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Open 7 days a week from 9:00am - 9:30pm

Okemos Office (Main Office)
2043 Hamilton Road
Okemos, MI 48864
(517) 347-0122

Lansing Office
4710 W. Saginaw
Lansing, MI 48917

Jackson Office
211 W. Ganson
Jackson, MI 49201
(517) 789-7889

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Erickson Learning Center

erickson_sign.jpgThe purpose of the Erickson Learning Center is to help students of all ages academically, socially, and emotionally. We want students to be able to pursue different avenues to their successes and feel comfortable meeting new people and having unique experiences. We also want them to understand that each individual has his or her own unique learning style.

We specialize in teaching individuals with learning disabilities, A D H D, emotional impairments, mental impairments and Autism as well as working with many students who have no impairments. The subject areas that we teach are Reading, Written Expression, Mathematics including higher order Math, Science, Social Sciences, English, Spanish, German, French and many other subjects too. We have students from elementary schools, middle schools, high school, Lansing Community College, Michigan State University and those working on their GED, SAT, ACT, etc. We also work with adults who want to improve their skills.

Our strength is in our teachers, Our expectations are high!

 

                 Volume 170              February  2010
 
 
ERICKSON LEARNING CENTER
MISSION STATEMENT
“Helping students reach their full potential through knowledge, caring and a positive learning environment”

                                                      *********************************

 
A TIDBIT OF INFORMATION
☺
 
A professor of education at Harvard, Daniel Korety feels the U.S. education policy relies too heavily on test scores. He feels we need accountability in education. Test don’t measure things like complex problem-solving, ability, creativity and persistence. Also, improved test scores don’t show real progress. A good teacher keeps students engaged, fosters curiosity and help students learn from their mistakes. Test scores alone can’t measure that
Another study by the California Department of Education found that children’s fitness levels may affect their performance in school. They found that increased amounts of physical fitness translated into higher academic achievements at each of the three grade levels measured. The benefits were most evident in math scores. Previous research has led doctors to surmise that exercise may encourage new brain-cell growth.
************************
By William G. Brozo
 
It is difficult to deny that many U.S. middle and high school students are in need of special literacy supports.
·         Approximately two thirds of 8th and 12th grade students read at less than the “proficient” level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (Rampey, Dion, & Donahue, 2009).
·         Nearly 32% of high school graduates are not adequately prepared for
      college-level English composition               
 course (ACT, 2005).
·         Approximately 40% of high school graduates lack the literacy skills employers seek (National Education Summit on High Schools, 2005).
·         About 1.2 million students drop out
annually, and their literacy skills are lower than most industrialized nations (Laird, DeBell, Kienzl, & Chapman, 2007: Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 2001).
In no small way these and other indicator of declining literacy achievement have shifted national attention toward struggling and striving adolescent readers. More than ever, secondary schools are under enormous pressure to find ways of improving performance for these youth.
 
********
                                                 CATCH KIDS BEFORE THEY FAIL
                                            Early Identification to Prevent Reading Failure
                                                             By Avner Stern, Ph.D.
 
Having reading problems affects children profoundly. Those who can’t read will have difficulty learning, so they don’t acquire the knowledge and interests they need to succeed in school. They also tend to dislike school and reading. Many drop out. Of those who graduate high school, less than two percent attend college, despite having average intelligence or above.
Recent reading research offers compelling evidence that children at risk of being poor readers can be identified as early as kindergarten. The identification process is easy and inexpensive. The longer it takes to identify reading problems, the harder it is to correct them. Reading experts warn that those who read poorly in first grade almost always continue to read poorly unless their reading problem is caught and corrected early. The best solution is for schools to allocate resources for early identification and prevention. Third grade is too late. A series of studies conducted by the National Institutes of Health found that:
Ten million or 17.6 percent of children having significant reading difficulties, girls are just as likely to have reading difficulties as boys, but they’re less likely to be identified.
Reading difficulties aren’t developmental lags. Most kids who struggle with reading don’t spontaneously improve with maturity, and they don’t catch up without help.
There’s a misconception that letter reversals and visual processing problems are the basis of reading disabilities (sometimes called dyslexia). In reality, poor readers have trouble recognizing, manipulating and learning speech sounds (called phonemes) in words, a skill called phonological processing. Most children and adults with reading disabilities struggle with making rapid and accurate associations between speech sounds and letters.
By assessing kindergartners’ phonological processing skills, it’s possible to identify with 92 percent accuracy those who will have difficulty with reading. The sooner the problem is identified, the easier and less expensive it is to remediate.
For more than 90 percent of poor readers, prevention and early intervention programs that combine phonemic awareness (the ability to identify and manipulate the individual sounds in words), phonics, and reading comprehension strategies provided by well-trained teachers can bring their reading skills to average levels. However, about 75 percent of children whose problems aren’t identified until the age of 9 continue to have reading difficulties throughout high school.
Although ideally, every child should be assessed for reading disability at age 5,  there are early warning signs of reading problems. If two or more of the following indicators are present, the child should be assessed, especially if there is dyslexia in the family:
©      Delayed speech
©      Mixing up sounds in multi-syllabic words
©      Trouble rhyming words
©      Difficulty learning the alphabet and the names of numbers
©      Difficulty learning to associate sounds with letters
Screening for future reading difficulties should be required for kindergartners. Waiting for a child, even first-grader, to catch up is asking for trouble. Children with early reading problems can become good readers, but not without help.
 
