Learning Philosophy

At KND Learning, we believe that learning that sticks happens when a learner truely masters a skill. We believe in setting high bars for mastery, and providing a guided, scaffolded path to reaching it.

Our core principles

• Learners deserve control

  While learning often requires specific ordering, learner's should be given choices wherever and whenever possible. At KND Learning, that means letting them choose how they practice and how many attempts they make.

• Mastery before moving on

  Confidence comes from success. By setting high expectations while providing the pathway to achieve it, learners build their confidence lockstep with building their skills. This makes them better able to cope with future struggle.

• Failure is part of success

  Failure is not an end point, it's a feedback point. Failure tells learners (and instructors) where there are gaps in their knowledge, allowing for targeted practice and instruction and leading to future success.

• Progress you can see

  Simple, clear, straightforward progress tracking that doesn't limit forward momentum, while also encouraging learners to return to earlier skills to further practice and lock in their skills.

• Every one at their own pace

  There's no rush and no pressure to move at another's pace. Instead, each learner advances based on their own compentency and success.

Foundational Skills

At KND Learning we believe that developing strong foundational skills in both math and reading are key. That these skills will be called upon daily in their lives, and that they are what also enable future learning.

The goal here at KND Learning is to provide a platform where all learners can build these skills with confidence and set themselves up for a more successful learning journey.

Timed Practice and Fluency

Fluency (whether math or reading) is a combination of accuracy and speed. This is why the mastery levels are always timed and why mastery requires high accuracy.

The practice levels don't have timers, because practice should be low stress where learners can take their time as they work through the questions. However, to determine if a learner has mastered a concept, it's important to bring in time. At KND Learning, mastery is equal to fluency: high accuracy combined with quick recall.

Master of foundational skills means being able to complete these skills with a high degree of accuracy "without thinking." We want these skills to become ingrained, so that as learners move to more advanced topics, they will not need to spend any cognitive energy on these skills and able to just use them.

Learn to Read Program

You often hear about the switch from learning to read to reading to learn that occurs (or is supposed to occur) around grades 3/4. The idea behind this, essentially boils down to "a learner now has enough reading fluency that they are no longer focused on decoding each word, and instead can focus their energy on comprehending the text." For most readers, there's a moment when reading suddenly "clicks" and they realize they're not longer trying to read, they just are. Getting to this point requires learners to build and be able to rely on a number of decodable skills so that when they are faced with a new word, they have strategies they can rely on that will enable them, with a relatively high degree of accuracy, to figure out what the word is, and what it means.

The curriculum of the Learn to Read program is built off of literacy research into best practices for teaching reading. It combines learning letter-sound correspondences with memorizing the top 100 high frequency words so that readers will be able to approach text with confidence.

There's over 400 letter-sound correspondences, but they do not all need to be taught. Many are rare enough, that it is simpler/easier to just teach the words they are in at the whole word level. Instead, this program focuses on the most frequent letter-sound correspondeces that will allow readers to have enough skills to approach most words.

The 100 more frequent words generally account for about 50% of all words that you reader. They are just that important and frequent. Being able to just know these words upon sight is crucial for reading fluency.

Questions?

We'd love to talk about how we approach learning. Reach out any time at support@kndlearn.com.