Bradley Samples
Bradley Samples, an upcoming 5th grader at Waterville Community Elementary School, and graduate of the LearningRx Chattanooga Cognitive Skills Training program, has been selected as the National LearningRx Student of the Year. The announcement to recognize and award this student was made at the Annual LearningRx Convention in Colorado Springs, Co.
Bradley will be surprised with this National accolade on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the LearningRx Brain Training Center near Hamilton Place Mall in East Brainerd.
Bradley’s mother, Katelyn Samples, submitted her video entry after being nominated locally by his Certified Cognitive Coach, Johnna Brogden. Bradley enrolled in a 9-month intensive training program in March of 2024 after being told by the school that he may need to repeat 3rd grade. Despite having received specific reading intervention and tutoring every day after school since kindergarten, Bradley was testing in the 26th percentile for reading at that time.
After completing his LearningRx cognitive skills training program in January of this year, which specifically targets the underlying cognitive skills that are required for reading (skills such as memory, attention, processing speed and auditory processing), Bradley’s reading scores at school “jumped” from 26th percentile to 62nd percentile by the end of 4th grade in May.
Katelyn expressed her worry over the situation before finding LearningRx. “As a parent, I would stay up at night sometimes thinking about what his future would hold, and is he ever going to get to a point where we aren’t going to be able to bridge that gap or catch up to where he needs to be, where his peers are.” After entering LearningRx as a skeptic, Katelyn quotes “It changed his life! LearningRx really is life-altering!”
“LearningRx does for the brain what a physical trainer does for the body,” says Michelle Hecker Davis, Board Certified Cognitive Specialist and director of the Chattanooga center. “Bradley’s story is an excellent example of the type of life-changing improvements that can be achieved when you understand and address the root cause of struggles related to reading and learning. We train cognitive performance by targeting the underlying cognitive skills that are responsible for how we grasp and process information. In other words, our programs train the core skills the brain uses to think, learn, read, remember, and pay attention.”
Many of the company’s clients are struggling students, although Ms. Davis explains that brain training is an entirely different process than tutoring. “Tutoring reteaches information but doesn’t address the reason the information didn’t ‘stick’ in the first place. Our programs address the root cause of learning struggles by working on the way a person thinks, reads, learns, focuses, and remembers. When core brain skills are developed, learning is easier.” The programs have also worked with children and adults diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia or autism.
Ms. Davis adds that the centers also work with people who do not have diagnoses but are simply frustrated by some aspect of their mental performance at school, at work or in life. LearningRx now offers a virtual delivery method to allow clients to receive brain training from home.