                                            
 
                            Practial ideas for Parents for Beginning Reading Instruction
 
Remember parents, you are your children’s first and most influential teachers.
 
1. Give children opportunities to expand their use and appreciation of spoken language.
 
  1. Talk, sing and read frequently to your children when they are babies.
  2. When giving directions to your younger children, use short sentences and explain clearly what you want them to do. As they get older, you increase the length of directions using descriptive words.
  3. Ask your children questions that require more than a “yes” or “no”.
  4. Listen carefully as your children talk to you.
  5. Teach your children songs and poems that are fun to sing and say.
  6. Play games that require talking, listening, following and giving directions (Simon Says, Red light – Green light etc.)
 
2. Give children opportunities to expand their use and appreciation of our printed language.
 
  1. Let your children see you read everyday.
  2. Make sure your children have books and other printed material.
  3. Point out the letters and words you see everywhere (traffic signs, street signs, store signs, bill boards, etc.)
  4. When at home, read aloud grocery labels, invitations, notices, phone numbers, calendar dates, etc.
  5. Put messages to family members under a magnet on the refrigerator or pin them on a home bulletin board.
  6. Give your children supplies for writings (crayons, pencils, paper, chalk and chalkboard, markers, etc.)
  7. Give your children books as gifts on birthdays, etc
  8.  
  9. 3. Give your children opportunities to hear good stories and informational books everyday.
 
  1. Bring them to the library and get them a library card. Check out books together.
  2. Enroll them in library sponsored programs as reading programs or literacy programs.
  3. Swap books with family and friends.
  4. Encourage your older children to read with their younger brothers and sisters.
  5. Keep reading aloud to your children even after they read on their own.
 
4. Give children opportunities to understand and use the building blocks of spoken language.
 
  1. Help your children learn to identify the sounds at the beginning of words.
  2. Help your children learn to separate sounds at the beginning of words (what happens when you take the “s” sound away from sat, etc.)
  3. Help your children blend sounds (blend these sounds: s, a, t into a word).
  4. Ask your children, which one of these words – bag, cat, bike, boat – starts with a different sound. Practice with other words.
  5. Say four words that have the same beginning sound. Ask your child to listen and tell you the beginning sound of these four words.
  6. Do the same with ending sound of four words (stop, pop, cop, top).
  7. Sing songs and read rhyming books with your child.
  8. Say a sentence and have your child clap the number of words in the sentence.
  9. Choose a word, a compound word as sunshine. Tell your child you are going to say a word and then you are going to say this word again and leave off part of the word (drop sun and only say shine). Ask them what you dropped. Use other compound words the same way.
  10. Say a word and have your child clap out the number of syllables in the word  (sur) (prise) – two claps.
 
5. Give your children opportunities to learn about and use building blocks of written language.
 
  1. Sing the alphabet song with your child and have your child identify the letters with alphabet blocks, magnetic blocks, etc.
  2. Have your child learn to identify the letters in alphabet books.
  3. Play the alphabet game. Take turns with your child in naming a favorite food for letters of the alphabet. Have the child tell you girl’s or boy’s names that begin with certain letters.
  4. Have your child say the alphabet as they jump rope, ride a seesaw, go up and down the stairs, etc.
  5. Encourage your child to cut out letters from the headlines of newspapers and put them in alphabetical order.
  6. Put cornmeal or sand in a cake pan. Say a letter and have your child draw the letter in the cornmeal or in the sand.
                      
 
                                                  ♥ Happy Valentines Day ♥    
             
Martin Luther King dreamed of equality for all people regardless of their race. He used words and actions to achieve his goal.
 
Abraham Lincoln was the great emancipator. He was brought up in a log cabin and became one of the greatest men that the world has ever known.
 
George Washington was our first leader in the United States. He chose the area that became Washington D. C. and even though his presidency was over, it was named after him. 
 
                                                            MISSION STATEMENT

“AT ERICKSON, LEARNING IS POWERFUL, OUR STRENGTH IS IN OUR TEACHERS, AND OUR EXPECTATIONS ARE HIGH”

 

 
                    
 
 
            
 
    
  
Family Owned and Operated for 25 years  |  Open 7 days/week year round  |  9:00am - 9:30pm