For more than half a century, Lawrence School has been developing and refining teaching techniques that best serve the needs of students with learning differences, such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and ADHD. Our approach is informed by evidence-based research and the traditions of respect and care upon which our school was founded.
Our programming is strategically designed to address learning differences such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and ADHD. When students become part of Lawrence School, they quickly realize our expert faculty fully recognizes their intelligence and talents and supports their challenges. This relationship allows them to grow academically, socially, and emotionally, in ways they had never known possible.
In every interaction with our students (in the classroom and out), we demand a high level of consistency and professionalism from our staff. The Lawrence Way, originally created to support faculty in learning our routines, has become the foundation for instruction in every classroom at the school and encompasses the four tenets of our approach:
You may notice our classrooms look bare—this is by design! We train students to focus by removing distractions from the physical environment and continually circulating visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile stimuli to focus their attention on the lesson at hand.
Many Lawrence students struggle with executive function. Our faculty members model organization in their own behavior and structure classrooms in a consistent, understandable way. These students benefit greatly from constant, direct teaching of organizational strategies which help them to transfer these skills independently into their everyday life.
We require that all lessons are presented in a multisensory manner. Students best remember what they are learning when the lesson engages multiple senses, this includes: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, or even smell and taste-related materials.
Students must own and understand a concept before a new one is introduced. Teachers are never told how far to progress content—pace is determined by students. We teach key concepts to mastery (80% of students achieving 80% or better on assessments) while appropriately moving through curriculum. When one or more students struggle, we move on, but we continually circle back to key concepts and utilize our on-staff learning specialists. Our job is to build the solid educational foundation students need to be successful in the future.
The following policies are just a few of the K–12 teaching guidelines we employ at Lawrence School:
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