Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Nemours Brightstart!: Program For Children Who Show Early Signs Of Dyslexia

The Luma Center™ for Development and Learning today announced that this fall it will begin offering Nemours BrightStart!, an innovative pre-reading program for young children who show early signs of dyslexia or may be at risk for reading challenges.

Nemours BrightStart!, developed by Nemours Children’s Health System, is a specialized program for “literacy success” in at-risk children. Through systematic instruction and carefully designed, engaging, multisensory activities, 4- and 5-year-old children learn the foundational skills that will support them in learning to read.

A study of at-risk children in Florida conducted by Nemours showed that children who participated in the program showed dramatic increases in reading readiness test scores compared to children who did not.

“We are very excited to be able to offer a great research based program for our young children at risk for reading challenges,” said Nancy Allard, MA, OTR/L, Director of The Luma Center™. “We work with many families who have one or more children with learning differences.

For their children, this program will be such a great ‘jump start’ to help build the foundation for success in learning to read.”

The Luma Center will offer screenings for BrightStart! October 4 and 6 to identify children who could benefit from the program. Luma’s BrightStart! program will consist of 20 weeks of twice-weekly small-group sessions taught by an experienced early childhood teacher.

The BrightStart! curriculum integrates classic children’s literature and music with fun, multisensory lesson materials.

While creating and tracing “gluey, gooey” G’s to learn to recognize letter forms, listening to read-alouds, or engaging in creative movement activities, children learn critical concepts of oral language, print awareness, letter knowledge, phonological awareness and emergent writing.

More information about the screenings for BrightStart! and enrollment process is available at www.lumacenter.org.

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