NILD Therapy: GVCS Broadfording has NILD trained and professionally certified educational therapists on campus for students who could benefit from this most intensive form of educational therapy.

    NILD stands for the National Institute for Learning Differences.  NILD therapy focuses on one-on-one and small-group, individualized interventions to strengthen the underlying causes of learning difficulties, rather than simply treating the symptoms as tutoring does.  NILD educational therapy is a true therapy in that it aims the intervention just above the student’s current level of functioning and raises expectations for performance, which creates the framework to foster that growth.  It has been endorsed and accredited by the International Dyslexia Association as an appropriate program for students with dyslexia and reading difficulties.

The core techniques of NILD Educational Therapy are designed to work on cognitive abilities, therefore cognitive testing, such as the WISC IV or Woodcock Tests of Cognitive Abilities, is required.  Specifically, the following cognitive areas are addressed:

NILD uses interactive language and dynamic intervention to develop core academic skills and higher order processing through:

The student is an active participant in the therapy session as he verbalizes his thinking.  The program is not scripted, but responds to the student's answers to carefully chosen Socratic questions.  It is non-tutorial in that it focuses on processes plus content, and seeks to develop aggressive and independent learners, as well as leaders in thinking.

NILD educational therapy has yielded demonstrable results as students become competent, confident learners.  Students gain mastery over their cognitive vulnerabilities and hone their cognitive strengths for success in the classroom and in life..  Because NILD therapy can only be performed by licensed NILD therapists, this program is limited to a certain number of students each year.

Orton-Gillingham Tutoring

Orton-Gillingham trained tutors are now available on campus at GVCS Broadfording for students who struggle with dyslexia or specific language disabilities.  This tutoring is available for students of all ages who attend any school in the area.  For more information, please contact the HOPE Program office at 301-797-8886 (ext. 161).

Orton-Gillingham is an instructional approach intended for use with individuals who have difficulty with reading, spelling, and writing.  This approach is a research-proven, language-based method for teaching students with dyslexia and other language-based learning disabilities to read and write.  The Orton-Gillingham approach is different from other methods of teaching.  In particular, it is:

• Multi-sensory –

It engages all of the brain’s learning pathways (sight, sound, touch and motion) simultaneously.

• Structured –

It progresses logically from the most basic material to the more challenging; learning builds cumulatively with diligent practice and frequent review.

• Individual –

It is designed to meet the unique learning needs of the individual student.  It may be used one-on-one or in small-group teaching.

• Direct –

It is explicit: rules are explained, goals are set and the learner works toward specific benchmarks.

• Synthetic and analytic –

It helps the learner understand and apply the rules of language: how the parts of language work together to form a whole and how the whole can be broken down into its various parts. 

The Orton-Gillingham approach also emphasizes specific learning content:

• Phonology –

Phonemes are the smallest distinct units of sound in a language; phonological awareness is essential to the ability to read.

• Sound-symbol association –

Helping the reader make the association, both by sight and by ear, of phonemes with their letters or combinations of letters.

• Syllables –

The six basic types of syllables and the rules that control word structure.

• Morphology –

Just as a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound, a morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning.  This includes the study of base words, roots, prefixes and suffixes.

• Syntax and semantics –

The rules that govern how words work together to convey meaning, including grammar, sentence structure and written language.