A central part of the Forman program is the Learning Center staffed by trained learning specialists. Each Forman student has an assigned learning specialist. The Learning Center provides comprehensive services to students depending on their individual needs. These services range from intensive reading instruction to strategies courses for students who struggle with daily organization, homework and time management.

What truly distinguishes the Forman approach is the training and experience of the learning specialists. Our learning specialists are not tutors, but rather experts at teaching students how to learn. We employ a variety of techniques tailored to the unique needs of each student including Orton-Gillingham, Lindamood-Bell, and the Wilson Reader Program as well as innovative, field-tested methods developed by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning.

The skills and strategies our students acquire in the Learning Center become the building blocks for success in the classroom. Content teachers integrate tools perfected through the Learning Center within each academic discipline. Thus, our students refine skills and strategies within a traditional college preparatory program under the guidance of teachers fully grounded in learning differences. This enhances and strengthens the learning process.

Technology plays a vital role in the Learning Center curriculum. Teachers provide students with assistive technology that will improve access to learning opportunities. Assistive technology is determined on a case by case basis and is related directly to a student’s needs.

Considerable emphasis is placed on fostering self-advocacy skills. Students learn to identify, explain and manage their particular learning challenge as well as to articulate the accommodations they may need to be successful in college. Graduates leave Forman confident and secure in their ability to achieve success in the next stage of their lives.

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