Welcome to Sisiutl
Welcome to the web site for Sisiutl -- Center for Learning.
LEARN IN A WAY THAT WORKS FOR YOU!
On this web site, you will find information about Learning Differences / Disabilities, as well as what Sisiutl can do to help with these differences.
Melinda Pongrey, MSED, offers one-on-one assessment and direct instruction for learning differences / disabilities --- including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Language Delays, Dyslexias, Motor-Spatial Delays, Visual-Spatial Delays, and Non-Verbal Learning Disorder. By combining knowledge of how learning takes place in the brain with knowledge of specialized teaching methods, Melinda demystifies learning challenges. Sisiutl offers children and adults a wide-range of intensive, individualized interventions, including SOI Systems materials and Balametrics --- The Learning Breakthrough Program, designed to remediate learning problems, build cognition and develop learning strategies. Learn and develop optimally to meet your goals in reading, writing, spelling, math, organization, and life skills. Develop study and organizational strategies. Learn to use your strengths to overcome areas of weakness. Improve your overall performance in cognition, academics, and sports through the use of the Belgau Balance Board activities.
Learning Differences are everywhere! While often associated with gifted individuals, learning differences can underlie academic, social, and/or life skill difficulties. When not understood and/or not carefully addressed, individuals experience untold frustration. Melinda Pongrey provides individual assessment and instruction for children as well as adults. Through an ASSESSMENT process, families better understand the factors that affect their child's performance. Information is key-understanding how to 'read' a child's responses to their world opens a new door into finding strategies and accommodations for success at home, at school, with peers, in academics and throughout life. Frequently, adult students increase their understanding of the difficulties they have experienced and become better advocates at school or work. Following the ASSESSMENT individualized, one-on-one INSTRUCTION is designed, using a combination of ingredients to build new cognitive skills or pathways into learning.
To get an idea of how many people in our history learned differently, please consider the following [1]:
- Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. He also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.
- Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and he did not read until he was seven. His teacher described him as "mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.” He was expelled from school.
- Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, flunked out of college. He was described as” both unable and unwilling to learn.”
- Abraham Lincoln ran for public office seven times and was defeated every time before becoming president of the United States.
- Beethoven was told at an early age that he had no talent for music.
- John Lennon was labeled, “learning disabled.” He was dyslexic.
- Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
- The Beatles were turned down by Decca Recording Company because “Groups of guitars are on their way out.”
- When Lucille Ball began studying to become an actress in 1927, she was told by the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School, “Try another profession. Any other.”
- Leon Uris, author of the bestseller Exodus, failed high school English three times.
- Woody Allen flunked motion picture production at New York University and the City College of New York. He also failed English at N.Y.U.
- Marilyn Monroe, when inquiring about modeling work, was told, “You better learn secretarial work or else get married.”
[1] Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul Journal, Jack Canfield, HCI Teens (October 1, 1998)