back to list of Articles About Arrowsmith School

WASAGA PRIVATE SCHOOL OFFERING INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAM TO ADDRESS LEARNING DYSFUNCTIONS BY TRINA BERLO (PUBLISHED APRIL 21, 2006)

A Wasaga Beach school will be the first in Simcoe County to offer an intensive program to help students overcome their learning disabilities.

Silvercrest Christian School will be offering the Arrowsmith Program in the fall, a program principal Kris Stadig says has amazing results, sometimes fixing the learning disability.

Stadig says the program uses specific techniques to deal with defined learning dysfunctions.

"We (in the regular school system) set up strategies to cope with the learning disability," said Stadig.

Scribing stories for students who have trouble writing or allowing them to type something on the computer instead of writing it are examples of those strategies.

"It doesn't fix it. This fixes it."

The program is not new but it is new to the area.

The Arrowsmith Program is based on the research of Barbara Arrowsmith Young, a Canadian who struggled with her own learning disabilities through school. While at graduate school at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) in Toronto Young's research led her to develop exercises she began doing herself in the 1970s to strengthen her own learning dysfunctions.

The foundation of the Arrowsmith Program is the cognitive exercises Young developed, they are described as a type of physical therapy for the brain.

The results led Young to offer her program through a school in Toronto. Hundreds of students has been through the program since it began in 1978.

Stadig said the program is ideal for students who are in a normal IQ range but struggle with specific problems.

"This is not a suitable program for kids with severe autism or Down Syndrome," she said.

The Arrowsmith program defines suitable full-time candidates are of average to above-average intelligence and shows signs of five or more learning dysfunctions. People with three or four dysfunctions may benefit from a part-time program.

Silvercrest will offer both.

Stadig said there are 10 full-time positions available in the program for the fall. Three have been filled already and there is opportunity for people to come into the Arrowsmith classroom part-time.

Stadig said the full-time program is a two to four-year commitment with tuition fees between $14,000 and $15,000 per year, depending on the students requirements.

Those who think they may benefit go through a pre-screening process which entails four days of testing to learn in which specific area in which they are deficient.

"It is a very intense program and kids really need to be able to focus but the results are amazing," said Stadig.

"I think people get to the point where they say, now what, we've tried everything," said Stadig.

She said there is an 80 per cent success rate.

Those who successfully complete the program are reintegrated into the regular school at the appropriate grade level.

A teacher will be hired specifically to deal with the 10 Arrowsmith program students at Silvercrest this fall. Stadig is in the process of hiring that teacher.

To get more information on the program Silvercrest is offering this fall, and to register, call the school at 429-4303. Ask for Kris Stadig or Nicole Humby. For more information on the Arrowsmith Program also visit www.arrowsmithschool.org.