Helping all Students to Love their Learning Journey at Chrysalis
Extra Lesson … What is it?
Chrysalis management understand the need to support all our students to learn. Accordingly, for one and a half decades Chrysalis has provided many students with the benefits of Extra Lesson®.
The Extra Lesson program is based on the premise that learning difficulties, or now considered learning differences, are often due to disruptions in the developmental stages of the first seven years of life. This can result in poor spatial orientation and body awareness, sensory processing challenges, retained early movement patterns and co-ordination difficulties. Research supports the connection between learning difficulties and early childhood development and shows that regular movement and physical activity can help develop neural pathways in the brain.
As a parent or teacher you will often see a child who is disengaged, distracted, underachieving, exhausted or frustrated by the learning process. By working on underlying barriers to learning, Extra Lesson can offer your child a second chance to learn without this struggle. Extra Lesson is a drug-free, non-invasive alternative for dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, fine and gross motor problems, and reading, maths and spelling difficulties.
The Extra Lesson training also includes, identifying the need a student may have for an external therapy. Therefore, recommendations may be made to external practitioners such as – osteopaths, optometrists, naturopaths, speech pathologists etc.
A typical Extra Lesson program involves an assessment followed by weekly individual lessons tailored to each child’s needs. These lessons include fine and gross motor exercises, movement combined with rhythmic language or song as well as art therapy in the form of painting and drawing.
Also, there are daily exercises to be completed at home which involve recapitulating the gross motor skills from birth which gives the brain a second chance to develop the crucial right left brain and body neural pathways. These exercises are also completed at school in Class 1 and 2 as part of the daily Movement Programme.