Students come with a wide range of different skills. Some skills come naturally easier to different students because they are individuals with different cognitive abilities. Some students have a “thing” for numbers, while others that “hate math” learned their alphabet and letter sounds at two years old and started reading six months later. When teachers focus on enrichment or enhancement of academics, teachers are building upon the inherent skill set of a child. This does not mean that the skills they possess came naturally or easily, it simply means that along the way they have acquired these skills and there is now room for them to sharpen these skills, improve, and become even better. So the essence of enrichment involves supplemental lessons that reinforce and improve something the child already knows how to do at least at an average level.

Enrichment can really help a child grow leaps and bounds from one grade level to the next. Imagine a child that has skills in arithmetic; they can add, subtract, multiply and divide fairly well with accuracy. Then for enrichment this child is given additional tools, ways to solve multiplication and division problems faster, exposure to longer digit addition and subtraction problems, and even some exposure to higher-level math that uses these functions like algebra. This child will have an advantage in the coming years because they have taken an aggressive approach to their education by allowing themselves to be enriched in academic areas they feel they already do fairly well.