Empowering Learners
For More Than 20 Years
Bonnie Holland
Educational Therapist, MEd, ET/P
My Services
I provide holistic, individualized, therapeutic support to empower children and adolescents to overcome academic challenges. Please scroll down or contact me to learn more about who I am and the services that I offer.
Math Learning Support
I provide therapeutic math support from the foundation up through precalculus. Whether a young person is struggling to learn the basics or to comprehend and work through complex procedures, I have effective tools to support math learning while simultaneously addressing the underlying causes of the difficulty.
More about math learning support:
As an educational therapist, I provide holistic, individualized, therapeutic math support to students with and without disabilities. In this work, I draw heavily on my extensive training and experience with the use of structured numeracy methods, including Making Math Real (MMR)-based methodology and the M.Sense program.
These methods are highly effective in supporting math learning and can be individualized to meet the diverse needs of the vast majority of learners. When implemented by a skilled educational therapist, these methods address the underlying causes of the math difficulty as they build specific skills and conceptual understanding. These methods also present an opportunity for cognitive and executive development that goes beyond the math (see Executive Function Support).
My ability to apply these methods therapeutically and to adapt them to meet individual student needs is further supported by my education, training, and experience as an educational therapist. Please see the About Me section of this website for further information about my credentials.
Please contact me if you would like to know more about how my services may meet the needs of your specific learner.
Executive Function Support
I provide executive function support in the areas of self-regulation, organization, time-management, and study skills. Through an individualized combination of strategy development and therapeutic interventions, I support students to organize their thinking and behavior to reach their goals.
More about executive function support:
Because the executive demands of the subject are so high, math provides an ideal medium through which to develop self-regulatory executive functions as well as the metacognitive ability upon which other executive functions depend. MMR and M.Sense have been specifically designed to support the development of executive functions, which are an underlying cause of many students’ challenges with math learning and performance.
Most students who struggle with math benefit from therapeutic support using MMR-based methods to address underdeveloped executive functions, such as cognitive flexibility, working memory, attention, and impulse control.
As appropriate, I can also provide basic mindfulness instruction to students who struggle with attention-control, emotional self-regulation, and metacognitive awareness.
In addition to math and mindfulness-based executive function interventions, I offer organization and time management support, using methods and strategies that draw heavily on the Executive Function Success program.
I can also provide metamemory and study skills interventions that draw on a variety of sources, including my extensive independent study in the area of long-term memory function.
Please contact me if you would like to learn more about my executive function support services.
Self-Concept & Behavior Support
I provide holistic support that addresses the emotional and behavioral aspects of academic performance. Support for developing positive self-concept, as well as adaptive beliefs and behaviors, is interwoven into all sessions. Mental health is my number one priority when working with any young person.
More about self-concept & behavior support:
I have closely studied Carol Dweck’s research on the development and importance of a Growth Mindset, and that research informs everything that I say to my clients to support them to develop adaptive beliefs and behaviors in the face of life’s inevitable challenges.
In addition, I have focused a great deal of my professional development on Self-Determined Learning Theory and the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction, which is an empirically validated model for developing self-regulated, goal-directed behavior.
The attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors associated with self-determination have been shown to critical to successful adult outcomes. Therefore, supporting young people to develop these adaptive beliefs and behaviors is a central passion of mine.
As with growth mindset work, self-concept and behavior support is typically interwoven into other academic interventions. However, for students who struggle with goal-directed behavior, self-advocacy, or who show a persistently passive approach to learning and problem-solving, I can implement the Self-Determined Learning Model as a stand-alone therapeutic intervention.
Please visit the About Me page of this website or contact me for further information.
Testimonials
"From working with Bonnie we’ve watched our 12 year old daughter go from discouraged and overwhelmed to capable and empowered. We worked with many tutors before and no one has the patience, insight and commitment that we have experienced with Bonnie. Bonnie goes beyond tutoring math and uses math as a tool to teach life skills and executive functioning. Our family is grateful to have found Bonnie to support our daughter’s educational journey. She is the best!”
— Parents of a Middle School Student
“I cannot recommend Bonnie highly enough. She is a consummate professional, highly empathetic, and extremely skilled. From the parent perspective, logistics were easy in terms of scheduling and communication was wide open. I was grateful to receive a detailed summary at the end of each month, and she was available as needed in the interim if issues arose. Bonnie also supported my daughter in an IEP meeting, which was very helpful in terms of making sure she had the supports she needed in class.
“Making Math Real itself, with its structured, incremental approach, is incredibly valuable, especially for students with learning challenges. My children all have dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia, and I don't think they could have succeeded as far as they have without that instructional methodology. I am so grateful we found Bonnie. I have complete faith in her abilities and her professionalism and couldn’t have asked for a better experience.”
— Parent of a High School Student
“I am in middle school and I have been working with Bonnie for 3 years. Bonnie has made me more confident in school. I am so grateful we found her.”
— Middle School Student
“Bonnie worked with all 4 of my children who had struggled in math for years! Bonnie is highly trained in a multi-sensory math methodology that works like a charm! Bonnie and I also took many of the same math methodology classes together called Making Math Real. She is a true scholar and takes her work very seriously. She is an amazing teacher! She keeps my kids accountable. She teaches them in a way that they understand and can activate their picture of what the numbers represent! My kids would be lost without her amazing intense and on point math intervention. I am very grateful for her work with my 4 children! She is a great communicator as well and keeps me posted on what she is doing with them in math therapy and how I can best support them at home. I highly recommend Bonnie as an educator and math interventionist.”
— Parent of Four
“Bonnie is a dynamic teacher and very kind person. Though I started with her later in my academic journey, she adapted to my needs from the beginning. We could go as slow as I needed or as fast, and that kind of flexibility was helpful for me as someone who's had a difficult experience with math in the past. I felt comfortable making mistakes because she had created such a wonderful environment. I enjoyed my time with her and when we finished felt prepared to step into a college level math class.”
— College Student
About Me
I am a professionally certified educational therapist with more than 20 years of experience working with students with diverse learning needs.
My formal training includes a MEd degree in educational therapy, along with a certificate in the same, and I am professionally certified through the Association of Educational Therapists (AET). I abide by the AET code of ethics.
In addition, I hold a valid Virginia Teacher’s license and second MEd degree in special education with endorsements in special education, math, and ESL. My training and experience as a special education teacher informs my participation and advocacy in Child Find, Eligibility, and IEP meetings as well as my communication and collaboration with classroom teachers.
In addition to my formal training as an educational therapist, and as a special education teacher in public schools, I have completed hundreds of hours of additional professional development training in the areas of math instruction, executive function development, structured literacy interventions, and other aspects of educational therapy and case-management. My practice currently focuses on math learning and executive function, but I have many years of experience providing support with reading and expository writing as well.
As an educational therapist, I am familiar with most learning difference and disability profiles, but I also deeply understand that each student is unique. I am ready and able to tailor my approach to meet the individual needs of each student whether they have a diagnosed disability or not.
I take a flexible and creative student-centered approach to all interventions, carefully building a relationship of trust with each young person in collaboration with their parents and caregivers. My style is lighthearted, creative, and playful, even as my students and I engage in serious and important work together.
I offer in-person support in the Richmond, VA area, and I also offer virtual support through my e-practice.
Please note that virtual support is often not ideal for very young learners, although there are exceptions. The virtual format typically works best for students in 4th grade and above, but the appropriateness of this format is best judged on an individual basis.
Please contact me to further explore whether we might have a good fit.
Contact Me
Please contact me if you would like to talk more about how my services might meet your specific needs.