CURRICULUM

The instructional program at the Cache Valley Learning Center has its foundations in three disciplines within education:  Direct Instruction, Precision Teaching and Applied Behavior Analysis.

In Direct Instruction program design, no skill is treated as an isolated unit.  The Direct Instruction method begins by analyzing complex skills into smaller component skills and teaching these skills until students fully understand them.  Component skills are then strategically brought together.  The students are shown how these components connect with the larger strategy, learn to generalize the strategies and then apply these generalizations to problem-solving situations.  This careful analysis and structure underlies an instructional design that allows us to teach generalizable problem-solving skills and strategies rather than discrete bits of factual data.  The goal is much larger than merely communicating information: it is to teach students how to learn.

Precision Teaching is a measurement system which addresses both accuracy and fluency.  Fluency is the ability to perform a task quickly, easily and without hesitation.  Fluency is crucial if skills are to be enjoyable and useful in real world situations.  For example, if reading is slow, effortful and halting, the student is unlikely to understand what he reads, is unlikely to enjoy reading and will have great difficulty reading long passages.  When a student achieves fluent reading, his comprehension and enjoyment will increase.  The value of Precision Teaching lies in the use of continuous measurement of both accuracy and fluency.  The teacher has an ongoing record of the student’s progress and can make timely decisions.

We rely on positive consequences to motivate students to behave in ways that are beneficial to them as individuals and to the community of teachers and students at the Learning Center.

The Learning Center offers a program that emphasizes fluency in fundamental skills of reading, spelling, writing and mathematics as well as active participation in literature, science, social studies, Spanish, art and physical education.

Students are grouped for basic skill instruction according to their needs and abilities.  This assures that students receive appropriate instruction.  Students are assigned to classes in science, social studies, Spanish, art and physical education based on their age.  This ensures that the students spend time each day with their age peers.