Academics

Students who learn differently need the right instruction, coupled with the right intensity, to close the academic achievement gap. Many students come to Lawrence from environments where they had daily pull-outs for intervention or afterschool tutoring… but it is the high dosage of specialized instruction offered at our Lower School that is critical to their academic progress. Detailing our daily schedule is the best way to shed light on how we achieve such impressive results.

Morning

Lower School students begin the day in a language arts homeroom. Made up of an average of only nine learners, this class is grouped by ability instead of age or grade level. Together, they spend 160 minutes learning to read, write, and spell. That is more than 2.5 hours of specialized, direct, systematic, multisensory instruction EVERY DAY!

After language arts, this same group of students participate in their daily special. These consist of weekly classes in physical education, music, library, computer skills, and art. Even special teachers are fully trained in our multisensory approach and best practices for students who learn differently. 

Much like traditional school, the morning is rounded out with lunch and a generous recess where students play tetherball, enter a friendly match in the GaGa ball pit, shoot hoops on the basketball courts, or just swing and climb on the jungle gym.

Afternoon

In the afternoon, we regroup our students based on their math instructional needs. The students who have class together in the morning, based on their reading ability, rarely have the same math skill set. So, we "reshuffle the deck.” This new cohort of students spends 75 minutes participating in specialized, direct, systematic, multisensory math instruction.

Our school day concludes with social studies or science. For these subjects, students are grouped according to their grade level, allowing them to access the concepts and content outlined in the State of Ohio’s learning standards.

We find the intense amount of specialized instruction offered at the Lower School is often triple, or even quadruple, the intervention minutes required by a student's learning plan or IEP. When students become Lawrence learners, their academics take off. It’s no wonder why.