Registration Process

ISR: A team of nurses review your child’s unique medical history to ensure that he can safely participate in lessons. Any medical issues that may affect the safety of lessons will be further reviewed and discussed with your child’s highly trained instructor. Any additional protocols that are necessary are implemented during each and every ISR lesson.

Traditional: Front desk staff answers the phone, takes your child’s name, age, and your information down, and your child is ready to begin lessons. Very rarely is health information ever considered, except for when you sign the waiver at your child’s first lesson.

Instructor Training

ISR: Instructors are the most highly trained and qualified in any swimming program in the country and must undergo strict re-certification testing annually. Each instructor is academically trained and tested in areas such as child development and learning theory, behavioral science, anatomy, physiology and physics as they relate to infants and young children in the aquatic environment to provide the safest lesson possible for your child. In addition, each instructor spends a minimum of 60 hours of hands-on, supervised, in-water training working with actual students. They are all also CPR and First Aid Certified.

Traditional: Instructors are often former high school or recreational swimmers who return from college and lifeguard/teach swimming during the summer months.  They may or may not be CPR and First Aid certified and may or may not have experience with children in or out of the water.

Lesson Structure

ISR’s lesson structure is based on extensive research in the areas of child learning.  Short (10 minutes per lesson), frequent (5 days per week) lessons have been proven to maximize sensory motor learning and retention in children this age.  Not only does the child accommodate to the instructor because of the repetitive nature of lessons, but the short lesson takes into account the body’s physiological response to exercise in the water.  Even though the water is heated, it is still cooler than a child’s body temperature, so anything longer than 10 minutes, a child would get cold.  Muscle fatigue follows temperature fatigue, and learning becomes inefficient.  No ISR lesson is ever longer than 10 minutes.

Traditional: Usually 30-45 minute sessions once per week, based on convenience.  Children take half of the lesson getting used to their instructor, and by then, their attention is somewhere else.  They take a week off, forget the instructor, return for lessons and start the cycle again.  Even though the water is heated, their muscles become too cold to even learn efficiently for the remaining 15 minutes that they share with a group of 4+ students to their one instructor.

Safety Protocols

ISR is NATIONALLY recognized as the SAFEST swim program for infants and children.  Aside from its National Registration as described above, our highly trained instructors are vigilant in assessing your child’s physical response to lessons, temperature/muscle fatigue and hypernatremia.  Your child is the ONLY child in the pool with his/her instructor. No child is ever put in a situation where he/she is struggling for air.  If your child shows signs of fatigue, his/her lesson ends, and he/she recovers outside of the pool.  Instructors monitor bowel, urine, diet, and sleep patterns in order to assure there are no signs of possible dehydration, hypernatremia, pending illnesses, or other factors affecting safety and efficiency of learning.

Traditional: Instructors are often recreational or high school swimmers giving lessons to earn money over the summer.  They most likely do not know about a child’s physiological response to the water and exercise.  They are both supervising and teaching 4+ students at one time.  Health questions are not asked prior to each lesson, and little or no measures are taken to assure that your child is not drinking water for 30 minutes, or becoming fatigued or dehydrated.

What Children Learn

ISR: EVERY child of EVERY ABILITY learns how to save him/herself in the water.  All students learn to hold their breath, roll back to float unassisted, rest, and breathe. Children first develop COMPETENCE in the water, then CONFIDENCE, which then turns into fun and enjoyment!  ISR has over 800 DOCUMENTED cases of children using their skills to save themselves in the water.

Traditional swim lessons teach the child that the water is a warm and fuzzy place where someone or something else will support them and keep them afloat. They learn to use flotation devices that provide a false sense of security and can easily fall off or put children in a compromising position.   Fun and enjoyment comes first, confidence second. Competence in the water is often not ever assessed or given the importance it warrants. There are many cases where children who have taken traditional swim lessons have drowned or nearly drowned because their survival skills were non-existent.