Empowering Struggling Learners
EXPERT and AFFORDABLE:
Assessment + Guidance for Families with a Struggling Learner
READING ASSESSMENT / DYSLEXIA SCREENING
- Understand why your child is struggling to read or comprehend
- Identify the specific skills they need to acquire
- Find your child's best path to acquiring grade-level skills
MATH ASSESSMENT
--Foundational skills, information, concepts, reasoning your child needs to be succeeding at their grade-level.
--The approaches your child needs catch up, then continue to learn with their class.
COGNITIVE SCREENING
--How your child's learnning is impacted by their memory, reasoning, attention, and their speed or efficiency at processing information.
--How you can work positively with your child's profile of learning strengths and any relative weaknesses.
PLANNING & GUIDANCE:
In person and in your written report, I explain, interpret, and provide perspective about all assessment data, especially in terms of your child's learning in class. I share the research-validated instructional approaches and providers to match your child's specific learning needs, and your family's resources. I can then help you locate the needed services in your area.
Hello! I'm Rick Mason, Educational Therapist
For over 3 decades I've used state-of-the-art academic and cognitive assessment data to help students and parents understand the learning challenges they face, then guide them to lasting solutions, even when special classes and tutoring have not helped enough.
After gathering background from parents and teachers, I review any prior assessments and school reports before working directly with students to identify their exact needs, the abilities they bring to learning, and the specific approaches that will help them catch up to, and often exceed, grade level expectations.
I've taught hundreds of K-12 students who struggled with dyslexia, attention deficits, spelling, math, memory issues, and processing weaknesses. While I no longer teach directly, I am still committed to helping families understand what their student needs and how to get them there as efficiently as possible.
READING ASSESSMENT / DYSLEXIA SCREENINGs
The Feifer Assessment of Reading assesses up to 15 academic and cognitive abilities that form the basis of successful reading. The test is highly regarded, sophisticated in its approach to diagnosing reading disorders, and reliably screens for dyslexia as well as explains what is causing difficulty acquiring reading skills.
MATH ASSESSMENT
My math assessments identify gaps in foundational skills and concepts by looking deeper than just right or wrong answers to analyze how your child is reasoning with numbers and how language, memory, attention, confused concepts, or inefficient strategies may be impacting your child's learning and practice of math.
COGNITIVE SCREENING
Helps us understand how your child thinks & learns. MindPrint Learning a respected, reliable, standardized battery of cognitive assessments, measures your child's reasoning abilities, memory, working memory, attention, and efficiency receiving and reacting to information. Cognitive screening can: explain why a child struggles in some areas but not in others; point to the best methods of instruction for individual students; reassure children who wonder, "what's wrong with me!" with realistic understanding of their strengths and areas of need as a learner--and how to use their strengths to manage and support the areas of need. For more about Mindprint and the value / importance of cognitive screening, see the FAQs below, or contact me.
(MindPrint is used by NASA to track astronauts' cognitive efficiency over time in space)
My assessments are a fraction of the cost of neuro-psych evaluations. My fees are based on a typical hourly rate charged by Educational Therapists for lessons in the Bay Area. My reading and math evaluations are generally more thorough than you'd find in a neuro-psych eval with more extensive and specific recommendations. My cognitive screening tools are less comprehensive than a neuro-psychologist provides you, and for this reason we can discuss undertaking a full neuropsych eval if that will better serve your child's more-complex needs.