Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Aditi Mehra.
Dr. Mehra, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
National statistics have shown that one in every five students struggles academically. This has become an epidemic within our educational environment, and the very system that his trying to leave no child behind is sadly leaving them in droves. These children are left feeling isolated and think that they themselves are the failures. I learned this first-hand through the experiences of my middle son. As a Pediatric Occupational Therapist of 20+ years, having dealt with the anguish of many other parents, I suddenly found this struggle front and center within my own family. For a while, I convinced myself that with my professional background, along with the vast resources available within my community, the solutions simply had to be within arm’s reach.
So, I explored all that this community had to offer, from its vast tutorial services to its highly qualified therapists and I even arranged for a 504 plan at school. Nothing worked! If anything- these failed efforts left my son feeling even more defeated than ever. He increasingly began making comments like “I am never going to understand this!” or “I am just stupid!” So, I did what most parents do after exhausting every available option—I placed him on medication! While the meds helped to take the edge off a bit, I suddenly realized that my son was only 8 years old and I did not want to subject him to a lifetime of medication.
One day, during one of my Doctoral classes, I learned about a truly transformational academic program called Fit Learning, which is rooted in the science of Behavioral Psychology and Precision Teaching. Its unique methodology focuses on building fluency and mastery of the foundational skills required for Math, Reading, and Logic—all the while addressing behaviors like auditory processing, attention deficits, executive functioning issues, and dyslexia, that frequently impede the learning process. This after-school program is based on 20 yrs. of research, and consistently accelerates students 1-2 grade levels in just 40 hours of instruction.
At first, it just sounded too good to be true… but I soon found the supporting research and data to be irrefutable. After completing my diligent research, I called my professor asked how I may access this program. Despite the fact that is was only available out of state; I was convinced this is exactly what my son needed and so within a few weeks we were off to New York City to visit the Fit Learning Team!
While I fully expected to be amazed by their curriculum and anticipated that it would have a positive impact upon my son, I was not altogether prepared for the transformative impact it would have on me. Within 40 hours of working with my own son, I saw 1st hand; how his test scores improved significantly, as did his overall attitude toward learning. When we went for our follow up appointment to the doctor; Tristan proudly stated that he is good at math now. I was truly aghast to see my once screaming, crying son, calmly making this comment with absolute confidence. His doctor remarked that since he was doing so well; I should keep him on the prescribed medications. Of course, at that point, I casually mentioned that I had taken him off medication three months ago and this transformation was indeed the result of Fit Learning.
Initially, I sought this program as a desperate mother with my sole purpose of helping my son; however, after seeing its profound impact… I made it my mission to bring it to the Chicago Area!
In January 2017, I opened my first learning lab in Naperville. Although it took a couple months for this unique concept to catch on, word of mouth began to travel fast and far. I even had one client who was so devoted to the program that she commuted all the way from Chicago. While she would have undoubtedly continued the grueling commute for the benefit of her children, she implored me to open a center in Chicago. So, I took that leap of faith and opened another Fit Learning Lab in the Lakeview Neighborhood of Chicago—less than a year after launching in Naperville. Yikes!
People often ask me how this approach is different from other academic resources. So, I will proudly quote a client “ It is like an academic intervention.” or “It’s like tutoring on Steroids!”
Our goal at Fit Learning is to transform students to become better at the skill of learning, so they no longer have to rely on supplemental tutoring, but can actually enjoy learning at school again. Our unique methodlogy is highly fast paced and engaging with an ultimate goal of building cognitive fitness—or the ability to learn and perform as an expert within an academic setting or task. Students who are cognitively fit tend to be agile, flexible, focused, perseverant, confident, determined, and overall critical thinkers.
I recently read Arne Duncan’s book, How Schools Work, In the opening remarks of the book, Duncan said, “To everyone who works to educate and nurture children: we all owe you a debt we can never repay. Thank you for your service.” I could not agree more. As an OT, I have worked alongside teachers in various classroom settings; I understand too well the plight of teachers and hope that we all can empathize with them. A teacher’s job is to teach the curriculum that they are given and to do so within the limited amount of time and resources they are allotted. All children come equipped with different capacities for learning and teachers have no way to account for those variances. On the other hand, that is precisely our job description at Fit Learning—we have the science to achieve this goal and achieve it in the shortest time possible. As we succeed in filling the ‘gaps’ in learning, build fluency in those foundational skills, and address behaviors around learning; then we are doing our part to level the playing field for all students who enter the classroom. As that playing field becomes more and more level, then teachers should be better positioned to do what they do best—teach!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Breakdowns need to occur before we can experience Breakthroughs, so I am proud to say there were and still are several breakdowns or challenges.
