Our Unique Teaching Resources Advantage
Frontrunner Learning Centres carefully develop or select “teacher tools” in hardware and software, textbooks and other materials to suit the child’s needs, the tutoring requirements and the teaching situation. We take an eclectic approach that allows us great flexibility and the ability to employ a range of materials that combine to build each child’s individualised programme. This advantages for the child who needs more than one or two approaches or media to maintain attention and engagement.
Textbooks
At a Frontrunner Learning Centre, you will see many of our textbooks and other commercially available ones too. Ours are created for use by teachers when tutoring. They are sequenced and presented using the Frontrunner fonts not to overwhelm or confuse our students.
School textbooks contain all aspects of the curriculum; however, their format can be overwhelming for some to read. As their programme requires, some students in our centres use commercial textbooks, but most use our materials. Nowadays, especially with Mathematics, most high school students use pdf versions of the textbook on their laptops, with advantages and disadvantages, instead of paper. Generally, we augment the school texts with our materials depending on the student’s individual needs.
A Bit More About Frontrunner Texts
Frontrunner Learning Centres materials are the result of decades of experience tutoring a wide ability range of students. We select activities from them to suit the educational needs of our students. Grading the texts according to the task’s difficulty and developing brain changes are always taken into account. Sequencing the content is essential to facilitate progress. Of course, the teacher decides how to use the texts following the student’s individualised programme.
Of course, the teacher decides how to use the texts but these are the resources that are designed specifically for use in our Centres.
Reading Material
We have a wide range of material for teaching reading. We start with initial letter recognition, *synthetic phonics, phonemics through to whole language. Work developed in conjunction with speech therapists and work created by teachers, we have a remarkable amount of material to cater to our students’ needs.
We have worksheets, concrete materials, audio work, and exceptionally effective computer programmes for our teachers to teach children to read.
Some of our centres offer Readbetter with Cellfield. A particular reading intervention for children (and adults) to help students with specific and complex reading challenges. Please ask your local centre if this service is available.
Comprehension
We understand that there are nine different forms of comprehension and that a good student knows all these forms, though not by name. We teach these forms both individually and together – both explicitly and implicitly. Your child will receive the most detailed teaching of comprehension possible.
Spelling
Our Spelling program teaches many different recall skills in spelling. Including learning rules and exceptions, memorising word patterns, using mnemonics and morphology. We use a wide range of activities supported by research and proven by our remarkable results.
Writing
Writing is a challenge for many children. That is why we make it easy from the start of the process to provide creative writing techniques that build our student’s writing skills. Creative writing is the art of thinking, feeling and appreciating the magic of words and ideas. Our tutor’s role is nurturing, encouraging, and facilitating each individual’s talent at an intellectually honest pace that reveals the students’ inner selves, talents, hopes, ideas and aspirations. Individualising each student’s writing programme to their needs engages the student’s imagination.
Every writer thrives when they have an audience and recognition. The tutors encourage their students to publish their work via various means and mediums. Parents showing genuine interest and reading their work helps too.
Mathematics and Arithmetic
Our materials, including worksheets and computer programmes, are made to help individuals at their stage of development and understanding. The materials a tutor use reflects the student’s stage of development, not necessarily their school year. Some learn well from our computer programmes while others find pen and paper suits their style best. Often commercially available textbooks appear complicated and are set out with too much on the page, so it becomes overwhelming. The tutors empathise with the student. The tutors understand Maths anxiousness and negative self-talk, so we make the materials non-threatening so that they look effortless. We want our students to achieve automaticity when recalling basic facts and methods. Our materials reflect this in form and content.
Font
We use a specific font to help children who may have letter recognition problems. The lines on the page are spaced according to the child’s needs as specified by research. That means the younger the child, the more spaced the lines and the larger the letters. We use a dark grey print on white paper to eliminate the problems caused by overly strong contrast. These are just a few examples of the importance of getting the font correct, even to the point of ascender and descender height and length.
Technology
We have a vast array of computer programs, both commercially available and proprietary, designed to help your child succeed. We add these as appropriate to your child’s schedule. Tablets and computers add an extra dimension to our teaching in some of our centres. Some centres offer cutting edge sound and movement programmes for students who need help with central processing disorders. Please ask your centre owner if they can offer this for your child.
Getting the details right – the little things – will make your child’s stay with Frontrunner Learning Centres more productive and happy.
If this sounds like the kind of tuition you would like for your child, CALL 1300 851 062 for a free, no obligation educational assessment or click here to send us a message.
*Synthetic phonics, also known as blended phonics or inductive phonics, is a method of teaching English reading which first teaches the letter sounds and then builds up to blending these sounds to achieve full pronunciation of whole words.