There is a way.

Teachers specialize. Kids make gains.

As a private not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational resource center located in Wichita, Kansas, Fundamental Learning Centerprovides a continuum of programs and services for Kansas’ children experiencing difficulty in reading, writing and spelling.  We are in compliance with National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) supported longitudinal research and Federal and Kansas educational policy.  The Fundamental Learning Center delivers consulting and educational services to concerned parents as well as private, parochial, and public school systems, regular and special education across the state.

Additionally, Fundamental Learning Center is an International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council (IMSLEC) accredited site.  The Center has intensively prepared hundreds of highly-qualified and specifically trained individuals who provide direct intervention literacy instructional activities with children at-risk for significant reading difficulties across the state of Kansas.

“Why is my child failing to learn to read?” Are you confused, concerned, and frustrated with the lack of answers you receive to this important question? Do you puzzle over the fact that your child is smart, yet not doing well in  school?

No one can expect children to succeed in life without learning to read.

We can help.

Our Mission: We disseminate quality research-based programs and knowledge to educate and empower children, educational professionals, concerned parents, and the broader community for the purpose of significantly improving individual literacy skills.

We can help!

Fundamental Learning Center is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3), and we are specialists in the area of reading difficulties. The director and staff of the Fundamental Learning Center has offered assessment, consulting and educational services to private, parochial and public school systems, regular and special education educators across the State of Kansas for the past twenty years. Having incorporated the research related to reading into our teacher preparation courses, we are knowledgeable.

We can direct you to our resources for parents and teachers or community resources. It is important that you find help for the struggling child who has brought you to this website. Call us, we look forward to sharing information with you. 316.684.READ (7323).

for parents and teachers of preschool aged children

A road map for developing pre-literacy skills is available at the Fundamental Learning Center. Using the curriculum units, In The Kitchen and On The Farm, you will learn to map lessons for preschool-aged children. These units provide a light script for 15 minute’s worth of activities that are easy to follow, build vocabulary, and provide materials. As you move from In The Kitchen to On The Farm, oral language expands as it relates to letters, sounds, numbers, print awareness and phonological awareness skills. You and your child will have fun as you experience the hands-on activities, songs, finger-plays, and stories.

Thursday: October 7, 2010

Thursday: November 4, 2010

TIME: 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

COST: $310 (Includes Language Literacy Kit 1)

KDHE inservice hours included

Fundamental Learning Center provides a Literacy Intervention Specialist Preparation Program to intensively train parents, classroom teachers, reading specialists and educators who teach children in multi-tiered settings.

This program uses the Alphabetic Phonics curriculum as the core approach for teaching children who struggle significantly to learn to read.

Alphabetic Phonics originated at Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas, Texas.  It incorporates Orton-Gillingham theories of reading instruction and practice, using multisensory activities to link the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic senses.

All of workshops and courses incorporate the five components of reading instruction identified in NIH research:

1. phonological awareness

2. systematic and structured phonics

3. comprehension

4.  fluency

5. vocabulary development

These components are essential to meet criteria requirements for the Reading First Initiative.

The curriculum is extremely comprehensive. It balances the many important aspects of language acquisition: listening, phonology, phonetic reading, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary development, handwriting, spelling, and written expression skills.

It extends from developing basic skills such as letter recognition to sophisticated levels of linguistic knowledge such as coding polysyllabic words after breaking them into syllables.

The structured, systematic, sequential lesson takes an hour to complete with 11 activities typically lasting 3-10 minutes each. Each daily new concept is taught through a discovery process that is both fun to teach as well as to learn.

Teacher education is intensive and demanding.  It includes a minimum of 200 instructional hours at the Center followed by 700 hours of supervised practice with students. Teachers attend a two-week introductory course, a two-week advanced course the following year, and a final one week advanced-extension course the third year. In addition, two full day workshops are required for both the introductory and the advanced courses.

All course participants begin a 20-hour practicum experience. A total of 9 hours of graduate credit is available from Newman University for an additional fee.

Initial registration may be completed by mail, but an additional telephone registration/interview is required to complete the process.

Mon. – Fri.: Nov. 8 – 19, 2010

Mon. – Fri.: Feb. 28 – March 11, 2011

Mon. – Fri.: June 6 – 17, 2011

Additional Practicum Required.

Time: 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Cost: $1450 for tuition and supplies. $450 deposit required.

Requirements: Deadline for registration is 3 weeks before start of class. Bachelors degree from an accredited 4 year institution. Documentation includes a copy of transcripts, copy of degree, and three professional references. Completion of Advanced and Advanced Extension Level Courses required to become a candidate for certification.

“They should have taught me this in college; I am so much more prepared as a first year teacher.” Sally Holiday