The first challenge was the expense of this training. My passion for this science and getting certified in the methodology meant a huge expense. I dip into my savings, put my house up for sale, and completely changed the trajectory of my career. Since Fit learning is not a Franchise but an independent endeavor; it was completely self-funded. Since I was one of the first four affiliates three years ago, we were all in this trial phase of working together to transform education. Since then, there a lot more measures to help affiliates and now the company is posturing to open 30+ labs globally.
The second challenge was that I had absolutely no business management skills. I was a mum and a therapist and had never done any marketing or sales… let alone hired employees. That was indeed a huge learning curve. It took me a while to ascertain what qualities and values were important to me when seeking coaches (tutors). Our coaches have to be fluent in our curriculum and then undergo through two-three months of training before they can work with students in our lab. Finding employees who hold the values science and are truly committed to making a change is indeed is still a challenge.
The biggest challenge, however, continues to be informing parents and changing mindsets. For so long, we have all believed in the traditional methods of teaching/learning. That is… if you bombard students with information and give them accommodations or present information in a million different ways… then they will eventually get it. Shifting the mindset to understand that there is indeed a science to how we learn and our typical ‘hammer it in’ approach does not work. We have the science to truly transform students but it takes time, effort and true commitment. Informing parents and helping them know what they don’t even know… they don’t know — is the most difficult task at hand.
Fit Learning – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Our specialty is accelerating students 1-2 Grade levels in just 40 hours of instruction regardless of diagnoses, abilities, age, or skill level. We have had students from therapeutic schools, students seeking to get into the gifted program, students with learning difficulties and students with special needs… all of them have made transformational results based on our research-based methodology, and data collection.
The differences:
1. Our methodology is based on the science of building fluency, so our sessions a very fast-paced and engaging.
We have had students who themselves have asked their parents to cancel tennis lessons and instead prefer to come to sessions. I had a parent cancel a Fit session which was scheduled on the child’s birthday and then called me back and indicated the student wanted to attend class on her birthday. I remember having to bribe my kids to attend tutoring classes… and thinking if they are in this mindset… I have lost this battle already. That is not the case with Fit. Since we understand the behavioral science, we are very effective in not only accelerating the learning process put keeping students motivated. We have countless feedback from parents about how positive our environment is and if we would consider starting a ‘Fit parenting’ curriculum.
2. If your child is struggling in reading comprehension: most typical services will practice the very thing the child is struggling in. This limits the results and often leaves the child feeling defeated. Our approach is very diagnostic, we assess the deficits in all the component skills of a subject and then design a curriculum based on the data. We build the fluency in the component skills which is causing the deficit in reading comprehension.
3. Our measurement:
During one session, we take approximately 44 timings and constantly measure and monitor performance. This enables us to make instant changes to the curriculum or our instruction to ensure efficacy in learning.
We also use US Standardized tests weekly to make sure what we are working on in our sessions is truly impacting the global performance of the child.
4. We address all behaviors impeding learning. If a child’s not actively listening, or sitting with good posture, or responding slowly, or not attending to directions; we can build this into our programming as the end goals to transform the child to be an expert learner.
5. Students don’t need us forever: Traditional tutoring is typically a once a week deal which seems to go on forever. Often, there is no end in sight… and there is no objective measurement system to decide when you may not need supplemental services anymore.
In our program, students enroll in a 50-hour minimum enrollment. We re-assess students every 40 hours to provide parents with the data to make informed decisions on the next steps. Since we do accelerate the learning process at such a rapid pace; students don’t need us for too long. Most typical students require two Reading enrollments and an average of three math enrollments to achieve their academic goals.
6. Research shows that the process of building fluency changes neurology. Our research consistently shows data to support how we may train a student in reading only and yet there is a significant increase in their math scores without any training whatsoever. This is a scientific bonus of our program called ‘ generativity’, where we see improvements in areas which were never trained.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
My measure of success is doing something that I am so very passionate about that it never feels like ‘work.’ I feel very fortunate enough to have found my passion and a company with integrity which has a loftier goal than most businesses – to transform education for ALL students across the globe. My next global goal is to open a center in Dubai and infiltrate the world with this scientific approach to learning.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1636 W. Belmont Ave.
Chicago, IL - Website: www.fitlearnersil.com
- Phone: 6303186464
- Email: draditi@fitlearnersil.
com - Facebook: fitlearnersil
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