This is an oustanding organization that provides education to those young students who are having difficulty with their reading and language skills. Their success rate has been outstanding.
The funds that are raised are not diluted by large executive salaries or overhead but are directed to the teaching and mentoring of the students.
Lee Pesky Learning Center through their research based training programs called "Building Blocks for Literacy" and "Building Blocks for Math" have been very critical in developing our instructional/curriculum maps for our three year olds and four year olds. Cristianne Lane and Mary Jo Sturges-Prokop assisted our team in increasing our knowledge base in these areas with on site training, follow-up and wonderful resources to use with our kiddos. The best part was it did not cost us anything because it was paid for by grants LPLC wrote and received from the Federal Department of Education. Nampa School District early childhood special education appreciates the leadership in early literacy and early math LPLC has taken to move our community's capacity to provide quality early childhood education for all preschoolers in our state of Idaho.
As the Education Coordinator for our program I have had the opportunity to both attend trainings and send teachers to trainings offered through Lee Pesky. We have been privelged to go through the Building Blocks for Literacy and the Math for All workshops over the past three years. These trainings have been comprehensive in planning, materials and subject matter. The cost has either been scholarshiped or quite nominal, remoing the financial consideration fromthe decision to attend. The hands-on resources included in the trainings have made implementing the strategies and follow through more likely. The staff representing Lee Pesky have always been experts of subject matter and knowledgable regarding the training details (registration, technology support, etc...). If there were any questions, they responded in a helpful and timely manner. Overall, every interaction with an event under the Lee Pesky umbrella has been a rewarding experience for all involved; administration, staff and ultimately- children receiving the benefit of the teachers' trainings.
The LPLC's Cristianne Lane was so generous with her time and talent as she evaluated the reading skills of our preschool students. Christianne offered valuable suggestions for staff and has provided an ever-present resouce for future program building. The Building Block for Literacy and Idaho Early Literacy Project have proven to be wonderful tools for our pre-school program.
I have interacted with Lee Pesky Learning Center on several different levels. Last year my son received tutoring through Lee Pesky, free of charge at his elementary school. The staff provided an engaging and fun educational experience for my son, and we immediately saw results. His confidence and skills in reading improved a great deal through this experience. Then, this summer, we decided to enroll our son in one on one tutoring, and have been thrilled with his progress. Not only have we seen his skills continue to improve, he loves to go to tutoring as well. The staff was very thorough and thoughtful in their evaluations of our son, and have carried out an educational plan that not only targets the needs of our son, but uses his strengths to enhance his tutoring sessions.
In addition, I myself have benefited from Lee Pesky's education for teachers. As a director/ teacher of a preschool program I was appreciative of the opportunity Lee Pesky provided to attend their "Building Blocks of Literacy" and "Every Child Ready for Math" classes. I and my entire preschool staff attended the classes and acquired great hands on activities to use in our classrooms on a daily basis. Lee Pesky is an asset to our educational community.
The Center's staff and educators are incredibly knowledgable and professional in the field of learning disabilities. I have never met more dedicated and caring experts. They provide incredible training and expertise to help people of all ages learn "better" despite their learning disabilities. In addition to the individualized services they provide, they are helping out educators learn how to recognize and help students with LD. The Center has years of data and research that can be used to help people all over the world with LD.
The Lee Pesky Center has provided me with teaching materials and training that help me better to teach my preschoolers learn about reading and math. The trainings are fun, interactive, and applicable to my age group.
We live overseas and were in Boise for 2 weeks over the summer. Lee Pesky set up a series of 9, 2-hour, one-on-one sessions for my daughter (dyslexia) and the results were fantastic. She enjoyed it and made great strides. Our own school's Learning Center Director was really impressed with the work she did and the report that Lee Pesky produced. We were able to pick-up where they left off without skipping a beat.
We also took advantage of the Social Cognitive work Pesky offers - again, excellant results and an enjoyable time for mey daughter.
Thank you so much to your center! The things I have learned are an invaluable too in my continued work in helping to strengthen and educate the children in our school in regards to math and reading. So many children fall through the cracks and you helped me learn better how to plug the cracks and keep those children learning with their peers at a level that will make them adults able to be in society in a productive manner!
My grandson had significant delays in reading and social functioning. The teachers at the Lee Pesky Learning Center were so caring and sensitive that this learning-averse child loved going there! His progress was amazing and he continues to use what he learned there both at school and at home. The professionals at the Center also included me by keeping me up-to-date on what he was doing so I could follow through at home. It was an excellent, productive experience for both of us.
