Journey inward with the Cognition and Learning Department.
Forman’s original mission—to be a practical nerve center researching the best teaching approaches for students who learn differently—still drives us. From their first day, all students enter a Cognition and Learning class tailored to their needs and progress through a curricular track designed to help them thrive.
Our Cognition and Learning Department run ongoing professional development too—so all teachers can offer best-in-class instruction and support.
Metacognition and the Brain: Empowering Students to Think About Thinking
This course gives students the tools to become intentional, independent learners by exploring how the brain works and how they can guide their own learning through metacognition and executive function strategies.
Students will investigate how the adolescent brain develops, how habits are formed, and how emotions, memory, attention, and motivation influence learning. By applying research-backed tools and techniques, students will learn how to improve focus, manage time, build productive routines, and advocate for their individual learning needs.
From developing personalized learning profiles to building an EF Portfolio of strategies, students will reflect on their cognitive strengths, challenges, and growth over time. This course blends science, self-awareness, and real-world application to help students “hack” their learning with intention and insight.
Reading Principles, Reading Skills and Development, Reading Fluency, and Reading with a Critical Eye
The Cognition and Learning Department's reading courses are designed to help students develop reading and word attack skills using an individualized, multi-sensory, phonetic, and sequential approach. The course is taught in a small-group setting with a reading specialist. Additionally, students delve into assistive technology options and resources throughout their time in this course.
To ensure every student grows as a confident and independent reader, Forman’s reading specialists provide individualized instruction tailored to specific learning needs. Our teachers are trained in a variety of research-based programs, including Orton-Gillingham, Wilson, and Lindamood-Bell, which allow us to match the right approach to each learner. Coursework addresses the full range of literacy skills—phonemic awareness, decoding, vocabulary and morphology, grammar and usage, comprehension, and spelling. For students who benefit from deeper support, classes also target advanced decoding, reading fluency, active reading strategies, and higher-level comprehension. As students progress, they practice paraphrasing, summarizing, and interacting with text while also learning to analyze an author’s viewpoint, evidence, bias, and conclusions. Ultimately, our goal is not only to strengthen reading accuracy and fluency, but also to help students evaluate texts critically, understanding not just what a text says, but how and why it says it.
Executive Function Coaching
Executive Function coaching at Forman is a dynamic, student-driven partnership grounded in curiosity, strategy, and reflection. It creates a collaborative learning “lab” where students explore how their strengths and EF challenges impact their thinking, learning, and productivity.
Working one-on-one with an Executive Function Coach, students set personally meaningful goals, break them into actionable steps, anticipate roadblocks, and evaluate progress, all while navigating current academic and life demands. Coaching supports the development of core executive function skills like task initiation, working memory, planning, and emotional regulation.
Through inquiry-based dialogue, structure, and compassionate accountability, students grow their metacognition and become more independent, confident learners. EF coaching at Forman reflects our belief in the power of neurodiverse minds and empowers students to become effective self-advocates, in school and beyond.
Venture into new worlds through Winterim.
This experiential education program—running for two weeks every February and March—plunges the entire Forman community into immersive learning adventures. Winterim’s options are ever-changing (there are almost 30 available): think environmental documentary-making in Patagonia, cultural immersion in Spain, an expedition tracing the US Civil Rights Trail, classes in op-ed journalism, and college tours of America’s Northeast.
Passionate about problem solving? See a market gap that needs filling? Inside Forman’s Promethean Lab—the HQ for our voluntary talent development program—any student with big ideas has a platform to bring them to life.
Take time and space to dream bigger.
Neurodivergent teens are often creative: original thinkers, experimental, inventive problem-solvers. Our Promethean Program is an opportunity to let their ideas run wild in a serious lab environment. Brimming with the latest design tech—from 3D printers to milling machines, welders to architecture and animation software—the space is a hotbed of innovation and peer-to-peer collaboration.
Where structure meets boundless creativity.
The Promethean Program is student-led, with timelines adapted to each project. Students track their progress on individual websites—which double as college portfolio pieces. Faculty advisors offer guidance and structure for every idea, whether filmmaking, game design, music production, or aeronautical science.
A project in the rainforest with global impact.
Founded in 1992, Forman’s Rainforest Project is (an optional) part of the science curriculum. Students take a seven-month tropical ecology class, before a life-changing expedition to Costa Rica. They develop research skills, unearth new information on endangered species—Forman holds multiple US patents—and find alternative, sustainable wage-making enterprises for locals, like propagating orchids in test tubes.
"Initiatives like the Rainforest Project helped me to start thinking like a scientist and problem-solver, and [be ready to] engage in research from my first day at Trinity.”
—Zach Bitan Forman graduate
From farm to table at the Lion’s Den Bistro
Future restaurateurs and budding chefs can hone their skills near-daily on campus at the Lion’s Den Bistro, located in the Malcolm G. Chace Student Center. Under the guidance of a professional chef, they prepare dishes with fresh, organic ingredients sourced from 14 local farms, bakeries, butchers, and restaurants, and serve them up to our community. The program is available as an alternative to a sport.
