My Learning Springboard – Who We Are and What We Do
A few years ago, a family contacted us because they were concerned that their third grade son was a struggling reader. Over the first few sessions, his tutor conducted a number of informal assessments to determine his specific needs with comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and spelling. The tutor observed that he was highly motivated, had a great sense of humor, and was a great storyteller with advanced vocabulary. He was, however, reading below grade level and struggled with decoding and fluency. He could not differentiate between long and short vowels; he struggled to recognize sight words he should have been able to; he battled to construct written responses. He worked intensively with his tutor throughout third grade meeting three times a week for hour-long sessions. By the end of the year, he was reading on grade level and writing short paragraph responses.
In fourth grade, he continued to need support but sessions were reduced, and My Learning Springboard worked in partnership with his family and school to support the curriculum. Four years later, they continue to work together but the focus of the lessons has shifted. The student has become a confident and motivated middle school student who enjoys great success in school. He reads advanced texts in the content areas, writes thoughtful and persuasive essays, and reads daily for pleasure.
My Learning Springboard caters to a wide range of students: the first grader with reading difficulties; the fourth grader struggling with mathematical concepts; the seventh grader challenged with organizational and study skills; the overwhelmed high school junior in need of a flexible academic coach; or the highly curious learner wanting to explore creative writing, engineering, chemistry, personal finance, or art.
Brad Hoffman, the founder and CEO of My Learning Springboard, developed this powerful resource as the result of a life-long passion to help students reach their full potential using a customized and strategic approach to learning. Throughout his years of experience as a classroom teacher in a full inclusion setting, a Fortune 500 human resources learning specialist, an Educational Consultant, and a private tutor, Brad knows that each student’s needs are different. In order to tailor instruction, Brad and his leadership team gather a complete educational history and work closely with families to understand their goals or concerns. Brad leverages his vast resources of top-notch educators, consultants, psychologists, learning specialists, medical professionals, and wellness coaches in order to formulate the right program for each student.
Through his experiences of working with students and their families, he recognized that, for families, finding the appropriate expertise and facilitating knowledge sharing was incredibly challenging. He also found that hard working parents were often pressed for time and constructing and managing the right team to help their child was not an easy task. Brad wanted to help; he wanted to take his robust resources and connections to top professionals in each field and make them easily accessible to students and their families. He wanted to create a way to have experts in different fields come together to create TEAM YOU!
On helping students succeed, Hoffman says, “It’s the most gratifying feeling.”
