Having moved from Egypt to the United States in third grade, Ayesha was struggling, feeling lost and alone at school. School curricula and grade requirements were entirely different in Egypt, and Ayesha was unsure of what was expected of her at her new school. For two years, Ayesha devoted all of her free time to studying, yet to no avail. She was even assigned individual aides in all of her classes, but it didn't help. By the middle of the fifth grade, Ayesha was failing, and she had completely shut down.

Desperate and frustrated, Ayesha and her mother came to Huntington in Westwood, NJ in hopes that we could help. Initially Ayesha was a shy, quiet girl who was scared of answering questions incorrectly. Our teachers worked diligently with her to make sure Ayesha understood Huntington was a place of learning, improvement, and most of all, of encouragement and support. Once Ayesha understood this, she was unstoppable.

Ayesha was relieved that her program focused around her specific needs and that she would be able to work at the speed that permitted her to practice and retain strategies and concepts. Little by little, this girl who was once unsure of herself transformed into a confident, self-assured student, able to take on challenging problems and experience the feeling of being successful. Our teachers will never forget the day Ayesha came in to the center and told us she got a 78 on her math test. It was the first time Ayesha earned a passing grade in math on her own. After that moment, you couldn't miss Ayesha running into the center wearing a huge smile on her face, excited to report to us every time she earned a grade she was proud of.

By the time Ayesha left our center, she was a changed person. When I followed up with her mother two months after Ayesha had completed the Huntington program, she told me that Ayesha had earned all Bs on her last report card. On the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) standardized test, she had scored in the highest bracket of proficiency—a monumental improvement. Her mother could not thank us enough and told me that Ayesha continues to talk about her time at Huntington and how much it impacted her.

FROM: Ayesha