I am a Parent Educator working in the Parents as Teachers program with the Madison School District 321. Recently I attended the Every Child Ready for Math training through the Lee Pesky Center. It was a marvelous, FREE, hands-on training that has benefitted me greatly. I learned tips for teaching the early math literacy skills needed for all young children such as: counting; creating math stories; gathering as well as leaving stories; incorporating manipulatives; subatizing; and cardinality. The class provided a superb syllabus, explaining every skill in an easily understood manner, and a bag overflowing with teaching aids to help us be able to add enriching math activities to our curriculum. This was a marvelous opportunity to expand my knowledge and be able to pass it on to the parents we work with in Madison County. There was a lot of knowledge that was totally new to me. I had never heard of some of the literacy skills like subatizing. Since mathematics is a progressive skill, in order for children to become proficient in higher mathematics, they must first understand and master these foundational early learning skills. This method for teaching the early math literacy skills is fun, easy and engaging for young children and their teachers. If America is ever going to increase our students’ scores in math testing, it has to start with the foundation. This is the program that will really help!
We have been donors to the Center for the past eight years. Our granddaughter was tested and received services from the center. We are impressed with the educational research they are doing and with the caring, empathetic way they deal with clients. We are impressed with their outreach in our state encouraging the importance of reading in early childhood and the value of attending college or other post-secondary education. Idaho is a rural state and these initiatives are critically important.
Community Impact: That's the hallmark of LPLC. Thru their programming, they are enriching the lives of young people, and broadening the professional skills of Schoolteachers. They create opportunity wherever they serve. Idaho just wouldn't be the same without LPLC. As a donor, we are happy to continue to support them, as the Leadership continues to work with a very high ethical standard. Communication, Transparency, repect for donor base, financial integrity, committment to community. These are all hallmarks of the LPLC organization, from top to bottom.
before we began Soical thinking with the pesky center and Jaime Rivetts our daughter wore black, liked being alone, had narrow thinking and did not look people in the eye, she was on her way to becoming forgotten and a loner... NOW a year later she laughs , smiles and NO BLACK! is more open to new things and looks everyone in the eye. THe work they do at the pesky center is amazing! They helped our whole family. I tell anyone who will listen about the great things you do. Thank you.
The Shiners doug,Tammy and Abby.
The Lee Pesky Learning Center has made a difference in the Sun Valley Idaho area where I have a home. They are addressing the changing demographics and have a realistic approach to helping the growing community. The Board of the Center is focused and dedicated to first class operations of Center and know how to reach out to the people they help. As a donor, I enjoy their creative fundraising campaigns, newsletters and events.
Extraordinary teachers,trainers and educators are these women at LPLC!! They are passionate,so professional,dedicated and so well researched and knowlegeable. The quality of their work and presentations and what they bring to the education field is priceless.Their work should be 100% supported and constantly funded to allow continued access for ALL individuals!!!
I have benefitted by the training that the Lee Pesky staff have offered to early childhood educators in Idaho. Through a partnership with the Head Start agency that I work for, I have been able to receive further training in literacy and math. I have been able to focus my teaching in a more intentional way because of this training, and the materials that I received in the training. The Lee Pesky Center have been leaders in the early childhood field in our state. Mary Jo and Cristianne were also great supporters of a series of family literacy events that we had at our center. Our student's parents were very fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn literacy skills through these events. I am looking forward to the ED series of lecturers that Lee Pesky is helping to sponsor.
I teach Early Childhood Special Education. I have attended 2 classes at the Lee Pesky Learning Center. These classes were to help educators teach mathematics in early childhood. I learned many new approaches to make math fun and attainable for my students. The center also provided materials and Ideas to create math games and activities.
After the class, the instructors asked us to report back about how the activities were working for us. We then had an opportunity to refine activities and materials with the instructors in order to improve them for ourselves, as well as for the next people who took the class.
The instructors were caring, patient, and concerned that everyone should be able to teach and understand mathematics. They have a real interest in furthering education, and are committed to their jobs. The Center also has so much information to give about learning and teaching - printed info as well as the ability to answer questions or refer people to the proper agencies for assistance.
I cannot recommend the Lee Pesky Learning Center highly enough!
