"Our daughter looks forward to the parenting time to practice the Pittsburgh plan every day - when we need to skip a day - she is disappointed! . . . . There is nothing to compare to the straight back, the beaming smile when [she] does field work at a museum, at restroom doors, at the library, on a road trip, at the zoo, in buses, in airports, etc."
Mother of daughter using the Plan
The Pittsburgh Plan can be thought of as a method, not of teaching, but of helping children learn.
What is this method?In essence, the Plan consists of:
Field Work;
Homework Sessions; and
A set of procedures and techniques.
Field Work involves concrete activities such as manipulating objects, singing, spotting letters and words on signs, etc. These activities can be planned or spontaneous (e.g., while driving, shopping, etc.).Field Work helps provide the child with a concrete foundation for reading and understanding math.
Click here to learn more about Field Work under the Plan.
Homework Sessions are scheduled times when the child sits with a parent at a table and, equipped with a crayon, works on a one-page worksheet for between three and fifteen minutes, depending on the age of the child and the level of the child’s interest that day.These sessions help the child build a bridge from a concrete understanding of reading and math to the more abstract type of understanding that is required for full-fledged reading and math proficiency.
Click here to learn more about Homework Sessions under the Plan.
Procedures and Techniques.In all Plan activities, the parent-child interaction should be happy, free of pressure, and child-centered.This type of atmosphere encourages the child to explore and become an active learner, which in turn – when paired with the Plan’s carefully designed materials – leads to the type of powerful inductive learning that characterizes a child’s acquisition of spoken language, the type of learning that leads to the Plan’s extraordinary and long-lasting results.
Click here to learn more about the Plan’s procedures and techniques.
Click here to learn more about the first and primary rule of the Plan:No Pressure.
