Our team will be hosting in person or virtual (if needed) small group, safe, specialized RISE Camps for Spring break, Pro-D days and Summer camps. Our customized and creative week-long Vancouver camps will focus on helping students with learning differences develop new skills through fun, hands-on camp programs with high instructor and camp counsellor to camper ratio.

Choose the right programs and sessions for your child; currently 2 programs available.

Filter activities available:

• Creative writing
• Instructor lead (group)
• Instructor lead (one on one)
• Math
• Meditation
• Mindfulness Training
• Reading
• Storytelling
• Technology
• Writing / journalism

Rachel Forbes, JD, Executive Director

We are truly excited and honoured to welcome (or welcome back!) you and your family to the LDS community.

Whether you are joining us in East Vancouver, North Vancouver, through a RISE in School program, or virtually via RISE at Home, please know that you are now part of a community of educators, advocates and other guardians, parents and students who want to help your child and your family succeed. Please lean on us and let us know how we can help you best support your child.

At LDS, each member of our team is driven by and committed to our mission: to empower all children and youth with learning differences to recognize their unique strengths and develop the tools to achieve lifelong confidence and success. We believe that our approach to empowering your child is special because we work behind the scenes to deliver individualized services to each student based on their needs, and as a charity, we do that for every student we work with, regardless of the family's ability to pay. 

We take pride in grounding our work with each student and family according the following service provision principles:

1. Holistic: We coordinate with parents and guardians, general classroom teachers, resource teachers, counsellors, psychologists, family doctors, pediatricians and other professionals to build a full picture of each student’s learning profile

2. Individualized: We develop customized learning plans and practice careful instructor matching for each unique student.

3. Accessible and Inclusive: We work to design our spaces and deliver our programming so that students and families find them inclusive and physically as well as financially accessible.

4. Technology enhanced: We are integrating assistive technologies into programs and making these available to empower students and enhance student learning and progress.

5. Integrated: We strive to complement and enhance students’ experiences at school and to empower children and families toward self-advocacy.

In order to fulfill our mission and our service principles, we work every day to enhance, improve and add to the resources we provide to families. We thank you for your patience and your feedback as we evolve! Please check in with us (via our site, social media, newsletter, or directly) to learn about our growing list of programs, services and resources as they are released in the coming months.

Accommodations:

Is Learning Disabilities Society technology free?
LDS is carefully researching and adopting leading edge assistive technologies to provide the best support for our students.

• Why choose Learning Disabilities Society?

  Explicit, Effective and Individualized Instruction = RESULTS!

  Individualized Instruction

  We work one-on-one with each child and their family to develop a plan for diagnosis and remediation. We assist students in achieving expected competencies in core academic skills such as literacy and numeracy. 

  Progress Monitoring 

  Ongoing progress monitoring is used to assess students academic performance, to quantify a students rate of improvement or responsiveness to instruction, and to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction.

  Research Partnership with Academic Institutions

  These partnerships’ core objective is to improve writing instruction and student outcomes for elementary and secondary children struggling with writing skill development. More precisely, we aim to develop effective interventions to improve writing skills in after-school programs and evaluate writing progress during intervention to ensure that all struggling students are improving. 

  This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

  Orton Gillingham Approach (OG)

  The Orton-Gillingham (OG) Approach is one methodology that we employ. It is a direct, multisensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic, and prescriptive way to teach literacy when reading, writing, and spelling does not come easily to individuals, such as those with dyslexia. In the hands of a well-trained and experienced instructor, it is a powerful tool of exceptional breadth, depth, and flexibility. Self Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) is rated as the best evidence-based, classroom-proven writing method helping all level of K-12 excel at writing and learning.

  FastBridge Program

  The Formative Assessment System for Teachers (FAST™) combines Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) and Computer-Adaptive Testing (CAT) to transform the way we measure and monitor student progress in reading, math and social-emotional behaviour. 

  Self Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD)

  Self Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) is rated as the best evidence-based, classroom-proven writing method helping all level of K-12 excel at writing and learning.

  Success Rates

  Based on the results from a longitudinal research study conducted with UBC, our students saw a 54% improvement in literacy(reading and writing), in addition to a 42% improvement in mathematics, relative to general education norms.