The Bridges PM program engages students almost daily for 16 weeks in a brief but systematic way with both physical and noncontent activities selected to nurture and enhance those cognitive and perceptual abilities which are commonly underdeveloped in at-risk students.
Students Served
All Grade K-8 After-School students in a District will benefit, including English-language learners, and urban and rural populations. Bridges PM may be implemented in one or more grade levels, and multiple levels in one school needn’t be consecutive.
Expectations
Participants will improve attention, memory, rule-following, symbol-decoding, reading comprehension, arithmetical reasoning, cause/effect thinking, etc., all of which, if underdeveloped, could impair efficient learning.
Districts enroll students in After-School to reduce retention and to prepare students for improved academic performance that results in rising test scores. Bridges PM, by improving the underlying cognitive and perceptual abilities that empower a student’s true learning, increases the effectiveness of the After-School curriculum. Additionally, Bridges PM will reveal that many students have previously unrecognized cognitive/perceptual weaknesses or delays that have a surprisingly large and negative impact on learning efficiency. Many of these weaknesses can be remedied fairly easily, perhaps within the scope of the Bridges PM program itself, or later by the more intense full-year Bridges Learning Development program, or by an outside professional specialist.
Each activity is very engaging to students because it is both energetic, in the case of many perceptual activities, and fundamentally content-free, while stimulating the intellect to master all content areas. Rather than being more curriculum, Bridges PM brings a new and stimulating experience to students that supports their accelerated development of focus, concentration and memory.
Students participate as a group 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week, but the schedule is flexible. Groups can vary in size depending on class management preferences. Detailed lesson plans are provided to the teachers who oversee the program. The design assumes a 16-week After-School session, yet it may accommodate shorter or longer programs.
Students undertake a variety of standup and seatwork activities as a group. What students may describe simply as "fun" would be explained by educators as thinking and reasoning, visual and auditory recall, visual discrimination and focusing, and the mind-body connection. Activities change from day to day, always correlating to underlying cognitive and perceptual abilities most critical for specific curricular areas, particularly emphasizing Math and Reading/Language Arts.
Bridges PM includes everything the school needs to implement the program, comprising about 30 items, such as daily lesson plans, visual-focusing exercises, assessment instruments, workbooks, memory-building activities, references and furnishings.
Bridges PM is operated under the supervision of a school staff member who is trained by Bridges consultants in a 3-day regional staff development course at the start of the school year. One certified Bridges PM facilitator is required for each school site.
Each participating student is assessed to measure his/her multiple cognitive abilities. Assessment is outside of the 30 minutes of daily Program time and by means of developmentally appropriate SOI instrument(s). Students may be assessed in one or more groups, per local classroom management needs and desires. Measurements include such cognitive abilities as comprehension, memory, evaluation, problem-solving, concrete reasoning, symbolic reasoning and semantic reasoning.
For all participating students, a detailed cognitive profile is prepared. Proprietary assessments and professional services measure such cognitive abilities as comprehension, memory, evaluation, problem-solving, concrete reasoning, symbolic reasoning and semantic reasoning. This profile is ‘userfriendly’ for past and future teachers, parents and other stakeholders.
School to Home Connection
Stakeholders are provided with a list of suggested activities they can undertake beyond the After-School classroom. Activities are described depending on specific abilities that need strengthening – such as memory, visual closure, classification, following instructions, etc. Many of these activities use commonly available objects and materials; others involve moderately priced products sold by national discount retailers such as Target and Wal-Mart. The School to Home Connection documents truly connect the After-School, regular school teachers, and the home.
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