July 2015 by Laurie B.
I went to Huntington learning center as a high schooler, and then once again when I was preparing for testing in college. Now I am a special ed teacher, working with students that have learning disabilities. Because I was a student at Huntington, and now I am a teacher in the public school system, I feel like I can look at the learning center from both ends and give a well rounded review. For starters, I do not think the teachers at the learning center are particularly kind to the students, which to me is very important. If the students are unhappy, and their social/emotional needs are not met, learning will not occur. My biggest issue is that the centers do not seem welcoming at all, the florescent lighting doesn't help, and the overall feeling inside the place is dull. Not so inviting, especially for students who are going to get extra help outside of school. Their program for general student support, so when they work on reading and math with the kids, I did not find helpful at all. I used to go for two hour sessions two times a week after school. Personally, I think it is shame on parents that make their kids do that much extra work, especially if the students are struggling learners. I was already having an issue with reading in school, and finding the main idea in a six sentence passage, was not the way to help me out, but Huntington seemed to think it was. How the system is set up is they place you in a level via some assessment, then you stay in that level until you "pass" it. Essentially you can end up getting stuck on a level for months, and rather than having a teacher support you, and actually teach you the skill, you just have to keep up with the level until you figure it out on your own and pass it. That I don't see as fit when trying to teach the student a new skill. That being said I found that their ACT prep was very helpful when it came to anything reading related (including the science section), but the math ACT prep I found to be troublesome. For reading they gave a bunch of tips and tricks to help when testing in those sections, and that was very helpful. I think that because there was a common goal it gave the teachers a better idea of what they were actually teaching. For math they would try to use tricks to make the problems shorter, that was not good for me, my math section score actually went down after studying with them. Because I had a pretty successful experience with the ACT prep, I returned to Huntington for prep when I was taking state teaching exams in college (Basic Skills etc.) They helped me when it came to this type of test prep, so I was glad my parents sent me back as a college student. From a special ed teachers perspective, I don't think I would suggest this for any of my students. Something you can do as an alternative is find a 1:1 home tutor for your student, that way they can work on exactly what your kid needs. I would though recommend Huntington for overall test prep if you're prepping for something specific such as the ACT or the SAT.
