Meet Learning Specialist & educational consultant Sylvia Winik
“I believe that any child can learn if placed in a school environment appropriate for that child and taught by caring and highly skilled adults working together with the child’s parents or caregivers.
It would be my honor and pleasure to help you find the best educational fit for your child.
”
Sylvia Winik, educational consultant, advocate, and tutor; American University, MA in Special Education: Learning Disabilities; Columbia Law School, JD, Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar; Brown University, AB, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
Sylvia Winik brings to her consulting practice broad experience from dual careers in law and special education.
After practicing law for 16 years, Ms. Winik shifted her professional focus and returned to school, receiving a master's degree in learning disabilities from American University. Winik gained practical experience at the Lab School. There she worked with moderately to severely learning disabled kids with average to high intelligence and studied with Sally Smith, founder and then-director of Washington’s Lab School.
She learned from Ms. Smith such critical educational underpinnings as:
Children are acutely aware of their failures and need to feel successful in order to see that learning can be fun, and that they CAN learn.
Special needs children need to learn by starting with what they have already mastered and having the learning task broken down into the smallest possible steps.
All children need to receive credible, authentic, and specific praise, detailing exactly what they did well (e.g., "I like the way you worked so hard" or “I love the characters in your story!”).
Ms. Winik has worked as a learning specialist at several Washington, D.C. area schools, primarily the middle and upper schools at the Washington International School. She has tutored many middle school children in math, writing, and other aspects of English. She also has served as a tutor and conversation class instructor for the Literacy Council, teaching English to non-native English speakers.
Ms. Winik works primarily with parents, teachers, and social workers, as well as school administrators, and is available to work with foster care and adoption agencies and day care providers. Both because of the great need for advocates for abused and neglected children in the foster care system, and to expand her understanding of their needs and the roadblocks to meeting them, Ms. Winik recently became a court-appointed advocate (a “CASA”) for such children.