Brain Express • Pflugerville

Brain Express • Pflugerville

By Rob Heidrick Friday, 05 December 2008

Two years ago Judi Carter thought she had retired from teaching. In her nearly 20 years as an educator, she worked with students in towns all over Texas, relocating more than 10 times with her husband, who works in the oil business. So, by the time her family settled in Pflugerville in 2005, Carter figured it was time to move on from the teaching world.

It did not take long for Carter to change her mind, though. When a friend came to her for advice about a child who had recently failed the first grade, Carter saw an opportunity to try a different kind of teaching — honing in on areas of weakness that she said tend to go overlooked in most classroom environments.

Carter went through training in cognitive education, a method of instruction that emphasizes practice in fundamental skills such as memory, comprehension and visual and auditory processing. She founded her business, Brain Express, on the premise that mastering basic mental processes is the first step in becoming a successful student.

“We deal with why you didn’t get it the first time,” Carter said. “There’s a reason you didn’t get it while everyone else did. Let’s not put a Band-Aid on the symptoms. Let’s fix the cause.”

Brain Express offers two cognitive programs that each deal with different areas of student need: Master the Code, which is designed for students struggling with reading and spelling; and PACE, which stands for processing and cognitive enhancement, and covers all cognitive skills for children behind in multiple areas.

During the course of the 12-week programs, Carter engages her students in one-on-one practice drills that strengthen memory, focus and time management skills. Miss Judi, as her students call her, meets with each child three evenings a week. She also requires parents to practice with their children at home three evenings each week, too.

Carter runs Brain Express out of her Pflugerville home, aided by her daughter, Kristi Lobato. Rather than sitting at desks or in cubicles, students scoot up to the dining room table or take a seat in the breakfast room.

Typical exercises include hands-on work with physical objects and visual charts and lighter activities, such as jumping on trampolines. But Brain Express is not all fun and games.

“They’re not sitting there getting breaks,” Carter said. “We push and push and push. They get an A or they get nothing. If they don’t get an A, they’ve got to do it again.”

The hard work pays off in the end, Carter said, because not only do students improve in school, they also are happier and more cooperative with their parents at home.

“Their confidence comes up,” Carter said. “Their self-esteem is through the roof. These kids who were shy and not making friends are now giving reports in front of the classroom and are not scared for the first time. They’ve just come out of their shell because they found out they can learn.”

PACE and Master the Code

Brain Express offers two courses of study for children having trouble in specific areas: PACE (processing and cognitive enhancement) and Master the Code, programs developed by Colorado-based PACE Tutoring in the 1990s.

• PACE — This is a program of general study for children struggling with multiple cognitive skills. Carter said she puts her students through sequences of activities that become increasingly complex, with the goal of making each step an automatic part of the student’s thought process. An exercise that starts out as a simple color-matching task, for instance, progresses into a timed drill testing memory and visual acuity.
• Master the Code — If the diagnostic test reveals significant difficulties with reading comprehension, Carter encourages students to enroll in Master the Code. Citing recent studies showing that up to 85 percent of reading problems can be fixed through cognitive training, Carter said the program approaches words from the root level, building upward. Students practice the basic sounds of different letter combinations, “encoding” and “decoding” them to form full words and sentences.

Brain Express, 252-1970, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , http://brainexpress.processingskills.com