I cannot recommend Lee Pesky Learning Center highly enough. Dr. Anne Clohessy is fantastic. Respect is a big issue for our son and one that, because of his learning challenges (moderate attention deficit, processing speed, etc. issues) he has not always received from education providers. Knowing this, Dr. Clohessy went out of her way to make sure that he was respected and treated as an equal throughout evaluation and testing process--and even designed the report to be personally addressed to him. The entire process shed light on the unique ways that our son learns. It has helped us understand our son so much better--and has helped him understand himself. I wish all kids could have this type of caring evaluation--it would vastly help teachers, parents and children and make the educational experience a much more positive and fulfilling one for all concerned.
I have worked with professionals in the Pesky Center in collaborative training workshops. These professionals have been extremely dedicated, highly skilled, and possess cutting knowledge regarding meeting the needs of students with learning disabilities and other special needs.
One aspect of the Pesky Center work that is especially meaningful is their efforts to engage families. The Pesky Center folks have a sensitivity and respect for parents/families that provides value added to their services.
As a veteran teacher in special education, it is a delight to see the successes of Lee Pesky Learning Center students. Due to thorough evaluations, prescriptive intervention using research-based materials and strategies, the young people serve by LPLC emerge more confident and successful Not only are academics addressed, but social thinking is taught to those who are in need of appropriate responses to their environment socially, whether in the classroom, with peers in leisure interactions, at home, or in the community.
As the father of 2 children who have now undergone the comprehensive evaluation process at LPLC, I cannot say enough about the exceptional quality and thoroughness of Dr. Anne Clohessy. Not only did the evaluation and subsequent report shed light on the unique ways that my kids learn, but it gave their teachers the tools to understand and help them. Most importantly for me, it provided my wife and I with insight that has helped us be better parents to our children.
We have seen the Lee Pesky Center start from a local resource serving a few individuals and families who needed help dealing with a young person's possible learning disability. Today, it has grown to provide people throughout Idaho the tools to improve their learning skills, whether from an actual learning disability or from their inability to recognize and utilize their own strengths. As an example, the Center produced and circulated material to create "readers" starting at birth. It is our hope that the Center, which was founded and nourished by Lee's parents Wendy and Alan Pesky, will succeed them and buildi on their successful methodologies and serve a wider community.
The new Executive Director, Evelyn Johnson, is a powerhouse! She and her staff have been able to partner with us this year to provide exceptional professional development opportunities relating to implementing the Specific Learning Disabilities policies in Idaho. We are so happy to have access to such high level of expertise and such a willingness to work with us!
As a licensed clinical social worker who has been working at the Center for the past 7 years, I can attest to the committment of all of the staff to helping our clients learn. From the initial assessment to receiving direct services (academic intervention, counseling, coaching for academic success), the support the student and their family receive are top notch. I love that we are able to meet the individual needs of our clients using research-based methods. Seeing our students succeed academically, emotionally, and socially is so rewarding - my only wish is that we could serve even more learners.
We believe that a student who is provided the support and a customized approach to learning can in turn focus on empowering their dreams. The Lee Pesky shares this belief. Their programs have provided a supportive, well-designed, professional approach to enabling our child to build on their strengths and develop skills in areas that have previously challenged them. The staff embodies the commitment to learning and nurtures the talent each student. Communication with the parents is thorough, actionable, and represents the Pesky Center's commitment to partnering with family and the student's school. The Lee Pesky Center is known for their comprehensive assessments and ability to identify strategies to support each student's learning needs. We feel grateful and fortunate to have the Pesky Center in our community.
All three of my children have Dyslexia, as does their Dad. The kids have all been tested and have gone through remediation at The Lee Pesky Learning Center. Two of our children are in college now and one is still in high school and they are all doing very well. The Pesky Center gave our children the confidence they needed to succeed in school with very skilled and detailed remediation, instruction on techniques for organization, study skills and more. Mostly they made our children and us feel that they were not alone in this journey.
I am a teacher-administrator at a private school in Boise, Idaho. Our school has a very demanding curriculum, but we accept children from all walks of life. We have multiple students who have visited the Lee Pesky Learning Center and walked away understanding more completely how they learn best. This information has been invaluable to the faculty at my school. We've learned almost as much from Lee Pesky as our students have. Lee Pesky Learning Center is a phenomenal community resource.
