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You know learning isn't always easy for everyone. School can be
stressful especially if you don't catch on right away and then it's
like you loose the confidence and then you don't want to go and
all can real struggle for a lot of families.
Struggle for not only the kids but the parents.
Yeah.
You're about to meet the Prior Lakes senior who's struggled for
his first eight years of school. His parents decided to enroll him
in a program at LearningRx and now he has a his sight set on
college, something that seemed impossible just four short years
ago.
Connor Haakenson is a senior at Prior Lakes High School. His
passion is skiing, something that he never really got to enjoy.
Best is to improve my life.
It's a big thing to say.
Like if you're always worried about school and kind of doesn't
leave room for anything else, so if you're not worried about
school you can you know branch a little bit, having social life
activities so I kind of credit it with improving my life a lot.
Quite the contrast to the several hours a night that he used to
have to dedicate to homework.
I was disorganized, missing assignments, just bad habits. Not
fun.
Connor divides his life into two very distinct parts: life before
LearningRx and life after LearningRx. His parents enrolled him in
LearingRx's cognitive skills training in eight grade and he hasn't
look back since.
As fast as you can I just want you to give me the colors and arrows
in the first three rows. Ready go.
Blue...green....
As fast as you can, go, go, go, go, go...
Like before it was like I came home and I would try to get
homework for hours and I was disorganized, it was frustrating it
brought me to tears a couple of times.
Connor's father Lee cannot say enough about what LearningRx
has done for Connor in the family, as a whole.
The improvement was almost immediate so his grades improved
immediately. He stopped having to bring as much homework
home.
Now LearningRx is not tutoring. It is a series of fast-paced
training exercises designed to open up different pathways in the
brain. And once those pathways are open, learning is supposed
to come easier. Connor admits he was a little leary of the whole
idea at first. But once he started, he noticed the difference right
away.
It really changed the way I learned. I think that was the key. It
helped me a way to take information and process it and giving it
my head.
It's going to impact where he goes to college, it's going to impact
his future. It was worth every penny and we don't regret it for a
second having done that.
Down...
Yeah, nice. I didn't mess you up at all now, did I? Okay.
LearningRx executive director Rich Freider's here. Hello Rich,
how are you?
How are you?
Nice to see you Rich.
So let's start a little bit with Connor specifically he took this, he
went to the drills and the testing four years ago but he's still able
to sort of reap the benefits of it today, how is that?
Right. Well one of the biggest benefits of what we do is the
lasting gains. So I think families are used to doing things like
tutoring that maybe helped a little bit for that school year but
because you're never addressing the root cause of the issue, kids
just go usually go back to struggling. So it actually changes the
way the brain is functioning. Once that's done the gains actually
stick.
And what is that root cause? Is it the people that respond to
LearingRx are just, they learn a different way or how does that
work?
Usually if kids have persistence struggled over the year
academically it's because underlying mental skills are not as
strongest that need to be. So Connor is an example where he's
really bright, logic's really strong but his processing speed went
from the fifth percentile in the program to the 95th.
Wow.
So when he talks about the ability to homework was taking so
long there's an underlying reason for that. And the better news is
that the reason or the issue can be addressed and fixed and not
just in a short term but it stays with kids. So after he did this
program, he didn't really have to do anything else. And now he's
set up to go to college and have a successful career.
Well for those of you parents out there who know what it's like
to sit there and do homework every night and have to, you know
everyone... it can be upsetting, be stressful for everybody. My
wife and I decided we're going to try this with one of our
children. We're convinced that it seem to be the right thing to do
and Rich we actually got to kind of sit down and experience some
of these drills that are done and it's like woah. I mean it's fun,
very entertaining and I don't think the kids are going to get bored
with it. But man, you've got to be on it.
Oh yeah, it's very intense and it's all one-on-one training so we
always go with the student's pace. So and what we're doing is
creating stronger neural pathways, reorganizing this pathways
and like we said, that sticks.
So tell me about the time again, so if you have a child who's
having a rough time, at what point should you expect the
difference?
Well the programs are anywhere from three to eight months and
so most of the gains do come in the last half of the program
because like if you're going to the gym right if you go up a few
weeks your muscles might be sore but you don't get the big
biceps right away. It takes longer, it's the same way mentally as if
the kids are drilling and training and overtime the brain address
to that need because the requirement is put on and the brain
changes.
Yeah, but three to eight months to then you'll be able to say okay
now I can go to college...
We've worked with kids who've been doing tutoring and other
things year over year and it's always academic catch up and we
can help kids get out of that.
That is great.
Okay you brought some of these drills along with.
I did.
And I guess I get to go first here and embarrass myself first
Elizabeth.
So here's what we're going to do.
I bet I've seen this done now but I don't think it's going to help
me.
So as you know Chris this is a metrodome in almost everything
we do and what I want you to do on every other beats would be
like this, tap. So this for two rows we usually do for I want you to
tell me every other beat the direction of the arrows.
Okay.
Okay and I'll kind of help you on it a little bit. So ready go.
Left, up, right, left, left, up, left, right
Good job!
Right, left, down, down, right, left, up, left
Okay good, nice job.
The fact that you're distracting me is good because it's
That is. Actually you get. Usually if I was training Chris I would
just be throwing lots of distractions at them.
So me helping to do that.
Yeah. Thank you.
I was an assistant.
Yeah, and our centers are actually very loud that's the purpose for
because that's the life in school was. So requiring the skill like
attention helps build the skill.
Okay, do you want to try some Elizabeth.
Yeah. I'll try something.
So we're going to put you up a level little bit higher, okay.
Oh God.
So here's what I want you to do, in every other beat I want you to
do the same thing but this time imaging the arrows are turned a
quarter turn clockwise.
Okay.
And we'll see the difference.
I am a person who literally on my wedding day put my husband's
wedding ring on the wrong hand, do you know that I did that?
You were there.
So I have to imagine wait, a quarter turn.
Imagine it's turned a quarter turn clockwise so that will be up.
Yep, got it.
It will kind of help you with the beating. Okay ready? Go.
Up, right, down, up, up, right, do-up, down, down, up, left
Sorry, oh what are you doing?
He's distracting you.
You're very distractable.
I am, it is not shocking at all. I am extremely distractable. So that
one you'd start with the one like Chris did and then do you?
We keep progressive and progressively more difficult as you get
to higher levels. And so we just take it as far as possible and that
really helps strengthen their own languages skills.
Thank you so much. Yeah, that's really cool. Get that inside
scoop. You can the number on your screen and mention Twin
Cities Live you'll get a $100 off your initial assessment and to find
a center near you, we've posted more information on
twincitieslive.com. We want to thank LearningRx for sponsoring
Twin Cities Live.
"Tutoring Woodbury"
http://www.LearningRx.com/woodbury/