Educational Services

Educational Consulting

As a parent, we know that you want the best for your child, both in and outside of the classroom. However, when your child is encountering challenges with their schoolwork while at home or in the educational setting, you may find it difficult to determine the best plan of action to address those challenges. A way to bridge that gap is through home-based or school-based educational consulting.

Home-Based Educational Consulting

Home-Based Educational Consulting is a service that sets Aptivate apart because educational consultants are not just tutors or homework helpers; they play a broader role in helping students achieve their academic and other aspirational goals by meeting with students and their parents, collaboratively developing a comprehensive and customized Achievement Plan (with goals, objectives, and timelines), and following up with students to monitor their progress on those goals. The follow-up meetings are held to determine if the Achievement Plan needs to be modified, continued, or discontinued (e.g., because the goals have been met).

School-Based Educational Consulting

As a parent, we know that you want the best for your child, both in and outside of the classroom. However, when your child is encountering challenges in the educational setting, you may find it difficult to determine the best plan of action to address those challenges. A way to bridge that gap is through school-based educational consulting.  

School-Based Educational Consulting is a service provided to assist parents in navigating the school system and seeking the supports necessary to ensure their child’s academic, social-emotional, and/or behavioral needs are being met. Whether your child already has an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 Plan, you are in the process of evaluating for an IEP or 504 Plan, or you have concerns about your child’s current educational program or placement, you may be unsure of your options. Educational consulting with a team member well-versed in educational policies and psychological practices may be the solution for you.

How Educational Consulting Can Help:

  • Demystify the special education process
  • Review and provide feedback of your child’s current IEP, 504 Plan, or school-based support plan
  • Help parents understand their educational rights
  • Discuss differences between an IEP, 504 Plan, and school-based plan
  • Provide guidance for addressing academic, social-emotional, and/or behavioral concerns with interventions that can be implemented across home and school settings

Questions Educational Consulting Can Address: 

  • Do you feel your child would benefit from additional support in school (such as test or classroom accommodations, modifications to their current academic workload, or smaller group instruction) but aren’t sure where to start to obtain that support?
  • Do you want to better understand how your child’s IEP, 504 Plan, or school-based support plan is being implemented and how your child’s progress is being monitored?
  • Are you wondering how the school is addressing the goals of your child’s current IEP?
  • Does your child attend private school and you would like him or her to be evaluated, but your school does not provide that service?
  • Would you like someone to help advocate for your child at school team meetings and know what questions to ask?
  • Do you feel like your concerns are not being addressed, or that the school is applying a “wait to fail approach” before intervening with your child?
Tutoring

Tutoring is provided by experienced teachers in a wide range of academic subjects (e.g., reading, writing, math) and more advanced subjects (e.g., Algebra I or II, or Geometry).

Reading/English/Language Arts

  • Reading tutoring will focus on helping students improve their basic reading skills, comprehension, fluency, or a combination of these skills.
  • As the foundation of most aspects of learning, students in need of reading support can improve in many other areas of their schooling and increase their confidence and like for school.

Writing

  • Writing tutoring will focus on student’s vocabulary (word choice), syntax (word order), semantics (word meaning), spelling, grammar, and mechanics.
  • This support will help students convey their thoughts and different messages in written form.
  • Though handwriting will be addressed with writing tutoring for legibility, writing will include some elements of handwriting to make sure that student’s work can be fully assessed for the aforementioned writing elements.

Math

  • Math tutoring will focus on the student’s calculation skills, problem solving skills, math fluency, basic math facts, use and order of operations, understanding word problems, manipulating integers or decimals, or any other foundational or more advance skills the student needs.
  • Specific math subjects (e.g., Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Geometry) will be offered based on the availability of tutors skilled in those subjects.

Essay Composition

  • As a more advanced writing skill, essay composition tutoring will focus on students’ more comprehensive writing abilities and assist with expressing a main idea, providing supporting details in an essay, conveying a message, etc.
  • Practice with vocabulary (word choice), syntax (word order), semantics (word meaning), spelling, grammar, and mechanics will be emphasized as well.
  • Students will also learn or improve their skills in writing outlines to help organize their thoughts.
  • Essay composition for college applications is a service offered as part of College and Career Counseling.

Phonics

  • Students experiencing difficulty with understanding the sound structure of language and pairing letters with their respective sounds would benefit from phonics tutoring.
  • Prior to starting tutoring in phonics, students would take a brief assessment to evaluate their present levels.

