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Foundation
Many students are required to attend summer school to help them improve their performance in basic subjects – usually Reading or Math or both. Often a student struggles in these subjects because of weak cognitive and perceptual abilities in domains that brain research has proven to be essential to effective learning.
Purpose
The Bridges Summer Prep program engages summer students each day in a brief but systematic way with both physical and non-content activities selected to nurture and enhance those cognitive and perceptual abilities which are commonly under-developed in at-risk students.
Students Served
All K-6 summer school students in a District will benefit, including English-language learners, and urban and rural populations. Summer Prep may be implemented in one or more grade levels, and multiple levels in one school needn’t be consecutive.
Expectations
Improved focus, concentration, comprehension and evaluation. Reporting of underlying weaknesses in cognition and perception, such as memory and vision, which could impair efficient learning.
Value
Districts enroll students in summer school to reduce retention and to be prepared for improved academic performance that results in rising test scores. Summer Prep, by improving the underlying cognitive and perceptual abilities that empower a student’s true learning, increases the effectiveness of the summer school curriculum. Additionally, Summer Prep 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 term of the Summer Prep program itself, or later by the full-year Bridges Learning Development program, or by an outside professional specialist.
Student Appeal
Each Summer Prep 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, Summer Prep brings a new and stimulating experience to students that supports their accelerated development of focus, concentration and memory.
Exposure
Students participate as a group 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. 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 6-week summer school session, yet it may accommodate shorter or longer summer schools.
Activities
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, particular emphasizing math and reading/language arts.
Materials & Equipment
Summer Prep includes everything the school needs to implement the program, comprising about 30 items, such as daily lesson plans, visual-focusing exercises, memory-building activities, references, furnishings and record-keeping “expert system” software.
Assessment
Midway through the Summer Prep program, approximately 2 hours of school time are devoted to administering developmentally appropriate SOI instrument(s) that assess multiple cognitive abilities for each participating student enrolled in Grade 3 or higher during the previous school year. Measurements include such cognitive abilities as comprehension, memory, evaluation, problem-solving, concrete reasoning, symbolic reasoning and semantic reasoning.
Accountability
For students entering Grades 4-7, a detailed cognitive profile is provided. 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 ‘user-friendly’ 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 summer school classroom. Depending on specific abilities that need strengthening – such as memory, visual closure, classification, following instructions, etc. – activities are described. 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. And the student report truly connects the summer school, next fall’s school(s) and the home.
Staffing
Summer Prep is operated under the supervision of a school staff member who is trained by Bridges consultants in a 3-day regional staff development course prior to the opening of summer school. One certified Summer Prep facilitator is required for each school site.
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