A Breakthrough in Building Student Brain Power for Colorado Success?

Maybe this isn’t the best time to bring up the subject — what, with the hot summertime sun baking our brain cells and the new school year still many weeks away for most kids. But I wanted to let you know about a Colorado nonprofit group creatively working to bridge an important gap sometimes overlooked in the world of education policy.

Listen to Cognitive First Children’s Campaign founder and executive director Larry Hargrave explain on an iVoices podcast how his group seeks to make brain skills testing and intervention resources more accessible to Colorado students:

By working with school districts, charter schools, private schools, and public libraries, Cognitive First seeks to help not only the poor and disadvantaged kids but all whose limited learning capacity adversely affects their academic potential. Having high-quality teachers in Colorado classrooms is one very important part of the education reform puzzle, but it’s only half the equation. A student’s ability to learn can be improved significantly, too.

Right now, very few Colorado kids are getting the type of clinical cognitive screening that can pave the way to real meaningful and effective help that improves brain power. (Hey, even your 5-year-old blogging prodigy may have a weakness or two.) As Hargrave points out, new online technology has made a large part of the intervention process more affordable.

So I invite you to check out Cognitive First for yourself. You just might find a vital, cost-effective strategy to help improve educational outcomes for many students across Colorado.

Update, 7/3: Link removed