Here's a group shot of our camp counselors during lifeguard training, which began June 5th and continues with general camp training right up until the last minute, when the campers arrive on June 15th. From near and far, we're overjoyed to have a stellar team this summer and can't wait to kick things off!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkzZ0XipFxM&w=640&h=360]
Camp Spring Creek: Please tell us briefly how you become involved with the Learning Assistance Center at Wake Forest University and what your role is there:
Van Westervelt: Sure. I’m in my 16th year as the Director of the LAC and Disability Services. It has been a great experience here and I am highly engaged in providing academic support services for the undergraduate, graduate and professional school student body as well as disability services for any students who disclose a disability. We serve only Wake Forest students. To understand what we do, our mission statement best represents that. Here’s an excerpt: “…Our purpose is to strike a balance between providing direct assistance for skill building, while facilitating each student’s own discovery process for their individual learning and achievement style in and beyond the classroom…We strive to assist students in receiving accommodations that improve their ability to learn while assisting them to better understand their disability and realize that disability can co-exist with outstanding talents and outcomes.”
CSC: What fueled your interest in psychology and specifically in learning disabilities and dyslexia?
VW: My grandmother, Helene Durbrow, in the mid 1930’s had one son who in the 4th grade was struggling significantly with reading and getting very frustrated despite being quite bright in other areas. From her educational connections as a kindergarten teacher, she was referred to Samuel Orton MD, a neurologist at Columbia in NYC, who was working on intervention approaches for children with dyslexia, so she took her son to him for a consultation. Dr. Orton instructed her in a remediation plan for her son that was based on what is now known as the Orton-Gillingham Multisensory approach. He responded well and she was so good at applying this methodology that Dr. Orton began referring other students to her and that became her educational specialty. She received extensive training from Anna Gillingham, Mrs. Orton and Bessie Stillman as she started remedial programs at several private schools including Sidwell Friends in DC and Phillips Academy in Andover, MA.
Spurred on by encouragement from Dr. Orton and Anna, in 1946 she started a camp in Vermont at the foot of Mt. Mansfield and called it Camp Mansfield. Dr. Orton and his team realized that his students often lost significant ground over the summer and also the summer could provide an opportunity to focus on specific skills in need of remediation. Along with the educational focus at times in the day for peak attention, the camp had an array of recreation and outdoor challenge activities. My mother happened to be the Camp nurse, so from infancy my two brothers and I were able to escape the humidity of Baltimore city each summer and be fully involved in the nature and outdoor activities that Vermont had to offer. Helene took a position at Children’s Hospital in Boston training teachers there and continued to run the camp for 16 years. I remember the large wooden plaque that had the camp motto carved in it “A Strong Mind in a Strong Body.” I think that life style and philosophy must have really imprinted on me because first I became a physical therapist and then a child-adolescent psychologist!
Helene recruited a faculty of teachers who would reside at camp or commute from local towns for the whole 8-week session. One British teacher from the DC area, Diana King, was so impressed with the remedial approach that she learned from my grandmother that she would go on to establish her own school, Kildonan, and summer camp, Dunnabeck, both originally in PA, geared for bright students with dyslexia. My brother, Mark, would also go on to establish camp programs in the Baltimore area and become the Assistant Head of the Jemicy School for dyslexic students in Baltimore.
CSC: Your area of expertise is assessment and intervention. What would you say to a parent who does not have extra time, energy, finances, or community resources…but has a hunch that “something’s up” with their child’s learning style? How can this parent get his or her child what is needed within the family’s means?
VW: I think the first step would be to consult with the child’s teacher and see what his/her current school has to offer as far as assessment and intervention. A next option, if there is not insurance or funding for a private evaluation, would be to see if a local university has an evaluation clinic for learning difficulties. For example in our area, UNCG has two clinics, one for LD and the other for ADHD (336-334-5662), that offer evaluations on a sliding scale basis as far as costs. The testing is carried out by a doctoral student under the supervision of a faculty member. The assessments are quite thorough and the students from Wake Forest who I have referred there have found the results to be very helpful.
CSC: If you could help dispel one myth or stereotype about children with dyslexia, what would it be and how would you address it?
VW: Some of the early descriptions of difficulties experienced by children with dyslexia focused mainly on letter reversals and writing backwards. Through multiple research studies we now know the primary core deficit is in “phonemic awareness,” which for children without dyslexia is the rather automatic process involved in learning that words are comprised of particular component sounds that can be related to letters. Visual process difficulties that may show up as letter reversals can be associated with dyslexia but that is not the primary problem to focus on in remedial efforts.
