The Myth of Average

This TedX talk by L. Todd Rose on The Myth of  Average just might change how you view education.

We’ve already made the change to designing lessons specifically in response to child’s unique set of strengths and weaknesses so we can attest to the effectiveness of this approach. And, as described in the video,  we love the idea of supporting the in classroom experience with technology but hope that kids are still allowed to access learning how to read when it is difficult for them. We believe strongly in both remediation, bringing difficult skills up to grade level, and accommodation, allowing kids have access to an educational experience with their peers.

The Reading Clinic made a company-wide decision to ban the average and design for the extremes. Most education programs are designed for what works for most kids. Even with in the learning disabilities field, remediation programs are designed for typical dyslexia or typical (insert diagnosis here). All of the interventions we know of, and they are very effective interventions, are formulaic and take you from point A to point B. Your child might progress through the program at a different speed but with these types of programs, every child does the same program. And, to be clear, these types of interventions have proven to be very effective. We continue to use the programs at our learning centers but we use them in a new way. So why did we change our approach to tutoring?

We met kids who weren’t typical. For example, we met kids who have trouble learning how to read and have issues with processing language learn very differently from kids who are dyslexic. But the best, researched-based programs out there make the assumption that the student can easily process language. Once we started to shift our viewpoint to accommodate the extremes, we realized that students who fit our idea of a typical student were the exception to the rule. What we gained from this realization is an ability to work with students less intensively and fewer hours overall. Now that we can adapt to our students needs in a matter of a few sessions, we have better results and even happier kids.  It also allowed us to open our doors to students who were just struggling a little bit in school or looking for enrichment.