At PTACH, growth is not limited to students. This year, it began with the teachers.
At the start of the school year, PTACH’s elementary faculty embarked on a transformative professional development initiative designed to deepen expertise and elevate classroom instruction. Through a partnership with the Atlantic Seaboard Dyslexia Association (ASDEC), a dedicated group of teachers, speech-language professionals, and paraprofessionals are now engaged in intensive training and clinical supervision leading toward national certification as Academic Language Practitioners through ALTA.
Many of these professionals have spent years in the field of special education. Yet their commitment to continued growth reflects a core PTACH belief: the best educators never stop learning.
The program is led by administrator and academic language therapist Dr. Sara Chaya Farbstein, CALT, and received enthusiastic support from PTACH Director, Dr. Judah Weller and the school’s leadership team. Beginning with a comprehensive summer training and continuing throughout the academic year, participants are mastering Multisensory Structured Language methodology rooted in the Orton-Gillingham approach, one of the most respected and effective methods for teaching students with dyslexia and other language-based learning challenges.
The impact has been immediate and powerful.
Teachers have been implementing these strategies directly with PTACH students, carefully tracking progress through pre-assessments and ongoing evaluations. Mid-year data already shows reading growth that exceeds typical expectations for this point in the school year. Many students have demonstrated significant gains in word identification and word attack skills, with some achieving a full year or more of reading growth in just five months.
For some children, this progress represents something even more meaningful: their first real experience of success with English reading. Families report that students are returning home eager to read aloud, proudly sharing their new skills, sometimes for the very first time.
PTACH is proud to serve as an IMSLEC-accredited training satellite of the Atlantic Seaboard Dyslexia Education Center and remains the only IMSLEC-accredited training provider serving the New York metropolitan area.
The results are clear. When educators deepen their expertise, students thrive. At PTACH, a culture of professional learning is translating into something extraordinary: children discovering that they truly can read.