The Gateway Professional Newsletter - Winter 2019

newsletter

PROFESSIONALS EDITION | FALL 2018 | WINTER 2019

Dear Friends and Colleagues, Welcome to the Fall 2018 / Winter 2019 issue of our newsletter for the professional community. As the first semester comes to a close, we are proud of the learning and growth that has taken place at The Gateway School. In this issue of our Professional Newsletter, we are honored to share the work of our exceptional community members.

This fall, The Gateway School hosted a professional lecture called Mathland: A Roadmap to the Hidden Obstacles for Language Learning-Disabled Students. The lecture’s featured speaker, Lydia H. Soifer, Ph.D., spoke on the difficulties of math acquisition for students who have language-based learning disabilities and attention deficits.

The Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Gateway’s resident consultant and staff developer, Lydia H. Soifer, Ph.D., along with Gateway’s expert faculty, synthesized fifteen years of research on mathematical learning disabilities and shared the findings with the larger community in the first of a series of annual professional lectures hosted by The Gateway School.

To see an excerpt from Dr. Soifer’s lecture, turn the page!

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ALUMNI

spotlight

Mathland

with

Lydia H. Soifer, Ph.D.

Joshua Roseman (center) and his fellow members of the ADR Competition Honor Society team at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law take the top prize for the second consecutive year at the 10th Annual Securities Dispute Resolution Triathlon.

Joshua Roseman, Class of ’01,

shares with us life after Gateway and his biggest takeaways from his time at The Gateway School.

Q A

What are you currently up to?

I am currently in law school and finishing up my final year. I worked this past summer at a small firm that does commercial real estate work. I also interned at New York State Homes and Community Renewal, which works to provide affordable housing across the city. While in school, I am a part of the Honor Society. I took first place with my team for competition arbitration.

I think Gateway always taught me to ask questions.

Q A Q A Q A

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, 2019 Brandeis University, 2012 Bronx High School of Science, 2008

skills are required in your Q What position on a day-to-day basis?

A

It’s really about time management. Last week was an 80-hour work week, for example. I have a big white board in my house. I add things to various categories in my life to it. For example, the ADR Society, any competition we’re preparing for, or task I need to do for the week, I add it to its own section. Everything is color coded, of course, and under a category. As I finish things, I cross them out. That’s a satisfying feeling.

How do you feel Gateway helped prepare you?

I think that Gateway taught me to “ask questions.” Too often, people like myself go through the process and they’re too shy-they don’t want to be seen as dumb and so refuse to ask questions. The only way you’re going to learn, though, is to ask questions! Make that apparent to the teacher, go to office hours. It may take me more time, but if you get that drive (and Gateway provides that), and you maintain that throughout school and your career, you’re going to be successful.

What was the most important skill you learned at Gateway?

The major takeaway from Gateway is persistence. You’re going to fail sometimes. I do! Those things happen. The key to remember is that everything is a process. Gateway was a process. I learned more about myself. About the journey. But you have the ability to work hard, and you really get that at Gateway.

What was your favorite subject in school at Gateway?

It was math. Our teacher used to give us homework in these shiny folders.

I loved those folders! I think my dad even told my teacher “Josh wants more homework” because I wanted to get one of those shiny folders.

Math matters – especially in today’s world. At Gateway, we’ve devoted considerable time in our classrooms with teachers and students creating skill sequences, adapting materials, and developing multisensory strategies for instruction.

At the same time, we’ve been looking at the research on how students learn math and what’s getting in students’ way when they don’t. So, the questions have been: what is math disability and the root causes; what is most crucial to learn; and on what does math achievement depend?

We underestimate babies, or at least we used to!

Mathematics learning, like all learning, begins in infancy.

Children at just a few months old are able to detect differences in numbers of items. By preschool, students are able to identify the cardinality and ordinality of numbers.

And by first grade, they can link number names to digits and begin simple addition and subtraction. Preschool and kindergarten-age children experiencing math difficulties are at the greatest risk for persistent math challenges.

For a math disability, a pattern emerges in predicting math difficulties similar to a reading disability: poor working memory and weakness in verbal comprehension and language skills. That means that a reading disability and a math disability share multiple cognitive components.

For students who have a poor working memory, there is difficulty sustaining attention, planning, organizing, and self-monitoring. Students can become lost in procedure, pay poor attention to signs, and misalign place value. Often they find it difficult to determine important information and are unaware when an answer does not make sense.

Research shows that the mastery of math facts frees up working memory, making it possible to work with math concepts and perform procedures. Any difficulty with working memory, characterized by a poor retrieval fluency, adds to the challenges facing a student with math difficulties.

Students have to understand the language of math. This language comprises distinct vocabulary that can be confusing given the multiple meanings of so many of the words.

The grammar is precise. So acquiring fluency is much more difficult and requires much more time and effort than another academic subject might require.