I've served as a board member for the LPLC since its founding, and can't say enough about the accountability, focus on mission, dedication of the staff an quality of execution. Although I have no direct experience with learning differences, the stories of students and parents that I've been hearing for nearly 15 years convinces me that the work the LPLC does high-quality, effective and valuable. I am proud to serve this top-flight organization, and proud to recommend it to parents of children with learning differences.
Our daughter received testing and remediation at the LPLC for over three years as we discovered her dyslexia and then worked to provide her skills to deal with it. The Pesky Center identified Megan's strengths - as a first grader!! - and helped her to use those strengths to overcome her difficulties with reading. Megan could not tell an "M" from an "N" - after 2 years of preschool, 1 year of kindergarten and half of first grade! She is now in 10th grade - and through recent testing, the school district psychologist mentioned she had the deepest dyslexia he had worked with over his 19 years of testing. Megan still needs extra time on assignments, struggles to read, and uses oral books from the Recordings from the Blind and Dyslexic. She is also exceptional in science and math - and is taking accelerated courses in both. These strengths would have disappeared by third grade if the Pesky Center had not helped us recognize and develop them. She will always struggle with reading - BUT she knows that she IS NOT - "the dumbest kid in fourth grade" - which is what her "friends" said about her behind her back. Megan went to remediation at the Pesky Center for over three years to learn how to rely on her visual skills when reading, how to chunk words into small pieces, how to identify the word chunks with pictures in her mind - not the letters, how to outline written material, reading highlighted information in text, how to skim material - and more importantly - how to ADVOCATE for herself as an individual with dyslexia. The Pesky Center has truly saved our daughter from what could have been a pretty tough path. Their focus on her strengths, the development of those strengths, and the development of skills to compensate for her dyslexia - these were all skills the Pesky Center staff helped her develop. We are grateful for the years of expertise and guidance.
The Pesky family is devoted to enriching the lives of those with learning disabilities, and to that end has brought together a compassionate and educated staff that is making a difference in the lives of so many in southwestern and central Idaho. Never satisfied to rest on their successes, they are continually pursuing new avenues of learning and offering students programs to enrich their lives and give them the ability to love to learn.
The work the LPLC does changes lives. The Learning Specialists at the center are so well trained and knowledgeable. They help children, parents and educators understand that learning differences are not obstacles, but rather a bump in the road that with guidance can be easily navigated. The staff is dedicated and passionate about each child that walks through their doors. It's a wonderful place.
We have been donors and supporters of the Lee Pesky Learning center since its inception .We have stOod in awe as this shoestring organization grew over the years to be the preminent provider of services and instruction to the learning disabled of the State of Idaho. It is a dedicated,professional and caring organization staffed by highly qualified members in this field. The center has always kept its supporters informed of its progress so we are very aware of the results of its work and the steady developpment of new prograams. The board of the Pesky center has continues to provide the impetus for its growth and excellence and we urge all those who realize the importance of this work to join the effort. Sincerely Nancy and Terry
Curran
Excellent organization focused on best in class evaluation and remediation of learning difficulties; also does and excellent job training teachers across the region to better serve students with LD challenges. Superior Executive Director and department heads supported by a high-functioning board.
The staff at Lee Pesky Learning Center is committed to helping those with learning disabilities. They take the time the time to get to know the family and the client. The clinical team helps families and individuals truly understand how one learns with personal feedback sessions and assessment reports that are easy to understand. The educational specialists love their work with children and adults. The specialists talk with parents after each session to share successes and provide tips for support at home. This care the staff takes with the clients truly helps them learn and grow.
My passion in supporting Lee Pesky Learning Center is a personal one. As a teacher at the Center, I daily see students who come here because of their learning differences. They are students who, first coming in, are discouraged about school. Many feel like failures, as they have tried so hard but have gotten such poor results. Their academic history affects their behavior, their social lives, and their willingness to keep trying. I've also seen these students, who after going through testing and academic intervention, transform into hopeful, hard-working students who have an understanding of their strengths, know better how to compensate for their weaknesses, have learned how to advocate for accommodations if they need them, and believe that they can get through school. Although they know that school will never be easy, they also realize that it is realistic to believe that they can fulfill their professional dreams. Working with older students, I have seen many go on, successfully, to post-secondary schools. I believe that Lee Pesky Learning Center, with all that it has to offer in the way of testing, intervention, and counseling support, has truly made a difference in the lives of all that have had an opportunity to receive our quality services.