Friendship Homeschooling CO-Op Inc

-Provides our students with systematic, phonemic-awareness-based, multi-sensory language instruction (Orton-Gillingham language instruction), which is essential for their academic success (www.ortonacademy.org). Our methods are in keeping with current research from the National Institutes of Health on best practice instruction for language-based learning differences (http://ncld.org/research/keys99_nichd.cfm). -Has grown from a home-school program of 10 students to a school currently serving 55 children from Carroll, Frederick, Baltimore, Howard, and Montgomery counties. The school was founded in 1998 by families who did not have access to more expensive schools with similar instructional methods and services for dyslexic children. -Is one of the few schools in Maryland that offers each child a daily, full class period of one-to-one tutoring with Orton-Gillingham trained tutors. We are deeply committed to creating educational programs appropriate for each child?s needs and to maintaining a low student/teacher ratio (3:1) to best serve this unique type of learner. -Is dedicated to providing a nurturing environment and positive culture that promotes each child?s sense of competence and self-esteem. Our school exists to provide its students with the learning strategies and tools they require to achieve academic success and move towards more traditional school settings. By graduation, our students have progressed in reading and other academic subjects, and our graduates have been successful in other educational environments, including traditional public and private schools. -We are also trying to reach other children who learn differently in the greater community. According to the International Dyslexia Association, language-based learning differences affect approximately 15-20% of the population, therefore there are many more children who need access to these methods of teaching. We are trying to share this way of teaching with other schools and our local community through outreach efforts, so that more children have the opportunity to have success in reading and academics and to have many more choices in life.