Difficulties with reading, writing and maths can lead to frustration and anxiety towards learning. Our structured literacy programs are individually tailored to support your child's weaknesses whilst promoting their strengths. Our programs are multisensory and fun and have produced significant gains in learning and confidence in our learners from 4 to 18 years of age. Structured Literacy A structured literacy approach provides: explicit, systematic, and sequential teaching of literacy at multiple levels – phonemes, letter–sound relationships, syllable patterns, morphemes, vocabulary, sentence structure, paragraph structure, and text structure. cumulative practice and ongoing review.

Neurodevelopmental Movement Therapy Retained primitive reflexes can lead to developmental delays related to disorders like ADHD, sensory processing disorder, autism, and learning disabilities. The persistence of primitive reflexes contribute to issues such as coordination, balance, sensory perceptions, fine motor skills, sleep, immunity, energy levels, impulse control, concentration and all levels of social, emotional, and academic learning. Our Neurodevelopmental Movement Therapy and Rhythmic Movement Therapy exercises support reflex and sensory integration. Sensory Integration Challenges Exercises which address all the seven senses are used to strengthen and integrate the senses. Some children have difficulty handling the information received by their senses; things like sound, touch,sight, smell and taste. There are two, less well-known senses, that can also be affected; proprioception (muscle feedback to the brain - a sense of body awareness) and vestibular sense (balance, movement and coordination). Children with sensory processing issues experience either too much or too little stimulation through these senses which can affect their ability to function effectively across all areas of their lives. The Astronaut Program The Astronaut program is a sound activated vestibular-visual program that helps to integrate the auditory, visual and vestibular systems. As movement is a part of everything that we do, the vestibular system (balance) is important for all our interactions with the sensory world.

The Listening Program & Therapeutic Listening Program Our auditory intervention programs are used to support sensory integration. The auditory system is connected to all the major organs in the body. This being so, the specially recorded and adapted music can have a significant effect on the child’s level of arousal, attention, social interaction, motor control, auditory processing, visual processing and oral motor skills. For more information on The Listening Program and to try a FREE 7 day trial go to our Listening Program drop down menu. Forbrain Forbrain® is a powerful brain stimulation device designed to help people overcome speech, attention, or learning issues with specialist support.

The Alert Program (How does Your Engine Run?) and Zones of Regulation are programs that teach self-regulation, awareness and coping strategies. They provide the child with the tools to monitor the signals that indicate an internal level of readiness to work, play, listen, attend and participate in the activities of life. By recognising when their “engine is running” too high, too low or just right for the activity they are engaged in, what zone they are in, the child is able to use self-regulation strategies to bring them into the optimal state of arousal needed at the time. The Feuerstein Program uses mediated learning to take simple principals off the paper and relate them to daily activities and real-life scenarios and situations. The program teaches the brain to think and be more aware of decisions and outcomes.

A free initial 1 hour assessment is offered to highlight areas of possible underlying weakness and to determine if Pathways to Learning is right for your child. Further in-house assessments are carried out once the child starts with Pathways to Learning. Information gathered from these assessments is used to devise your child's individual program. Parents are also asked to complete a developmental questionnaire and a sensory profile questionnaire.  Results from our in-house screening may be used to refer onwards to other practitioners; optometrist, behavioural optometrist, audiologist etc.

Individual sessions are for 1 hour and are usually attended once or twice a week in our rooms in the center of Whangarei. During your session your child will work one-on-one with Rachael. Their program will be individually tailored to meet your child's specific needs. This program may include several of our programs and can be adapted to meet the changing needs of your child at any time.