Support Services for Students
in Farmington, Simsbury, CT & Beyond
Why LD Coaching?
While test prep is an important portion of high school that students often require support with for a certain period of time, school itself can be daunting for many students, especially those with learning differences.
Supports such as separate classes are intended for students with special needs (remedial), and resources like office hours and learning centers are geared toward the “regular” students, who fit the “neurotypical” type of learner. Most people, with slight variations, fall into this category.
But what about the students who don’t fit either of these categories? The kids who certainly don’t qualify as remedial or special ed, but who have always found school to be difficult and frustrating despite their best efforts?
These are the students with learning differences. They are not cognitively impaired – they simply have traits such as dyslexia, executive functioning differences, ADHD, or others, which lend unique characteristics to their pathways of learning and retaining information. For these students, the conditions of most traditional classrooms often pose challenges.
Many of these students feel left behind or lose interest because the format of the lesson is not getting through to them. They need something else.
How Does It Work?
My job is to help these kids get comfortable with how they are wired - to accept it, be proud of it, and learn to work with it, not despite it. The support they receive from me can take different forms. Some weeks it could be helping with an essay. Other weeks, it could be learning to gather and organize information for a research paper, or preparing for a test that requires a lot of memorization (which can be particularly difficult for students with LD).
The relationship for this type of support is longitudinal. People have these traits for their entire lives. So unlike test prep, which lasts for a few months and has a discrete end, LD coaching support is typically a weekly meeting for the length of the school year, or until the student feels comfortable handling school without support - which does happen and is ultimately the goal. Some students work with me for just a few months, others for a school year, and there are a few with whom I have worked for several years. Recently, one senior asked me to support them through college. :-)
Help Is Available for the Following:
- Academic Support for Learning Disabilities
- Autism
- Dyslexia
- ADHD
Students with learning differences are often exceptionally bright, creative, and intellectually curious. Many think deeply, make unexpected connections, and approach problems in innovative ways. Yet despite their potential, traditional academic systems — and most standardized test prep programs — are built for a narrow learning model. They prioritize speed, volume, and uniform instruction, often overlooking how differently wired brains process information.
As a result, these students may feel misunderstood or mislabeled. At Catalyze Test Prep & LD Coaching, we recognize that the issue isn’t intelligence — it’s alignment. When instruction aligns with how a student’s brain works, performance improves.
We provide specialized support services tailored specifically for students with ADHD, dyslexia, executive functioning challenges, processing differences, working memory limitations, and related learning profiles. Our approach integrates academic strategy, executive function development, and performance coaching into a cohesive system designed for real-world success.
To learn more about our support services for LD or to schedule an initial session, we encourage you to contact us today!
We don’t try to “fix” how students think. Instead, we help them understand how they think.