General Homework Help

  • If students are in need of general homework help, tutors can assist them.
  • General homework help will cover academic subjects that are not separately serviced, such as Social Studies/History, Science, or STEM

Handwriting

  • The mechanical, physical act of writing will be practiced with tutoring in handwriting.
  • Students often struggle with legibility (neatness) and their writing fluency (their ability to write quickly and accurately), so handwriting tutoring that will take a lot of practice and patience can be highly valuable.
  • Handwriting support is especially important for many students currently because it is no longer part of most curricula across the United States.
  • Occupational therapy recommendations will also be implemented with students who display fine motor skill deficits.
Academic Skills Training

Skills Training is offered to teach skills in specific areas to elementary- through high school-aged clients (i.e., executive functioning skills and study and test-taking skills). Most skills training sessions will last from 6-8 weeks, or 1-2 weeks if it is during the summer.

Executive Functioning Skills

Executive functioning (EF) skills are higher-order cognitive demands that include–but are not limited to–attention, inhibition, flexibility of thinking, and problem solving. Executive functions are critical to completing day-to-day goal-directed behavior. EF skills are built from strategies that require commitment of time and consistency. 

The main goals of Executive Functioning Skills Training are to:

(1)  Assist students in identifying their executive functioning deficits

(2)  Teach organizational, planning, prioritization, and problem-solving skills to use across home, school, and other settings

(3)  Help students increase their attentional focus on un- or less-desirable tasks

(4)  Assist students in establishing routines and building habits to help them work through (and possibly overcome) their EF challenges

Study and Test-Taking Skills

Study and Test-Taking Skills Training is a special skill area that explicitly teaches students study various methods and ties those methods with test-taking skills. 

The main goals of this training are to:

(1)  Expose students to a variety of study methods and strategies through direct teaching of lessons

(2)  Equip students with the skills to utilize and implement these study methods and strategies with exercises and practice

(3)  Enable students to develop their own personalized and effective overall study plans

Special Needs Skills

Skills training in specific areas for specialized populations (e.g., life skills for independence for first- and second-year college students with autism) will be offered in the future.

College and Career Counseling

College and Career Counseling is a service for 7th through 12th grade students to help plan for post-secondary education and careers. Specialized college and career counseling will also be offered for adolescents with disabilities (e.g., with autism, ADHD, anxiety, specific learning disabilities [dyslexia, dyscalculia, and/or dysgraphia]) as they prepare for the transition after high school and seek resources to access at their post-secondary institutions. 

Educational consultants will work with parents and students to review a multitude school attributes that would best meet the academic, social, emotional, behavioral, and aspirational needs of their child including (but not limited to) the following:

  • Educational Caliber, Prestige, and Ranking
  • Application Process
  • Requirements
  • Cost
  • Location
  • Curricula Available
  • Special Programs Offered
  • Resources Available
  • Student-to-Teacher Ratio and Class Size
  • Activities and Sports Offered
  • College Preparation and Acceptance Rate
  • Average Standardized Test Scores

Depending on parents’ budgets, student’s goals for themselves, parents’ goals for their children, students’ identified or suspected disabilities, and so forth (from the aforementioned list), the educational consultant will help students and parents align their goals with the best type of school for the child. The educational consultant will explain the differences and similarities between the types of schools the parents are considering. He or she may also suggest schools that parents had not considered if he or she feels it would be the most beneficial educational setting for their child. Once students select which schools they want to apply to, the educational consultant will guide them through the application process every step of the way. 

Test Preparation

Test Preparation services coming soon

Test Preparation is a service offered to help students prepare for, ease their anxiety toward, and improve scores on high-stakes standardized tests. Initial test prep sessions will consist of students taking a diagnostic examination (reflective of the actual exam) that will document the student’s current level of preparedness for the exam, and it will highlight the areas of the exam that need the most attention and focus during the subsequent sessions.

SAT

  • Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) tutors will provide strategies to acclimate students to the test, establish the best ways to complete items on the test, and prepare by learning and practicing with content on the test.
  • SAT Test Prep focus on vocabulary, reading fluency and comprehension, math calculation and problem solving, grammar, and writing skills.

ACT

  • American College Testing (ACT) tutors will provide strategies to acclimate students to the test, establish the best ways to complete items on the test, and prepare by learning and practicing with content on the test.
  • ACT Test Prep focus on vocabulary, reading fluency and comprehension, math calculation and problem solving, grammar, science topics, and writing skills.

PSAT

  • Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) tutors will provide strategies to acclimate students to the test, establish the best ways to complete items on the test, and prepare by learning and practicing with content on the test.
  • PSAT/NMSQT Test Prep focus on vocabulary, reading fluency and comprehension, math calculation and problem solving, and grammar.