Engage Your Brain!

Dyslexic Learners

  How can I best help my dyslexic child?
Experts agree that best practice for teaching dyslexic learners is to teach them via all their senses (multisensory teaching). This means using visuals, motions, body movement, hands-on, and auditory elements in their learning. Studies have shown that dyslexic children draw from various regions in their brains while engaging in reading, so it stands to reason that using teaching approaches that stimulate various regions in the brain would ensure success for these learners.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Incorporate visual elements in learning
• Involve body movement in learning
• Use a multisensory teaching approach to reading (used all at one time)
• Focus on teaching phonemic awareness and manipulation
• Summarize and give the big picture first - then start with the details
• Utilize visuals in books and prompt the child to visualize in his mind as he reads
• Read outloud in order to utilize the auditory pathway to the brain
• Use an explicit, systematic approach to teaching reading to be sure that everything is taught that needs to be

“Children with dyslexia have a difficult time learning to read and write in a typical classroom setting. Most teachers often gear their lessons to students with auditory learning styles. The teacher relies mostly on talking to teach. Teachers lecture, explain and answer questions orally. The dyslexic learner cannot process this information using only his auditory modality. For this reason, dyslexic learners need to learn using an approach that simultaneously combines auditory, visual, and tactile learning strategies to teach skills and concepts.
     Another reason that dyslexics struggle with the regular classroom reading programs is that the dyslexic child tends to have difficulties applying and using phonetic rules to decode words. In order for the dyslexic child to become a good reader he/she will need to first learn decoding and word recognition skills and then develop fluency and comprehension skills. That is why early intervention is so important. Phonemic awareness is a learned skill; it is not something that comes naturally to a child. The National Reading Panel found that children who are taught phonics systematically and also explicitly make greater progress in reading than those who are taught with any other type of reading instructions."
 ~ Karina Richmond, MA
www.pridelearningcenter.com

HOW WE CAN HELP YOU:

Our products are multisensory which simply means that we have created materials that will utilize as many avenues to the brain as possible for the benefit of visual learners. Many children who have been labeled with a particular learning disability are actually highly visual learners who need multisensory instruction in reading. These identified disabilities include autism, aspergers, and dyslexia.

ABCs taught through visuals, jingles, body motions, stories & hands-on activities so that all those left brained symbols are surrounded in wonderful right brained elements. 

 

Toobaloo® & WhisperPhone® are acoustical voice-feedback tools that enable learners of all ages to focus and hear the sounds that make up words (phonemes) more clearly as they learn to read, spell, or process the language aloud. Great for those children who must hear sounds clearly in order to learn. Click HERE to learn more.

  

Multisensory, explicit phonics instruction that includes DAILY:

• Body motions combined with auditory exercises, and visual elements all at one time
• Phonics and phonemic awareness taught systematically
• Patterns, stories, cartoons, visuals are utilized to maximize the learning benefit for children who are not left brain learners.
• Hands-on activities that will provide practice, books that provide the "goal" for learning sounds and words, and so much more!

   SnapWords® (multisensory Dolch sight words combined with other high frequency words) help visual, right brained learners, and children with learning disabilities learn to read more easily. SnapWords® allow the mental camera to snap a picture of the words, sentence on reverse lends meaning to the word, while the body motion grabs those children that need movement to learn! (kinesthetic learners)

 The Kid Friendly series incorporates a variety of learning styles within the math curriculum. Visual learners will see numbers and computations through pictures, auditory learners will hear concepts put to music, and kinesthetic learners will be involved in hands-on activities. All of these activities connect learning to concepts in a meaningful and concrete way for children.

To Sit or to Stand?

Learning:

I grew up in a time when we were supposed to sit in our desks and face forward and pay attention, so when I started to teach, I arranged my desks in rows, and expected my well behaved students to sit, face forward, and pay attention.

One of my first graders taught me that while this arrangement might be convenient for the teacher, it was not workable for him. My new first grade class was a real challenge - lots of learning issues, behavior issues, and more. One boy I will call Z seemed pretty defiant to me. He was constantly out of his seat, and the more I insisted that he SIT DOWN, the more unmanageable and contrary he became.

