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Every Child Can Learn!
Tutoring, Private School, Distance Learning, Learning Products
At the Harp Learning Institute, our message is simple and clear.
We believe every child can learn!
By using the time tested, research driven program that has helped tens of thousands of children achieve learning success, we can help your child, too.
Our four methods of helping your child overcome learning issues learning all use the same methodology - the Harp Learning System. This system was created by Lisa Harp to help her own son overcome learning challenges over twenty years ago, and it has been refined and used successfully since.
The Harp Learning System is broken into five areas, each rich in visual processing skills, auditory processing skills, brain integration activities, memory building, and academics.
1. Keep Emotions Calm.
Most parents know that children with learning disabilities like ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, or autism, have frustrations other kids don't have. This is because the child is under a tremendous amount of stress! In essence, learning is stressful for the learning disabled child.
There is an actual neurological reason that learning is difficult when under stress. There is a part of the brain that simply takes over and shuts down the cognitive centers of the brain. It is called the amygdala. We have many approaches to calming the amygdala and use an array of them to help your child become ready to learn by being emotionally stable.
2. Incorporate the Body
Learning doesn't happen in isolation. It happens from the outside in. Our sensory systems integrate as a unit, so one learning system can't be separated from the other. When we try to isolate learning to only the brain, we are isolating other crucial learning systems.
The good news is that we are not stuck with the brain we're born with. With the Harp Learning System, we're able to help children develop new and better learning abilities. Since the body and the brain are connected, the body triggers new neural connects to be formed. We capitalize on this through our copyrighted cross-lateral movements and other specific exercises that cross the midline of the body.
3. Integrate the Brain
The brain is the most important part of learning, yet most professionals and programs fail to take it into consideration and make it a priority. The Harp Learning System uses a research-driven brain integration system that helps unify the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
It has been proven that "whole brain" learners are better performers than "right" or "left" brain dominant learners. That is because they use both hemispheres of the brain! Most learning disabled students are right-brain dominant, which makes academics hard.
The good news is that we can build new neural pathways in the brain at any age, so we do that throughout the entire Harp Learning System. By focusing on integrating one micro-skill at a time, we slowly build up micro-skills until the macro-skill (academic) is mastered.
4. Build a Strong Learning Foundation
Academics need to be broken down into micro-skills then built back up into stronger macro-skills in order for effective learning to take place. Think about the act of reading. The following skills come into play when a child reads:
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tracking the eyes across a page
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visual discrimination - determining the subtle differences between shapes (letters)
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auditory discrimination - determining the subtle differences between sounds (syllables)
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visual closure - the ability to fill in visual gaps in shapes (letter)
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auditory closure - the ability to fill in auditory gaps (syllables)
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auditory memory - hearing and remembering sounds
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visual memory - seeing and remembering visual information (words)
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remembering sight words
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chunking information
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stopping and starting eye movement while tracking across the page
The list above contains most of the micro-skills needed to read. They are integrated and depend upon each other for successful reading to take place. But if you try to leave any of these skills out, the student fails to effectively use the macro-skill of reading.
5. Teach Academics in a Multi-Sensory Fashion
Beware of programs that don't specifically teach academics, as they are indeed the building blocks of learning success! And for kids with learning disabilities, academics must be taught in a multi-sensory fashion.
For instance, our Orton-Gillingham based reading system uses movement, pictures, emotions, visual skills, auditory skills, color, and chunking to help reluctant readers learn crucial phonemic awareness skills. Lisa Harp developed these organized units of reading and her program now boasts of a 5-grade level jump by the end of the program.
Lisa Harp, a certified teacher for over 37 years, has done the work for you by breaking each academic skill into a grouping of micro-skills. It's so simple once it's broken down and easy to use through her copyrighted micro-skills testing procedure. Students don't move on until they master their lower level skills grouping.
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