Accelerated Learning
The Gideon Accelerated Learning Program is designed to provide mastery learning in both math and all areas of language. Guiding our students each step of the way, we have seen many children rise to the top of the class through daily, disciplined study. Gideon is very much like piano lessons. A few minutes practice each day is all it takes to improve performance and build confidence. Math The Gideon Math Program is designed to achieve mastery of computation skills. Mastery equals confidence, speed, and accuracy. The program consists of weekly lessons arranged sequentially from beginning number sense through high school geometry. Gideon also provides practice in grade level word problems in preparation for standardized testing. Calculation skill lessons are presented in a step-by-step manner. Each concept is practiced until real mastery is achieved. The student is required to not merely understand how to perform an operation, but rather must “own” or internalize each new concept before advancing. Our individualized pacing benefits children of all abilities and ages. Through daily practice and mastery of each lesson, students advance in small, manageable increments allowing them to experience success. Reading Readiness Before children can learn to read, they must learn to recognize letters and their corresponding sounds. The Gideon Reading Readiness Program primarily uses a phonics approach, beginning with the consonants and progressing through the vowels until all sounds are mastered. Once the sound-symbol relationship is mastered, students are taught to combine sounds and break words apart for spelling and reading. This ability to process language is necessary for reading comprehension. Once a student’s decoding skills have progressed sufficiently, the Dolch sight words are taught. Since these 220 words are studied in first and second grades, children who master them have a good base for beginning to read. Gideon works with each child preparing him or her for entering school with the skills for reading success. The young student gains the ability and confidence to read with fluency and comprehension. Reading for Comprehension The focus of the Gideon Comprehension Program is to develop the skills necessary for reading with understanding. The curriculum includes an early comprehension series designed to promote reading for meaning. These beginning comprehension booklets provide a variety of exercises while developing new vocabulary. Research has shown that a strong vocabulary is essential for comprehension. The Gideon Vocabulary curriculum provides challenging activities to advance and strengthen basic language skills. Semantics exercises, crossword puzzles, scrambled sentences, matching, and writing all work to build confidence in the student’s language skills. At Gideon, we believe an early start in grammar is necessary to build a strong foundation in language. Our program simplifies learning grammar concepts so that we may begin teaching children as young as 4 years old. Beginning with basics such as punctuation and capitalization, the curriculum includes subject-verb agreement, verb tenses, sentence construction and diagramming.
|
