Matriculation Reinforcement for Slow Learners Project

Many of the students at ORT Hanna Senesz School in Haifa have only reached mediocre or below-standard levels of academic achievement (approximately 25 percent of the student body are diagnosed with learning disabilities). Most students come from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, with histories of both familial and personal problems. To compound matters, many of these students are recent immigrants to Israel and are challenged by language and acculturation impediments. Despite these issues, the policy of the school's admissions board is to offer a place to any student who shows willingness and motivation, rather than usual standards of high academic achievement.

ORT Hanna Senesz seeks to assist all of these students in overcoming their individual challenges, so they can qualify for matriculation. To this end, the school plans to implement small group lessons, computer aided teaching, remedial class work and, when appropriate, individual tutoring to increase each student's potential for academic success. These strategies will allow teachers to interact more closely with students and give the young people the attention they need. Mobility will be encouraged within the study groups, so that students can transfer from one group to another as their competency improves. Additionally, special attention will be given to English, reading comprehension, verbal expression and mathematics--subjects that are at the core of the matriculation exams.

Contributions to this project will enable ORT to:

• Allow Hanna Senesz to establish small study groups for all students;

• Create additional English classes each week for 10th and 11th grade study groups;

• Develop and implement weekly learning strategy lessons for 10th and 11th graders; and

• Form weekly remedial mathematics classes for 16 groups of students in all grade levels.