Students at the Aurora Day Schools make amazing progress in many ways.  Read about Real Students and their very real success stories.  Student and parent names have been changed to protect their identities.

Success Stories from December 2011

Noah’s Success Story

Last spring Noah found it hard to focus on his schoolwork for more than 10 minutes at a time. He was constantly out of his seat and off task making it impossible for him to learn and grow.

This year, since coming to Aurora, he has shown a lot of growth and is making huge strides. When he first started school, he would run away from teachers at the mere mention of doing school work.

But then Noah began implementing The Aurora Way. The Aurora Way is an overall methodology and set of research based tools and programs used to help students breakthrough to the next level.

Using The Aurora Way approach helped him to focus, concentrate for longer periods and improve his balance and coordination. Due to his hard work:

  • Noah is now able to sit in class and complete his assignments.
  • He has since learned multiplication and division.
  • His reading has improved to the point he enjoys reading on his own.

“It is a pleasure working with Noah and seeing him grow as a young man.” one teacher said.

His mother told us how happy she is that Noah is actually reading for pleasure at home. For the first time ever he asked for a book for Christmas. She said, “Thanks to Aurora, this will be the best Christmas ever!”

Karen’s Story

“Karen” an exuberant 12 year old girl, is in her first year at Aurora.  We asked her what she thinks about her new school:

“The school gets a 100, compared to my other school,” she replied.  After 3 years at her other school, Karen still did not have very many friends, and did not like attending.  She struggled with class work and had to retake some of her classes.  “I even had to go through summer school!”  But now, Karen is learning and enjoys coming to school everyday.  “Math has always been easy for me, but reading was hard,” she says.  “Since I’ve been at Aurora, reading is getting easy for me, too.”

What does Karen think of the staff? “Mr. Trey is fun to be around.  He is teaching me to throw a (football) good spiral. Ms Gina is a good teacher.  She is always there for me.  Ms Carlynn always has a smile on her face, and that’s why I love coming to Aurora.”

And we love having her here.

Elizabeth’s Amazing Progress

Elizabeth is a very sweet and loving middle school girl. She has been in speech therapy and to the best schools and seen the best therapists her entire life, but she still struggled every day with being able to speak.

When she first started school at Aurora, there were only a handful of familiar words that the teachers could understand and Elizabeth would become frustrated trying to communicate verbally.

One year later on her birthday, her family came with her to Aurora to have a birthday party with all of her school friends.

Her grandmother said, “I can’t believe how much Elizabeth is talking now! She is saying so much.  She has been in speech therapy her entire life, but in the last year at your school she has made more progress than in all of the years of speech therapy!”

Her dad also said, “For the first time in her life, she and I can talk to each other.  We can hold a conversation and I can actually understand what she is saying.  We can really talk to each other.

It means so much to me and I don’t have enough good things to say about Aurora.”  I have been so happy watching her go from being too shy to join in peer activities and games, to gladly joining in and even being the one to tell everyone else how to do games and activities.  It has been such a joy watching her flourish into a happy and confident young lady. “

Teachers Do Make a Difference

A Parent’s Story as told by Headmaster Matthew Tarpley

One of the greatest parts of my job is talking with our Parents. Recently I had a Parent share this story with me.  On a recent afternoon here at the school this particular parent was in the building when her son did something inappropriate that he should not have done.

The Parent was upset and wanted to question her son as to why he would do something like that. She “cornered” him and began questioning him. Her son then shut down and refused to respond which upset the Parent even more.  At this point one of our teachers stepped in and pulled the student aside to talk privately about the situation. The student responded well and acknowledged his inappropriate actions and then returned to class.

The Parent was amazed at how well her son responded to the teacher. She quickly realized how her own actions might have contributed to the problem at that time and she was so thankful for the teacher stepping in and defusing the situation. She wiped the tears away while telling this story and telling me how thankful she was for Aurora and I was reminded of how amazing our teachers and staff are!  Now it really does feel like Christmas.

Previous Success Stories

Sasha’s Amazing Progress as Told by His Mother

My son’s story started before I ever met him. Born in Russia, Sasha was full of excitement about being adopted and moving to America. Moving here at 9 years old, he was at a disadvantage right away because he had to learn English while everyone else his age was learning to read. I thought he would catch up.

After a few years in school, I discovered that he had learning disabilities: dyslexia and an auditory processing disorder. I also learned that his eyes didn’t focus in the same way at the same time. This made school very difficult for Sasha. It was the death of a dream, and the beginning of an education – for me.

The next few years I tried a lot of different things: speech therapy twice a week, a specialized reading program, cognitive enrichment, private school (until he was kicked out because he couldn’t read), homeschool, “special ed” school, public education, and eye therapy. Although a lot of the activities helped, I always felt that a piece of the puzzle was missing.

It wasn’t until I sent Sasha to Aurora Strategies at 17 years old that I found the missing piece. Their combination of therapies, common sense and qualified teachers made a huge difference. In fact, his processing speed and visual matching speed increased more than three years, his math fluency improved by more than one year – and that was in one month!


Andy’s Success at Aurora

Andy is a 13-year-old middle school student on the Autism spectrum in his first year at Aurora.

His parents were frustrated with the public school system and never saw any real progress in his education. His mom and dad said he had difficulty with focus, concentration, comprehension and auditory processing. Public school was an academic and social struggle for him daily.

At Aurora he (like all students) was given a battery of cognitive assessments. Our academic coaches reviewed his assessments and created a personalized Strategic Plan for Rapid Success. That plan includes some of the latest programs in neurocognitive technology including Interactive Metronome, Fast ForWord, and The Listening Program.

So far he’s completed 1 cycle of Interactive Metronome which has greatly improved his concentration and focus and given him much better control of his impulsivity.

The Fast ForWord programs helped him improve his language and reading skills. His teachers have seen gains in both his receptive and expressive language. Recently during the Thanksgiving break, his parents and family commented about how pleasantly surprised they were. He has become amazingly talkative they said.

The Listening Program has also helped improve those skills. It trains the brain to improve the auditory skills needed to effectively listen, learn and communicate.

Early in the year it was hard for him to sit and focus for even 10 minutes in class. Now he’s an active and engaged learner who looks forward to classes, and can easily sit through a 30 minute class without interruption.

 

Mrs. Weston’s Testimonial

“It is with great pleasure that I recommend Aurora Strategie to friends and acquaintances who have children with disabilities requiring speech and occupational therapy. The educational programs provided by Aurora combined with Fast ForWord and Interactive Metronome have truly helped my son!”

 

Dr. Brichant’s Testimonial

“Thank you for your assistance with Thomas. Your evaluation summary is excellent. Please call for any questions or referral needs!”

 

Mrs. Fosner’s Testimonial

“Our experience was Great!  I could not have been more pleased with the camp.  We feel we got our monies worth and more.  Thank you!”