Educational Therapy Services

2022-23 Update:

I do not currently have room in my schedule for new child clients for educational therapy. I do have limited availability for parent coaching, assessment and school planning consultations, and professional development; please schedule a time to chat about any of these! Of course, I am always happy to make referrals to some of my wonderful colleagues working in educational therapy and related fields — please reach out to melissa@melissahk.com for resources.

Through one-on-one, highly individualized intervention and assessment, I work with clients on executive functioning skills, social-emotional skills, academic skills, and foundational skills with my educational therapy services.

Under the best of circumstances, school is still hard. It’s a job and a social life at the same time, with a very strong learning curve, and daily feedback about how you’re doing. For children with diagnosed or undiagnosed learning differences, or who struggle with any aspect of their school lives, motivation can be one of the earliest things to be affected – yet it’s so important to both academics and life.

One of the roles of the educational therapist is to help kids regain the natural motivation to do well that all humans have, whether or not they are able to fulfill it. In order to feel motivation, kids have to first feel hope. And I am here to help your child feel hopeful and confident as they navigate school and their social life.

Educational therapy services are offered both virtually and in person in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Some of the educational therapy services that we can work together on are:

Literacy: phonemic awareness, sound-letter correspondence, decoding, fluency, comprehension strategies, spelling, mild handwriting/graphomotor challenges, writing rate/production, brainstorming, idea organization, editing, using technology or graphic organizers to support writing development

Math: number sense, subitizing (recognizing “how many”), math facts, the “four operations” (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), word problem interpretation, handling math anxiety

General Study Skills: homework strategies, time management, balancing academics and extracurriculars, communicating with teachers, breaking up large or long-term assignments into manageable pieces, preparation for tests and quizzes, decoding and meeting expectations of assignments, demonstrating strong “student skills” to teachers, generalizing individual skills across multiple areas

Executive Functioning: strategies to improve planning, executing, self-monitoring, and reflecting on tasks or assignments, exercises to improve working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control

Social-Emotional Skills: recognizing emotions in self and others, learning social norms and “expected” vs. “unexpected” behaviors, making and keeping friends, conversational skills, entering and exiting play, handling competition and games, self-soothing, self-regulating energy and emotions, verbal and nonverbal communication

Self-Advocacy and Case Management: metacognition (understanding one’s own thinking and learning), identifying learning needs and how to ask for them respectfully and productively, goal-setting and monitoring, consultation and collaborating with parents/guardians, school teams, and allied professionals (speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, psychotherapists or psychologists, etc.)

Further Information

Educational therapy sessions are generally one hour unless arranged differently in advance. The last ten minutes of each session is reserved for parent/guardian check-ins, which you can choose to use or not in any given week. Good communication is an essential part of educational therapy!

Educational therapy services fees are charged per hour plus expenses if relevant. A one-time materials fee of $50 will be charged in the first billing cycle after the first session. Fees are also charged for time spent on assessment scoring and report writing, as well as communication and collaboration with teachers and other support providers. The services I provide are designed collaboratively with my clients, in many ways, and can vary from week to week as needs merit. Educational therapy and consulting services may occur on-site, by telephone, or online. If attending a meeting or providing other services outside the San Francisco city limits, fees will cover travel time as well as the actual meeting/session.