Parents are sometimes told by well-meaning physicians or teachers “Oh he’ll grow out of it” but, as my grandmother used to advise, “You will either pay now or pay later!” This I took to mean that it was important to rally your resources early on to address the problem because addressing it later in a student’s life can be more complicated and require greater resources.
We're in need of several Certified and Associate Level Orton-Gillingham tutors for the Camp Spring Creek 2014 season. We only have a few openings left, but if qualified applicants are interested in working at camp from June 10 to August 10, please send your resume to our general email inbox: info@campspringcreek.org. Applicants may also contact us at the office by calling 828-766-5032. OG Training with us in advance of employment is sometimes an option, so don't hesitate to inquire. We also have a few tutor positions for half the summer. Applicants to these positions that are not returning staff will need to attend staff training at the start of the summer. In general, we prefer individuals that have already been through training via the Academy of Orton-Gillingham Pracitioners & Educators, but we can provide practicum observations. For example, if an applicant is hired and works the entire 8 weeks, he or she can use up to 5 observations for their practicum. Please be in touch!
We're so proud to be featured in last month's print and online issue of WNC Magazine. Please take a moment to enjoy this brief feature by clicking HERE and scrolling down to Steve and Susie's photo.
This week, Co-founder and Co-director Steve van der Vorst is in Krakow, Poland for the Camp America Camp Director's Fair, where he will get to hand-pick some of our counselors for this summer!
"Our counselors have to be able to show initiative," says Steve. "That’s one reason we conduct many interviews...I can usually get an idea for how energetic someone is, and also, how enthusiastic. A lot of young people want to work at a camp, but most camps in America are large and hire counselors that focus on one specialty. We look for people with skills across the board and we're a small camp, so we want someone comfortable with our family-style dynamic."
In addition to hard skills such as a background in art our outdoor activities, Steve also looks for a sense of humor, experience traveling and being away from home, and a willingness to work hard. Safe travels, Steve, and come back with lots of top picks!
This summer, camper Adeline participated in our Orton-Gillingham/Camp Counselor pilot program designed to benefit Mitchell County children. For four weeks, Adeline spent 2 hours at camp each day: one hour with her OG tutor and another hour participating in camp activities.
"One day Adeline came home and for entertainment she actually enjoyed making the flashcards," said her mother Tonya. "She made me a whole set and then she asked me, 'Mom, would you buy me some more 3x5 cards?' She'd never done anything like that before. We really appreciate what Steve and Susie and Camp Spring Creek did for us."
Adeline is now in 7th grade at a local school. Her parents have lived here for over twenty years and love the Western North Carolina community. "It's refreshing here. I cannot imagine raising our girls anywhere else in the world," said Tonya. "We appreciate having a yard and such a beautiful view and land for animals and a garden. We have fruit trees, fresh asparagus, fresh flowers...We love it here."
This article was originally published in local papers.
Spruce Pine, North Carolina – Camp Spring Creek of Mitchell County and OpenDoors of Asheville join forces to make a difference in the lives of four Western North Carolina children.
This summer, four Buncombe County children connected through OpenDoors of Asheville were awarded full scholarships to attend Camp Spring Creek, an academic and recreational camp focusing on literacy, language, and math skills. Located in Bakersville, the camp has served children from WNC and around the world for 11 years and is one of only three residential camps in the United States accredited by the Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators. OpenDoors connects local children living in multi-generational poverty with enrichment and education opportunities to help break the cycle of poverty. The organizations teamed up to provide jointly-funded scholarships made possible through private donations, enabling four children from Buncombe County to attend Camp Spring Creek for four weeks at a total value of $29,920.
According to Jennifer Ramming, Executive Director of OpenDoors, the nonprofit currently partners with 13 Asheville city schools for 48 students, more than 2/3 of whom have some type of language-based learning difference and suffer greatly from “summer slide.” The Orton Gillingham methodology offered at Camp Spring Creek provides daily, one-on-one, multisensory tutoring sessions for each camper that is both diagnostic and prescriptive. “The students were assessed and progressed in areas such as phonemic awareness, decoding, encoding, writing mechanics and study habits,” says Ramming. “There was also a wonderful section on the report [from Camp Spring Creek] for each child called ‘Recommendations’ that gives us a road map for how to continue our student’s success in partnership with the teachers and specialists during the upcoming school year.”
