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Search and Teach Workshop

Research supports a preventive approach to address potential learning challenges.

NILD’s SEARCH & TEACH workshop empowers teachers to assess and intervene with K-2 students, reducing the risk of future learning difficulties. This programme offers early identification and intervention strategies to help young learners succeed before they experience the frustration of failure.

This is a hybrid workshop with 2 hours of pre-course work and two and half days in-person.

Course Pre-Requisites

Applicants must be in possession of a Bachelor Degree or 3-year teaching diploma or nursery school qualification. Non-teaching professionals (e.g. Occupational Therapists, Speech Therapists) are also eligible for acceptance.

 If you have any queries about your eligibility, please contact nildinzimbabwe@gmail.com

Workshop Description

General: Successful completion of this course will equip the SEARCH & TEACH practitioner to identify children who are vulnerable to learning failure, and to utilise TEACH techniques to enable the child to succeed in the classroom.

Specific: Upon completion of this course, the SEARCH & TEACH practitioner will be able to:

  • Demonstrate an understanding of the characteristics of learning disabilities
  • Demonstrate an understanding of how learning disabilities impact classroom performance and behaviour
  • Understand the perceptual and processing skills required for successful reading
  • Understand the distinctives of the perceptual stimulation approach
  • Administer and interpret the SEARCH informal test
  • Design and implement a TEACH programme according to the deficits determined by the SEARCH informal Test
  • Demonstrate an elementary working knowledge of the 55 TEACH tasks
  • Set up a beginning programme within a school or independent setting
  • Demonstrate an awareness of NILD philosophy

SEARCH is a short, individual test designed to

  • Provide a clear profile of strengths and weaknesses in neuropsychological skills
  • Provide a structure to guide appropriate intervention before failure has occurred

TEACH 5 Clusters

TEACH consists of 55 tasks, prioritised from simple to complex, organised into 5 clusters. These clusters are:

  • Visual
  • Visual-Motor
  • Auditory
  • Body-Image
  • Intermodal
Typically a child will work ‘one-on-one’ with the practitioner 3 to 4 times a week for 30 minutes. Search and Teach aims to resolve perceptual weaknesses that the young student may have.

WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES

• The goal of the Search and Teach® programme is to identify 5 to 7 year-old individuals who are vulnerable to learning failure and to address the issues before failure has occurred

• Children may be vulnerable due to a variety of reasons. These include, but are not restricted to, genetic factors, minimal structural damage to the central nervous system, physiological stress and lack of specific stimulation during the critical ages of children’s development

• Search and Teach aims to equip students to succeed in the classroom and in life as independent learners