Personalizing education for early education students is difficult at best. With ever-increasing numbers of students, a traditional approach in educational systems is beneficial in managing large numbers of students. However, the results can sometimes lead to frustration and labeling of students at an early age. Most systems are built around a ‘timed environment' that forces students to move at a sequential pace to build content knowledge that can often leave little challenge for some and diminished opportunities for others.

Students who are able to effectively build their content knowledge at a more rapid pace can become frustrated because they are forced to stay within an adopted pace in a classroom. Though able to easily succeed at an early age, they are seldom challenged or allowed to learn according to their individual ability. This can also lead to frustration and these students, though successful earlier, can become wearied of the learning process and even develop poor attitudes and approaches toward learning in later years.

The Student Needing More Time
Students who may need more time or attempts to learn new material find it hard to keep pace with a timed environment. They begin falling behind at an early age and this gap in their content base grows exponentially each passing year. By the time these students reach their early teen years, they can become victims of learned helplessness, unable to believe in their ability to learn as effectively as others. This leads to continued frustration, disbelief in themselves and in their capacity to change their course, and anxiety on the part of parents.

Addressing these issues is problematic. Typical answers have come in the form of allowing the “bright” student to be placed at a higher grade level. However, this causes two major problems:

1) No matter the ability of the child, content is content. Each learning strand for each discipline is necessary for effective development of content knowledge. Though the student may be bright, the content must still be mastered. Advancing a student without requiring the student to move through each level of content is a “content skipping” methodology that can cause problems later on. No content should be passed over, or not, presented to the child. The child may be able to move through each level rapidly. That does not mean the child should be allowed to skip, miss, or not work through each level. Content is content and there should be no gaps in building the base for each area of study.

2) Though a child may be mentally, or cognitively, ready to be at a higher level than others, children are social creatures who need to also develop emotionally. Many times, students who are allowed to “skip” a grade, or are isolated into special groups, can find themselves in social situations that can cause them to develop unhealthy self images and interactions with chronologically older students. They long to be with their own age, but may often end up at the bottom of the “pecking order” existent on campuses and playgrounds or separated from friends who may not be able to perform as well in class. This does not help the child mature effectively.

The problem is an inaccurate identification of the goal. Many times, education places early age students on a vertical track that goes up each year. The belief is that content knowledge has been sequentially placed at each level and a student should only be addressing this material according to the vertical level. These levels are defined as grades. There is also a chronological order to these grades. Therefore, students who do not successfully master content sometimes will be moved forward because it keeps them on their grade level. However, their content knowledge is suffering and won't improve on its own.

There is also an application of the vertical order to the “bright” students, the ones who get it. The answer to a successful student is that the child needs to be moved to the next chronological level in the vertical order or placed in a group separating them from others “not so bright”.. Therefore, they skip content or are placed among students who can be ahead of them emotionally and socially.

A more effective approach to the goal should be, rather than applying a vertical order to learning, that we begin applying a horizontal order to a child's development. This keeps early age children on a stable emotional level with their peers. Interactions take place within their age group, allowing them to mature and develop social skills. We should not move the child to the next sequential grade level or separate them, to receive more challenge. Our answer, rather, is to develop a system that provides richer, deeper, and more broad content knowledge development at each grade level. This content can be attained and applied by a student without taking them from their peers.

This system calls for us to hold the components of the cognitive and social maturation of the child as separate processes that must both be nurtured simultaneously. We should not force the cognitive, or learning, ability of a child to suffer simply to keep them with their own age group, moving too slow or too quickly through content. We also should not cause the social, emotional component of the child to suffer, or be hindered, because we move them into social groups they cannot effectively address.

Horizontal Learning Paths of content knowledge work to provide advanced, and deeper, learning at the chronological level of the child. Vista campuses will be models of Horizontal Learning Paths. This system develops a school day which provides two primary components: direct instruction and independent learning. Direct instruction looks much like typical classrooms. Students are placed in classrooms according to age and readiness. However, discipline blocks are given extra time i.e. 1 ½ hours for math and 1 ½ hours for reading/literacy each day.

The first 45 minutes of each block is direct instruction. The following 45 minutes is given over for independent learning. While students receive the sequential curriculum during the first 45 minutes between teacher and class, the second 45 minutes provides opportunities for content-building for each child. This can be in the form of advanced studies for those students who can move at a more rapid pace, tutoring or supplemental assistance for students who struggle, project-based studies for all students, or reinforcement of current learning for all students.

