Academic Resource Center
Delaware Valley Classical School’s Academic Resource Center provides services for students who need academic support. We will work with parents and teachers to evaluate each student’s needs through both in-house assessments and, when appropriate, referrals for testing by outside professionals.
Tutoring or Coaching – Tutoring is for students who have short-term needs for catching up on missed material or need for individualized help in a specific subject area. Coaching involves meeting with the student to organize papers, plan their week, and develop strategies for note-taking, studying for tests, etc. Tutoring or coaching can be arranged for just a few weeks for short-term needs or for the entire school year. Parents choose how many days a week their child will meet with their tutor or academic coach.
NILD Educational Therapy – While tutoring focuses on teaching content, educational therapy focuses on developing the student as an independent life-long learner. After developing a profile on the student based on assessments, an educational therapy program is tailored for the child’s individual needs. NILD Educational Therapy is recommended as a three-year program. Examples of issues that can be addressed include poor working memory, reading difficulties, comprehension problems, difficulty following directions, inefficient reasoning skills, weak mathematical reasoning, difficulty with expression, processing speed, and inefficient reasoning or problem-solving. Our educational therapists are trained and professionally certified by the National Institute of Learning Development (NILD). NILD trains educational therapists to work with students with specific learning disabilities. NILD is also recognized by the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) as an organization which meets its standards to teach struggling readers.
SEARCH and TEACH – SEARCH is a screening tool used to identify young students who are vulnerable for developing learning disabilities, particularly those associated with reading. All DVCS kindergarten students are evaluated using the SEARCH assessment each fall. Parents of students who are determined by SEARCH to be at risk for developing reading difficulties can choose to enroll their child in the TEACH program, an educational therapy program that addresses the specific issues identified by the SEARCH scan. The TEACH program is age-appropriate for kindergarten and first grade students and is taught by NILD-certified educational therapists who have received additional training in this program.
Reading Groups – Reading groups are available for students in first through third grades. Our reading group instruction is based on a structured, systematic, and explicit approach which is tailored to meet the specific needs of individual students. Depending on the child’s level and weakness, we focus this instruction on the five components of reading: phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. More specifically, we work on mastering sound-symbol association and phonograms, blending these sounds together to read words, and building skills to decode words. This instruction may also include syllabication, phrasing/chunking, and morphology. Please note that reading groups are free for the first three months of each school year.
Test and Quiz Proctoring – Parents can choose this service if the distractions of the classroom give their child difficulty in expressing what he or she has learned on tests and quizzes. A quiet room and a proctor will be provided
DVCS admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally made available to students at the school. DVCS does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in the administration of its educational and admissions policies, tuition assistance programs, athletic and other school administered programs.
