The Journey
Meadowbrook Educational Services was started by Renie Smith in 1998 in response to the great need for programs to help Learning Disabled students.
Renie has spent years learning about children who struggle. She began her search in the late 1970’s to help her own family. She started with long-distance Orton-Gillingham consulting for her nieces and nephews - she volunteered in the elementary school (in now famous Forks, WA) and she was part of the Parent Advocate program in middle school (in Port Angeles, WA). She was honored for her volunteering in local schools with a “Parent of the Year” award for 1984-1985.
Renie volunteered as an art docent through the University of Washington's Art Marks program - to engage children in an understanding of art and encourage their creativity. She observed that some of the most creative students were pulled out of normal class for extra help in the reading room.
Renie continued volunteering in her youngest son's classrooms as he began public school. She used what she had learned through Orton-Gillingham to help children with learning language. All of her experience did not help her son as he attempted Kindergarten the second time with very little success. Renie decided she needed more training. She was confounded by his apparent intelligence coupled with a struggle to write and read. Researching programs available in Washington State she was motivated to take Slingerland training while continuing to volunteer. Renie was excited to apply her knowledge with the students at school, and especially, with her son; however, while other children made gains - her son continued struggling with left-right confusions, letter flipping, and poor letter formation.
Offered the opportunity for training in Spalding - Renie continued to educate herself in the field of reading programs. . She enrolled in the Total Reading program which she used in school as well as with her son at home. The Total Reading program was a faster approach, but her son was still not able to encode and decode as fast as expected. He was placed into a special education class for reading as both the school and Renie continued to teach and reteach the basics of reading and writing (1st through 3rd grade).
With her son entering a new school district and grade level (fourth grade), Renie knew he needed more knowledge so she enrolled in the second level training for Slingerland and resigned herself to doing extra language studies at home with her continually language confused child who could perform two years ahead in math but still could not spell or read at grade level.
Still searching for help, Renie took him to Hope Clinic in Bellvue where he was placed on an eye-vision therapy program and ADD-biofeedback. Again, there were small gains, but not the amount of change that Renie was looking for - her son's relief from confusion and placement back into regular education classes.
Moving to Spokane Washington in 1994, Renie continued volunteering in her son's school. She assessed Kindergarten children using the Slingerland Assessment and formed a reading club after school for local students who struggled with reading. One of those student's confusions is the reason Meadowbrook Educational Services exists. This young student reminded Renie of her son - both were bright but confused and had poor reading skills. With both, Renie had run into the “brick wall” and progress was extremely slow. Renie realized that all her training was based in Orton-Gillingham methodology which worked for the majority of children, but not her son nor a few other very confused students. These children were “on” “off” students - sometimes they could do well, other times they could not. Both Renie and the students were puzzled why some days went well and some days did not.
Still searching, Renie looked at every program she could find that worked with Dyslexia. She found a program based on an idea she had never heard of before. The idea that some children and adults need specific instruction about how to look at and think about letters and words. Renie had always assumed that reading was a normal and natural function that everyone could perform if they had the right keys. She was confused about this idea and when sharing this new information with her son, he became excited because he totally identified with the concepts presented. She was baffled; he begged to take the program, so contingent on his success, she decided to train in the Davis method.
During training, it was a struggle for Renie to realize that people who process symbols as objects and need a clear picture of the concept of symbols cannot read well until the confusions are controlled and addressed. She had assumed that through multi-sensory repetition and the maturation process, all people could learn to read.
With new exercises and tools Renie set about working with the students that had previously made little gains in her prior reading programs. This new methodology worked with all of these students. Greatly encouraged at finding both the solution for her son (he was removed from special education classes for the rest of his high school career) and others she officially started Meadowbrook Educational Services.
Within the first year Renie found students who neither her Orton-Gillingham based reading programs nor the Davis Method achieved desired goals. Again, she had a few students without substantial gains. While in Singapore, working with private students, she learned about the Tomatis method for auditory processing and listening skills. On her return she began researching sound therapy programs and their benefits.
Selecting Advanced Brain's The Listening Program, she and her staff learned about the impact of sound on the nervous system, mind, and body. Now we had a way to help those students who tried to concentrate, but couldn't when other sounds were in the environment. We found that when using sound therapy, not only was there improvement in auditory processing and listening abilities but there was a marked improvement in the speed of achievement both in their programs from Meadowbrook and their school experience.
We became conscious of the need for adequate memory development in our clients. When we started testing for sequential memory we realized the students who struggled the hardest in all our programs had the lowest sequential memory or digit spans. None of the programs we offered could help alleviate their intense bewilderment about the world around them unless we added a component to expand their memory. We had learned about importance of short-term memory's role in academic achievement and a computer program called BrainBuilder at the Advanced Brain training. While useful for older children and adults; we needed a sequential memory program that could be used with groups of students interactively and Renie left again for training in South Africa in a program called Audiblox.
Audiblox was a foundational skills program. It taught students: attention, focus, concentration, visual and auditory memory, reasoning, listening, patterning, movement, and logical thinking; all basic skills needed for learning. These programs took a minimum of six months to raise memory to the place where students could show sizable improvements in their reading, writing, listening, and speaking at school.
People who struggle with learning often have holes in their education. These holes from misunderstood or confused concepts, missing skills, and inadequate experience cannot be filled by the maturation process or by standard curriculum. Structure of Intellect, by SOI Systems tests for and builds specific foundational curriculum to fill in the gaps.
Now we had what we needed to educationally address what was causing learning confusions and gaps in children and adults through mind, brain, and body.
After several years of working with children and adults we have honed our skill in creating the program that will have the most significant impact for each individual.
Welcome to your new life - The Meadowbrook Team
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