Co-founder of Camp Spring Creek Susie van der Vorst is overjoyed about the partnership. “The kids from OpenDoors had the most integrity and the best manners of any campers I’ve ever seen,” she says. ”All the OpenDoors children were an asset to our program and taught us as much as we taught them. Everyone fit right in and it was great to see the OpenDoors kids getting to know the other campers and branching out to form friendships of their own.”
As a part of their study hall sessions at Camp Spring Creek, campers write letters home. The OpenDoors campers also wrote thank you letters to “sponsors” whose donations made the scholarships possible. “I am a better reader now and I met new people,” wrote one 7th grade child, “Thank you for helping me come here.” Another camper, age 10, wrote: “My reading is improving. My tutor is cool and she taught me cursive. I have made lots of friends here and some of them are from different places.” Their letters also included positive responses to new experiences they had at camp, such as whitewater rafting, paintball, swimming lessons, and woodshop.
For more information about services from OpenDoors, residents of Buncombe County can call 828-777-1135 or visit opendoorsasheville.org. For information on teacher training, camp, or tutoring opportunities through Camp Spring Creek, call 828-766-5032 or visit www.campspringcreek.org.
This summer, Tyler attended camp full time for six weeks on a scholarship funded by Rotary Club and Camp Spring Creek, among other sources. Tyler is now in 7th grade.
His mother, Rebecca, had this to say about her son's experience: "I feel very blessed that Tyler got to go to camp. It really changed not just his reading ability, but also his confidence and attitude about learning. Now he’s more motivated and eager to learn because he has the tools he needs. He wants to go back to Camp Spring Creek every year. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience for him...As far as Tyler’s opinion: he loved camp. When he got home, he told me wanted to go back to camp. He said he hopes to go again next year and eventually help out at Camp Spring Creek and be able to help other kids once he learns enough. He was really happy that he got the help that he needed to assist him with school."
Ladies and Gentlemen....drums, please... The Harlem Shake video has finally been accessed from our "archives" and is ready for public viewing. Help us celebrate the conclusion of another successful summer season at Camp Spring Creek by getting your groove on:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OmHx0LvnNk&w=560&h=315]
We're taking a week off (the blog). But posts will resume with a twice weekly schedule (occasional exceptions) next week. Thanks, as always, for following along!
The end of summer is always such a bittersweet time of year for us at Camp Spring Creek. We've sai
d our goodbyes and promised to keep in touch. We've cleaned and swept and cleaned some more. We've taken our last group photos and squeezed Mimi one last time (well, you guys did--we get to live with her all year!). But before all that, we did stick to business and wrap a few things up during Week 8 with:
Selecting a Room Inspection winner daily (instead of at the end of the week) and rewarding them with freezy pops at lunchtime.
By now, our campers have headed down new paths...back home, readying for a new school year, dreaming of next summer. Our hearts are with you and please call or email us at any time!
We're in the home stretch of summer here at Camp Spring Creek and so much has happened, at times it feels like a blur. We said goodbye to campers Miles and Matthew last week and miss them both. Meanwhile, CIT Gregg (who came at the midpoint of summer), has been enjoying his new role and is thrilled that he got to overlap a little bit with Marco, who was our CIT for the first half of summer. These two first met a Camp Spring Creek as campers and have known each other for years! Greg has been helping out in the boy's cabins, assisting with lifeguarding, kitchen prep, and sometimes even woodshop and art. "I’ve been taking a lot of kids down to breakfast in the morning or helping them get ready for bed at night," Greg said. "I also make sure they brush their teeth and make their beds right."
Here's the run down of last week's news:
We're a day late getting last week's "reflections" to you, but hopefully camp photographer Anina van der Vorst's slide show kept you going while we were busy having fun. Here's the skinny on last week's adventures:
Rain, rain, and more rain! Even if you don't live in this part of the United States, there's a good chance you've been hearing weather news broadcasts about the record-breaking precipitation we've experienced. Last week, we had one evening that wasn't pouring down...thankfully, our spirits aren't down at all. The "new" group of campers who arrived at the mid-point of summer have fit right into the routine and are cruising along without missing a beat. Here's a recap of some of last week's highlights:
Week Four was full of fun and a healthy balance of looking our finest (the Formal Dinner) and getting completely muddy (going spelunking). Here's a list of highlights:
