonemic awareness
• paired-associate memory
• orthographic mapping

Key functions in math are:

• concept understanding
• paired-associate memory for math facts
• long-term memory for rules and computational sequences
• visual-spatial organization, and
• strong attentional control

Each student brings to the lessons varying abilities to meet these demands. In completing our “Learning Strengths and Barriers Analysis” for the skill or subject you are teaching, you can determine those demands each student can and cannot easily meet and consider this information when completing the next step.

An effective instructional plan for the skill or subject you are teaching has 4 main parts:

1. learning goals and objectives ones that are explicitly written, presented in small, manageable steps, arranged in a hierarchical sequence and measurable
2. curriculum one in which the lessons are directly aligned with the goals and objectives, teaches the content using science-based practices and assesses the student’s proficiency at the end of each section or lesson
3. intensity of practice instruction and practice that is concentrated enough to ensure satisfactory progress; includes the frequency and duration of instruction and, in some skills, the number of responses the student produces in a single lesson, week and month
4. accommodations includes the environment in which you will deliver instruction (e.g., one-to-one in a separate room, small-group) and additional adaptations beyond those provided in the curriculums

To determine the degree to which the student responds to the instructional plan for each skill or subject you are teaching, you record at given intervals the student’s practice intensity (e.g., number of practice exercises or lessons completed) then the goals and objectives he or she learned from this work. You then determine if the student’s rate of learning the goals and objectives is satisfactory or not and adjust various parts of the instructional plan as needed.

To help you determine those factors that facilitate or hinder the student’s progress, you write daily or weekly notes in the student’s academic journal. To report each student’s progress to others, you might follow the templates for organizing and phrasing weekly and quarterly progress reports.