The focus of independent learning is personalization. Personalized learning is based on current research designs centered on Professional Learning Communities. Schools can be created to implement the domains of a Professional Learning Community from Day One. Students who are struggling will receive individual attention, opportunities, and assistance. Students can also be allowed to master more content and concepts in the discipline. Educators can share the vision to take responsibility for each child’s success and to do “whatever it takes” to make it happen. And just as importantly, the student will be able to move through the independent learning component according to their own unique learning style and ability. The key to success in Horizontal Learning Paths is that, rather than moving children out of their emotional levels of readiness to give them more challenges, students can build their content knowledge while maturing within their own social level.

The independent learning module can be computer-enriched. Curriculum, sequenced to move students effectively through essential knowledge for each discipline, can be accessed by students. The child can move only to new material when they have mastered current levels. Students who can move quickly will be allowed to do so without waiting for others to catch up or keep up. The student does not face the prospect of being pulled from their social grouping in order to be challenged.

Challenges are provided but the child is not mastering the content to be advanced out of their emotional readiness level. The challenges are provided to further enrich, deepen, and broaden the knowledge content base of the child at their current chronological level. This meets the demand for more cognitive challenges for the child while simultaneously meeting the social and interactive readiness as well.

Students who have difficulty with current sequenced content in the classroom can be given extra time and help during the independent learning components of Horizontal Learning Paths. The teacher can help identify the student’s points of difficulty and provide personalized attention without risking the possibility of moving the class too slowly through the sequential material in the classroom.

Many students may need activities that are given to provide reinforcement of current material. Though the content may be mastered by the student, the child can be involved in projects and assignments that can provide real-world learning and leadership opportunities connected to the discipline.

Teachers and administrators must recognize the need to meet together often to make
1) curriculum decisions (what children should learn),
2) sequential administration of content (how do we provide the learning opportunities),
3) assessment determinations (how do we know when they are, or are not, learning)
4) implementing interventions (what do we do when they are not learning).
Student Management
Teachers and administrators meet to ensure personalized learning remains central by
1) monitoring all students weekly to assess progress,
2) developing effective interventions that can address students individually,
3) developing the independent learning opportunities for each child.
Teacher Management
Teachers and administrators meet to share skills and abilities by
1) sharing any professional development content each teacher may be involved in during the year,
2) sharing best practice among each other, and
3) providing assistance to colleagues who may need extra help with any issues in the school or classroom.

Horizontal Learning Paths revolve around the principles of professional learning communities.
1) Leadership is shared as all educators in the building, administrators and teachers alike, take responsibility for each child’s learning.
2) Shared vision and values are a foundation for the campus as each person involved, parents and educators work together to reach common goals.
3) Collaboration is regular and effective as teachers share and grow as professionals.
4) Collective learning involves all members of the school community, children and adults, in placing value on the learning process and giving it the central focus it demands and deserves.

Each child is unique. Not only is this uniqueness evident in personality and temperament, it’s also clear that children have differing learning styles. This is not only true for children, it’s true for anyone. Learning is a process. Content knowledge must be learned. However, the student is unique and individual. Each child is an individual learner. One may be a reflective or compulsive learner; one may be a global or an analytic learner. Some students may need more light. Some may need to read silently to themselves while others may perform better if they work in groups.

Horizontal Learning Paths call for the diagnosis of each student’s learning style. This diagnosis can be applied to the child’s learning experience. While direct instruction may be more typical in nature, the independent learning component becomes the model for creating the learning style environment on the campus. Students will be able to learn according to their unique style without teachers having to try to ‘fit’ the group into one approach. if they work in groups.

Student progress is crucial to learning. It is vital that all students learn. However, learning the body of knowledge (content) is not a timed process or a mandated vertical process. It is possible to challenge even the brightest students without skipping sequential content or separating them from their social group. It is possible to allow these students to mature cognitively at their unique pace and also assist them in their emotional growth.

It is possible to provide struggling students with the independent learning component that gives them the advocacy, and attention necessary for success. It is possible to see progress for these students that can develop within them the belief that they can learn, and will learn, with the right opportunities.

It is also possible to provide early age opportunities for students to reinforce their learning without affecting the class environment. These students can find themselves making connections at an early age between their learning and their life experiences.

As stated, student progress is the key to success. By applying Horizontal Learning Paths to the early age environment, all students can effectively progress cognitively, emotionally, and socially. In doing so, each child develops the capacity to believe that they can be an independent learner, not having to rely on external variables to experience learning. This process can prevent barriers that plague students as they move into their teen years and better equip them to address higher level critical thinking and achievement.