New Albany’s Marburn Academy opens facility near Grandview to expand reach
Student Wyeth Cook-King and tutor Sophie Turner held their first tutoring session Feb. 22 at Marburn Academy‘s new facility in Columbus, west of Grandview Heights.
After 20 minutes or so of Turner using flashcards to help Wyeth with pronunciation and reading skills, the 10-year-old gave the new relationship a thumbs up.
“It’s good,” Wyeth said.
It was the first day for Wyeth and Turner, a student at Ohio State University, at the new facility, which opened Feb. 17 at 1650 Watermark Drive.
New Albany-based Marburn Academy decided to branch out to serve more areas closer to the center of Columbus, said Stephanie Royal, director of outreach for the organization.
“We wanted to be more accessible to the community, and we’re able to do that here,” Royal said.
Marburn Academy, established in 1981, has been helping children who learn differently because of dyslexia, ADHD and executive functions, such as organization, planning projects and memorization.
The building space offers free and reduced-fee educational services to central Ohio students, she said.
For now it is serving children in grades 1-5, with the expectations of widening the scope to middle schoolers, Royal said.
“We are in a soft-launch period now, so we are seeing what our needs are,” she said.
One in five children has a learning disability, and in central Ohio, that’s 50,000 students, Royal said.
Marburn Academy’s specialized approach gives students a stronger focus on a particular area of deficiency, she said.
For example, the school uses the Orton-Gillingham Approach for students with dyslexia. It uses a multisensory approach that breaks down reading into smaller, more manageable skills, according to the Dyslexia Resource website at dyslexiaresource.org.
It’s what drew Turner, a junior at Ohio State studying special education, to Marburn Academy for an internship.
“We visited Marburn as freshmen, and I was really impressed with their reading and thought it would be a great thing for me to do,” she said.
Wyeth’s mother, Amanda Cook, said her son is a high-functioning student at Bridgeway Academy but has some learning difficulties and autism.
Autism is not a primary focus for Marburn; however, the school and the Marburn Education Collaborative program support a small number of students on the spectrum.
“We’re just getting him here for that little bump before integrating him in (public schools),” she said.
Marburn Academy’s main center, 9555 Johnstown Road in New Albany, is a 64,000-square-foot facility with 265 students in grades 1-12.
It has grown steadily since its founding at 1680 Becket Ave. (now Gables Elementary School) in northwest Columbus. It later was moved to 1860 Walden Drive in Northland before a permanent school in New Albany was built in 2017.
Marburn is an independent, tuition-based school at which 95% of students are on some kind of financial aid.
The new 3,000-square-foot facility, dressed mostly in shades of blue and white, was made possible with the help of donations that had funded the first year of operations, Royal said.
The space will be used for free parent seminars and consultations on individual student, she said.
Most of the tutoring will be held during after-school hours, and some courses will be offered during summer, Royal said.
In August, school officials plan a community launch to explain the scope of services at the new facility, she said.
Wyeth said he intends to brush up on his skills over the summer at the new branch, which he likes in his early visit.
“I like the reading,” he said. “I like that it’s quiet in the room.”
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