Since language drives everything, its role in math – in addition to attention, executive function, working memory, and general cognition – is central.

There is less overlap with concepts, ideas, and terms found in other subjects, and math vocabulary is both distinct – terms used only in math – and has multiple meanings in other realms. For a student who struggles with language, they can easily become confused.

“Mom said to be home in three quarters of an hour, but I thought hours had minutes not quarters.”

In isolation, or when given adequate time or proper cues, most students can process this problem, but just as when teaching a foreign language, teachers must be aware of the complexities of the language of math.

Finally, there is math anxiety. This is the feeling of stress and anxiety in situations involving mathematical problem solving.

“Math anxious” people tend to avoid situations involving mathematics and are less likely to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math-related careers.

Anxiety depresses working memory, which is crucial to learning every day in so many ways.

This has long-term consequences for academic and professional success. For both men and women, poor math skills are associated with lower rates of full-time employment, higher rates of unemployment in lowerpaying manual occupations, and a lower ability to take advantage of employer offered training—and thus, lower rates of promotion.

At Gateway, math instruction is modified and adapted to be multisensory, explicit, and sequential. Teachers model their process and their thinking, building the foundations of math skills through direct instruction, task analysis, and diagnostic teaching. Math is broken down into sequential skills, with review and re-establishment of essential concepts, visual and organizational modifications, and, as always, the use of multisensory techniques.

Any modifications must be done in view of our understanding of who these children are, how they learn, and therefore, how they must be taught.

With continued research, informed teacher programs, and skilled and knowledgeable diagnostic teaching, of the kind we are proud to offer at Gateway, we will see children with a learning disability learning, and learning math.

Meet our Featured Speaker Lydia H. Soifer, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She additionally serves as The Gateway School’s inhouse consultant and staff developer.

Dr. Soifer specializes in the relationships among language, learning, and literacy in children from preschool through high school age. She regularly presents and consults with schools on curriculum and staff development. Her professional development program, Classroom Language Dynamics, has been introduced into schools in the tristate area.

Meet the Professionals, with Lauren Feiden, Ph.D. Lauren Feiden, Ph.D. is the Lower School Psychologist at The Gateway School. She has worked as a school psychologist for LREI and The Churchill School and Center. Dr. Feiden has been a clinical psychologist for over 10 years and is certified in parent/child interaction therapy.

is your role at Q What Gateway? first and most important role I have is to build A The a relationship with the children. It is very important that I really understand the kids. So often, at first, they are so guarded. This can look like many things: I sit with them, have snack or lunch with them, I sit in on classes. I don’t want them to see coming to my room or coming to see me as a negative thing, or as a punishment. I want the students to see me as part of their support system and show them I’m here to support them. My second role is to support the teachers--to observe, consult, and help them with plans and strategies they can implement to support the students.

makes school so hard for students with Q What learning disabilities?

A First, the transition from summer to fall is always hard. A routine and schedule are particularly helpful and important for a student with a learning disability, attention deficits, or executive function disorder. It is important to develop consistent routines so they become automatic.

Q Are there any challenges unique to our students? at Gateway are so bright. And these bright A Students students have a difficult time learning. It’s challenging

for them because they keep asking themselves, “Why is it so hard for me to learn?” They need to know that they are very bright. They learn differently. That’s it.

It’s about building up that self-esteem too.

are your thoughts on your experience at Q What Gateway so far?

A Gateway is special. The teachers are so helpful, caring,

and supportive. They create that environment here for the kids. And the students definitely feel that.

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THE GATEWAY STUDENT

Gateway operates on a rolling admissions basis. We accept

We accept students from ages 5 through 13. The typical Gateway student has average to aboveaverage intelligence but has struggled in school as a result of one or more of the following:

and interview applicants year-round.

applications beginning in September for the following academic year

Admission is granted based on a variety of factors including the student’s learning profile, responsiveness to intervention, and class grouping. Gateway does not have specialized programs for behavioral or social/emotional diagnoses or for students on the autism spectrum. We do not accept students diagnosed with Developmental Delay, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder/Asperger’s Syndrome, Nonverbal Learning Disabilities, Emotional/Behavioral-Based Challenges, or Developmental Coordination Disorder as a primary diagnosis.

• Language-based learning disability (dyslexia, expressive and receptive delays, reading and writing disorders) • Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder • Executive function disorder

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CREDITS

EDITOR

PHOTOS

Ashley Knauer, Associate Director of Communications Gateway Staff and Matthew Septimus

YouTube: The Gateway School

SCHOOL LEADERSHIP Carolyn Salzman, Head of School

Maureen Ryan, Chief Financial and Operating Officer

LinkedIn: The Gateway School

Jennifer Cherney, Director of Institutional Advancement

CONTACT US

advancement@gatewayschool.org, 212-777-5966