I negotiated with Z one day. I told him I would let him stand up all day if he wanted to, but the conditions for this freedom were that he was to get his work done, and he was to not disturb anyone else. He was good with these stipulations, so I moved Z's stuff to an outside seat so that as he stood he would not be in anyone's line of vision.

Eureka! I had a totally different child! For the rest of the year, and during his second grade when I looped up with my class, Z was a pretty cooperative child, and best of all his learning skyrocketed.

The Cookie-Cutter Approach:

Recently a story made national news about a teacher who had special desks crafted that would allow her children to stand if needed. The desks were really cool! They had foot rests that allow a child to swing his foot while working, calculated to meet the need for motion some children have.

One thing that occurred to me was that most of us cannot find the funds to have special desks made.

 The next thing I noted was that the room was full of these special desks. Every child had one.

We tend to use a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to our kids and their learning. We try something new, and then try to apply it to all our learners. Children learn in many different ways; they have greatly varying needs when it comes to how they perform best in the classroom. While some of the students in that classroom might have truly been helped by these special desks, I suspect that others in the room found it distracting to have the variables to deal with. Some children actually learn BETTER and focus BETTER when sitting at a normal desk on a hard chair.

While Z was able to focus when I gave him the freedom to stand and lean over his desk to do his work, my other students, A through Y, would have considered standing during class a punishment and would NOT have been able to focus.

With Increased Focus As The Goal:

It doesn't have to cost a lot of money to meet the learning needs of our children. We can find out by observation if they do better sitting in a desk on a hard chair, or sitting on a soft surface, or standing, or lying on their tummies. Children, even very young ones, have the ability to become their own best friends by learning what helps them the most - by asking themselves the question: "What helps me focus the best?"

We can provide a few lost cost pillows (four or so), some inexpensive whiteboards to use as mobile desks, and give the class the option during classwork to choose the situation that will allow them to focus the best.

Simple Ground Rules:

1- The spot you choose for working must allow you to work BETTER.

2- Once you are there, you will not have the option of moving somewhere else.

3- You must not distract or disturb fellow classmates.

4- If we note that you are LESS able to get your work done where you have chosen to do your work, you will return to your desk.

I taught a boy (named M) in Kindergarten who found it nearly impossible to focus on his own work for watching any movement that occured within the range of his vision. In discussing our goal for focus together, we determined that M needed to sit and work in a place where he would not be able to see the movements the other children made while learning. M bought in to this decision enthusiastically.

Fast forward to his 1st grade year. M's father went to M's first grade classroom to volunteer. When he entered the classroom, he saw M sitting at a lone desk facing the wall. Naturally, Dad assumed M had been placed there by the teacher possibly for being naughty. When he questioned the teacher about why M was sitting alone facing the wall, the puzzled teacher shared with M's father that M himself had requested to sit there, telling the teacher he needed to focus.

Dyslexic Learners

  How can I best help my dyslexic child?
Experts agree that best practice for teaching dyslexic learners is to teach them via all their senses (multisensory teaching). This means using visuals, motions, body movement, hands-on, and auditory elements in their learning. Studies have shown that dyslexic children draw from various regions in their brains while engaging in reading, so it stands to reason that using teaching approaches that stimulate various regions in the brain would ensure success for these learners.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Incorporate visual elements in learning
• Involve body movement in learning
• Use a multisensory teaching approach to reading (used all at one time)
• Focus on teaching phonemic awareness and manipulation
• Summarize and give the big picture first - then start with the details
• Utilize visuals in books and prompt the child to visualize in his mind as he reads
• Read outloud in order to utilize the auditory pathway to the brain
• Use an explicit, systematic approach to teaching reading to be sure that everything is taught that needs to be

“Children with dyslexia have a difficult time learning to read and write in a typical classroom setting. Most teachers often gear their lessons to students with auditory learning styles. The teacher relies mostly on talking to teach. Teachers lecture, explain and answer questions orally. The dyslexic learner cannot process this information using only his auditory modality. For this reason, dyslexic learners need to learn using an approach that simultaneously combines auditory, visual, and tactile learning strategies to teach skills and concepts.
     Another reason that dyslexics struggle with the regular classroom reading programs is that the dyslexic child tends to have difficulties applying and using phonetic rules to decode words. In order for the dyslexic child to become a good reader he/she will need to first learn decoding and word recognition skills and then develop fluency and comprehension skills. That is why early intervention is so important. Phonemic awareness is a learned skill; it is not something that comes naturally to a child. The National Reading Panel found that children who are taught phonics systematically and also explicitly make greater progress in reading than those who are taught with any other type of reading instructions."
 ~ Karina Richmond, MA
www.pridelearningcenter.com

HOW WE CAN HELP YOU:

Our products are multisensory which simply means that we have created materials that will utilize as many avenues to the brain as possible for the benefit of visual learners. Many children who have been labeled with a particular learning disability are actually highly visual learners who need multisensory instruction in reading. These identified disabilities include autism, aspergers, and dyslexia.

ABCs taught through visuals, jingles, body motions, stories & hands-on activities so that all those left brained symbols are surrounded in wonderful right brained elements. 

 

Toobaloo® & WhisperPhone® are acoustical voice-feedback tools that enable learners of all ages to focus and hear the sounds that make up words (phonemes) more clearly as they learn to read, spell, or process the language aloud. Great for those children who must hear sounds clearly in order to learn. Click HERE to learn more.

  

Multisensory, explicit phonics instruction that includes DAILY:

• Body motions combined with auditory exercises, and visual elements all at one time
• Phonics and phonemic awareness taught systematically
• Patterns, stories, cartoons, visuals are utilized to maximize the learning benefit for children who are not left brain learners.
• Hands-on activities that will provide practice, books that provide the "goal" for learning sounds and words, and so much more!

   SnapWords® (multisensory Dolch sight words combined with other high frequency words) help visual, right brained learners, and children with learning disabilities learn to read more easily. SnapWords® allow the mental camera to snap a picture of the words, sentence on reverse lends meaning to the word, while the body motion grabs those children that need movement to learn! (kinesthetic learners)

 The Kid Friendly series incorporates a variety of learning styles within the math curriculum. Visual learners will see numbers and computations through pictures, auditory learners will hear concepts put to music, and kinesthetic learners will be involved in hands-on activities. All of these activities connect learning to concepts in a meaningful and concrete way for children.

Dyscalculic Learners

How can I help my child with dyscalculia learn math?
Dyscalculia is sometimes referred to as dyslexia in math. Because understanding and working with numbers requires skilled mental imaging, children who are not highly visual, or who have trouble visualizing concepts, struggle with computation. 


RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Show the meaning of computation using real objects for the child to manipulate
• Purposefully lead the child into the practice of visual imprinting for numbers
• Purposefully tie number symbols to the "how much" of a number using concrete objects
• Act out the action in a math problem
• Make sure the child understands the process that occurs in a calculation
• Allow a lot of practice time
• Use visuals and rhymes to learn math facts
• Use the visuals as a basis for having the child add number concepts to his mental "image bank"
• As he is working a problem, have the child demonstrate the problem using manipulatives, and have him explain verbally what he is doing in order to create a multisensory learning experience
• Encourage the child to draw pictures of what the math problem is asking and talk about what he is doing as he draw
  

  HOW WE CAN HELP YOU:

The Kid Friendly Computation series provides multisensory learning experience for the child with dyscalculia, who would otherwise struggle with math:

    The Kid Friendly series is very helpful for children who struggle with math, including children with dyscalculia because it incorporates a variety of learning styles within the lessons. Number recognition is taught via visuals and a song complete with body motions. The song also provides critical support for sequencing of numbers. Before doing any computation, many visual activities are provided to give the child a rich bank of visual images about the "how many is" for each number. The format is games, so the children are not aware of the fact that they are laying a rich visual background for computation.

     There is purposeful transition from visual experiences with numbers, to acting out problems and creating them using manipulatives. The transition from concrete to abstract happens in a very systematic way for those children who can work problems using manipulatives, but cannot transfer that knowledge and skill to paper and pencil.

     Rather than memorization of facts, the Kid Friendly series relies on arraying numbers in patterns so that children can make mental images of calculations rather than just memorizing a series of problems.

 The Kid Friendly series incorporates a variety of learning styles within the math curriculum. Visual learners will see numbers and computations through pictures, auditory learners will hear concepts put to music, and kinesthetic learners will be involved in hands-on activities. All of these activities connect learning to concepts in a meaningful and concrete way for children.

Multisensory Learning

MULTISENSORY LEARNING- What it Really Means

Many products claim to be multisensory . How can you really know to what extent the learning experience will be truly multisensory for your child? Because learners are all different, the most excellent learning experiences, the most effective learning activities, are going to be the ones that utilize components from all three modalities at one time . It is not sufficient to have a child looking and writing at one time. Yes, it is involving two senses, but that is not enough to make a powerful multisensory learning experience for your child.

The graphic organizer that follows will show you what elements might be included in a multisensory learning activity so you can judge for yourself if a product or learning activity truly merits being called a multisensory activity. Please bookmark our blog in order to keep up with postings about this topic as we post them.

I could have put this information in a string of paragraphs for you to read, but since I am a visual learner myself, I found it appealing to make a visual graph of the information. Please start on the left with the title in the orange box, and proceed to your right to explore the three modalities and suggested learning strategies for each one. A 24" by 36" poster is now for sale in our store. Click HERE

For the left-brained learners -- an outline:
WHAT IS MULTISENSORY LEARNING?

Definition: The best Multisensory Learning Experience engages all three modalities simultaneously.

I. Visual Strategies for Learning
   A. Tie learning concepts to known objects
   B. Show learning detail in its global whole
   C. Illustrate own learning
   D. Discover patterns found in learning
   E. Use Visual Maps
   F. Show learning in a graph (like this one above)
   G. Embed visuals in symbols

II. Kinesthetic and Tactile Strategies for Learning
   A. Writing learning
   B. Body movement tied to learning
   C. Hands-on constructivist learning
   D. Visualize motion in learning
   E. Act out learning

III. Auditory Strategies for Learning
   A. Sounding or speaking during writing
   B. Storytelling for teaching concepts
   C. Rhyming and rhythm
   D. Auditory amplification
   E. Reading out loud

Examples of Multisensory Learning Activities:

Learning the ABC and related sounds:
Use our Stylized Alphabet Cards which use the following strategies:
● Tie learning concept to know object, such as M for Mountains, T for Table
● Embed visuals in symbols - each letter is stylized to look like the known object
● Writing learning - kids write the letter sound on whiteboards as they are learning them
●  Each letter has a corresponding body motion/ hand motion
● Visualize motion in learning - when making M, kids imagine walking up the first hill, sliding down the other side, then walking up the second hill, and sliding down the other side
● Sounding during writing - each sound a child learns, he will write on whiteboard with colored marker WHILE he is sounding what he is writing
● Storytelling for teaching concepts - sounds are introduced and related to their shapes using Alphabet Tales, fully illustrated stories that tell how each sound came to be formed as it did

Learning sight words and related meaning:
Use our Stylized Sight Words which use the following strategies:
● Embed visuals in the symbols - our sight words are not illustrated, rather they have the visual embedded in the word
● Storytelling for teaching concepts - the sentence on the reverse side of the card not only implies a story or a setting, but teaching reading comprehension
● Body movement tied to learning - the motion on the reverse side of the card is a kinesthetic strategy
● Reading out loud - children will say the sight word, do the body motion, and see the visual at the same time

Autism & Aspergers

How can I help my autistic child learn to read?
Children with autism and aspergers need to be purposefully taught in areas in which they are less strong, using visuals as often as possible. They need highly structured learning experiences, and as they tend to think in pictures, need plentiful visuals and concrete objects used in their learning. 

RECOMMENDATIONS:
■ Provide highly-structured environment in which the child's brain is connecting to his world
■ Specifically teach manners, social relationships in a structured setting (ex: taking turns, etc.)
■ Teach the child to take turns in speaking or playing in a game by using visual helps (such as a "turn" card which each child will hold when it is his turn to speak or play)
■ Use visuals attached to words so the child can learn to read them
■ Teach reading concepts using visual reminders for phonics rules
■ Avoid wordy directives as the child may not be able to retain it all
■ Use visuals or concrete objects to teach reading and math
■ In teaching skills, actually move the child's body through the process, whether tying his shoes or
   any other physical skill
■ Put sequences of directions in pictorial form on paper (such as tasks to do to get ready for bed)
■ Use the topics of high interest for teaching (ex: if he likes dinosaurs, use them for math problems)
■ If the child is good at drawing, have him use that gift in his learning by asking him to stylize his
    own sight words

Go to our website, www.child-1st.com, in order to learn more about mulitsensory products that will make learning easier for your child.

Research

    Phonics Reading Program for Visual Learners- Philosophy & Field Test Data

HELP FOR STRUGGLING READERS

 When I  began teaching preschool in my own center in 1991, I noted that some children picked up the concepts of letters, sounds, and numbers very easily, while others seemed to have learning issues and could not seem to retain what we taught them.

     It became my goal to find ways to help these children learn and remember. Subsequently, it became my passion to create materials that could be used by any teacher with any collection of children, regardless of background, preparation, or ability. What resulted at first was our visual alphabet and our stylized sight word collection.

     I spent the ensuing years working with students who "cannot learn," painstakingly creating visual and kinesthetic bridges for them. I focused on discovering where the gaps in understanding were, and then on creating "bridges" that allowed those children to learn and recall as well as other children did. Each visual in our Dolch sight word cards collection came as a result of asking children questions such as, "What does this look like to you?" "What does this remind you of?" And then, "How did you remember that?"

MULTISENSORY AND VISUAL PHONICS - HOW IT WORKS

The Child1st phonics reading program for visual & kinesthetic learners harnesses two powerful regions of the brain in which learning is unconscious, and recall is instant. No other parts of the brain are quite as powerful in the learning process as are the visual cortex and the cerebellum. Pictures of patterns and maps are "snapped" instantly in the visual cortex and are recalled intact when the information stored in them is needed. For struggling readers, motions learned are stored in the cerebellum and are also powerful means of recalling information that was attached to the motion during the learning process.

READING ASSESSMENTS - FIELD TEST DATA

Eight kindergarten teachers, and a handful of special education teachers have tested and used this approach from 2000 to 2005. The kindergarten classes are regular ed classrooms with 17-24 students. I supervised the progress of these teachers in order to continue to refine lessons with an eye to meeting the needs of all students.

     I have used this material with small groups of children just beginning to master basic skills (ages 4-6) and small groups in a Title 1 setting (grades K-7). I have also used the visual alphabet and Dolch sight word cards with ELL students, and in whole group inclusion classrooms (grades 1-2).

     My first formal group consisted of preschool and kindergarten children ages 4-6 that were learning to read. Most of the children were not "traditional learners," and they were my impetus for creating this approach to teaching of reading and math (Kid Friendly math series). I later realized that the children were not struggling learners apart from the fact that I had approached teaching them from a very left-brain stance. I was the one that had to adjust my approach with them, and what a difference it made!

     We began our school year in September. I began administering assessments in March. Assessments I gave included Phonics Master Inventory (Blends & Digraphs, Number of Syllables, Base Words & Affixes, Plurals, Vowel Teams, and Two Consonant Endings), Features Spelling, and John's Basic Reading Inventory with Graded Word Lists-Form A and Oral Reading Passages-Form A. Testing revealed a range of reading levels from 2nd-4th grades.

 

Learn more about multisensory phonics at www.child-1st.com

Why It Works

Traditional Teaching Methods focus on the minority of students who have certain ways of...

LEARNING

Do I take in information primarily through my senses or do I intuit and make connections? Do I organize information in a sequential manner, or do I prefer to make my own steps for arriving at the goal?
     While there are many children who can succeed in traditional classrooms, there are a vast number of children who learn best through visual and kinesthetic connections made between what is familiar to them, and the new, unknown material. To these children, showing them a string of symbols which makes up a word and asking them to just remember it is a very difficult task. There are too many little bits, and each bit carries information they have to remember in order to correctly utilize it (ie: this symbol is an A and its sound is "a" as in "apple"). If a word is stylized to show instantly what it is, is shaped to show the meaning of the word, a right brained learner may take one look at the word and absorb it whole. Then he is ready to break the word into its parts. Many global children will prefer to learn this way: from whole to part.  
      While we traditionally teach children to read by introducing letter names, then sounds, then various phonetic rules for decoding, these visual and kinesthetic learners would thrive if they understood first that the word they see is a whole, has meaning which they are familiar with. At this point, it will not be difficult to explain the rules of sounds and decoding. Global children often experience difficulty with a learning situation that is largely sequential in nature - a series of steps to be taken - desperately need to know the goal they are aiming for - the whole word. Once they know the word, they can focus on its parts.

REMEMBERING

Can I just hear it, do I  need to see it as it relates to a pattern, or do I need to actually handle it, and do the job myself in order to remember?
     Again, children who are visual, kinesthetic, global learners will need very much to have the opportunity to try their hand at a task in order to make sense of it and thus be able to remember the meaning they have made. Many children will not remember nor make sense of learning unless they can DO it themselves. Many of these children must see isolated bits of information as they relate to whole patterns in order to understand and remember. Example: If you are working on "play," it is not enough to simply say, '"When you see AY it says [long] A." It will make far more sense to the child and he will remember the concept if you take the time to engage him in generating a list of other words that have this spelling pattern. Taking it further, for those visual learners, is to have a yellow crayon with which to color only the letters that have the target spelling. Seeing the word PLAY in a list of words with the same pattern, seeing the target spelling colored, these are simple but powerful means for making sense and remembering.

UNDERSTANDING

Do I prefer to follow directions sequentially, "just because," or do I need to see the whole picture, know the final goal, and understand the "why" behind the task?
     Global learners will not be able to even hear directions until they know what the goal of the exercise is. In the effort to save valuable instruction time, often we quickly spout a series of directions and might even write them on the board. There are always a group of children who are not quick to pick up on the task. Some might look like a deer caught in headlights, some might start chatting, others might act out. It is highly uncomfortable to see others around me starting to follow directions that I can make no sense out of.
     State the end result first, why we are doing the exercise, and then explain that what is following will be the suggested steps for getting there. Global learners and others will now be ready and able to hear, understand and make sense out of the directions.
     Children need very much to be competent. When they feel lost, when they don't understand, behaviors come in. They are not always going to be able to verbalize their confusion or lack of understanding. Working with children from kindergarten to middle school who were struggling taught me that in many cases, the key to improving undesirable behavior was improving competence and confidence in the learning process. Rather than focusing on the behavior, focus on what is behind it. Children need to know they are smart in order to have the motivation to work at learning.

BEING INTELLIGENT

Am I best able to learn through words, through my own logic, or do I need to make mental associations, use "maps" to view relationships to other facts? Do I learn best by doing it myself?

TRADITIONAL vs. NON-TRADITIONAL LEARNERS:     
     Traditional teaching methods are concrete, sequential, auditory, verbal, logical, and mathematical. A huge number of students, in fact, most young children, fall into other learning categories such as abstract, random, visual, kinesthetic, and global. It only makes good sense to adjust our teaching methods and materials to blend seamlessly with children's natural way of interacting with their world.
     In our society in particular, we tend to consider certain types of learners as the smart ones, while the others might fall into the categories of "talented" or "good with his hands." In reality, there are many ways of being smart. In general, our achievement tests measure and celebrate those children who are in the first group described above. Tests cannot show the incredible intelligence of those children who learn, remember, and are smart in other ways. For those children who cannot just memorize facts, symbols, equations, there is hope. Those children may utilize pictures they draw themselves, graphic organizers that make sense to them. It is a great practice to start with kindergarten children asking them, "How did you remember this?" or "How can we remember this word next time we see it?" "What does this look like to you?" "What does this make you think of?" All these questions will be priming the child's own brain to come up with associations he/she can use to learn and remember.

  WHY STYLIZE THE SIGHT WORDS & ALPHABET?
    It was precisely in this manner that our sight words were created. My students were not able to remember from one minute to the next a word they had "learned." They could laboriously decode anything, but reading was not fun. They were working so hard on decoding that they paid no attention to meaning at all. They thought their task was to decode (sound out words), so even though they could decode, they were really not reading.
    In desperation one day in December, I showed the children the word "help" and asked them what it looked like to them. With very little hesitation, one very athletic, artistic boy said "It looks like two arms raised yelling HELP!" "Boing! A light flashed in my brain. I stylized that very first sight word. What followed was several weeks in which the children discussed with me what each sight word looked like to them. I worked after hours stylizing, and when I had finished, the children reviewed the words and let me know which ones simply did not work for them. Those I reworked.
     This process started in December. By March/April, time for formal testing, all the children were reading at a minimum of 2nd grade. They were kindergarteners. They are all smart. They just needed to learn a different way....from whole to part, via visual and kinesthetic modalities.

BUT ... ISN'T THIS JUST A CRUTCH?
     Some adults approach our stylized products and quickly back away. They feel the visuals form a crutch without which the children will flounder. Reality is that without the visual, many children will not quickly learn their sight words. Reality is that the visual is not an illustration without which the child will be lost. The visual is integrated solidly into the word so that when the child sees the plain word, the brain superimposes the visual, making for instant recall. The visual is the link to meaning; the hook that retrieves the word or letter.
     The only thing to which I can liken this process is our brain's ability to imbue one little detail with remembered, associated sights, sounds, smells and emotions. How many of us see a word and suddenly are flooded with associated memories? The brain has an amazing associative capacity. Kinesthetic children who have learned a body motion with a sight word have only to see a plain word, recall the motion and as they start to do the motion, the word pops out of their mouth.

WHAT DOES RESEARCH SAY ABOUT MULTIPLE PATHWAYS TO THE BRAIN?

Research shows us that learning to read is a mostly left-brain function. For children who are not left brained, (left brained learners deal best with symbols, speech, words), but are instead visual learners and tactile learners (need hands-on), learning to read can be a great challenge. For these children, using a variety of pathways to the brain means they have the ability to learn to read in a way that suits their brains better! They actually experience a reshaping of their brains over time when they are taught from multiple directions simultaneously (such as phonemic awareness activities - hearing and manipulating sounds to make words - body movement to teach kinesthetic learners, hands-on tasks for tactile learners, visuals, rhythm, stories) leading to success for these children who might otherwise experience failure. What is wonderful about teaching young children this way is that when we combine left-brain elements such as symbols (letters and words in decodable text books) with visual and tactile elements such as we do in our materials, children are actually being offered a chance to learn in ways that engage BOTH sides of their brains. This practice allows them to develop a strong system for learning, which strengthens their ability to use the less-preferred hemisphere in subsequent learning.

Research shows that the elements of which we speak (visuals, motions, body movement, stories, activities that utilize both hemispheres of the brain simultaneously help with many children who struggle - from dyslexia, autism, aspergers, ADD, children with other "identified learning disabilities." For  children with attention difficulties, using the visuals embedded in symbols allows their brain to record a quick snapshot of the word so that the visual is there to act as a hook for recall. I would like to share here a portion of an article by Laurie Wagner:

"Research confirms that effective, multisensory reading instruction literally remodels the brains of struggling readers. Multisensory learning incorporates a variety of learning channels during instruction, especially utilization of visual, auditory, tactile (touch) and kinesthetic (muscle movement) learning pathways. When struggling learners are taught to read using direct, explicit, systematic, multisensory phonics instruction, research using brain imaging shows us that the impact on the brain is significant!

Dr. Sally Shaywitz, a leader in the field of dyslexia and reading research, has conducted reading research at Yale University's Center for Learning and Attention. Observing brain imaging during the reading process through the use of functional MRIs explicitly shows that good readers consistently use specific portions of the left-brain, with brain activity highly-focused in very specific areas during reading tasks. Brain imaging in poor readers, on the other hand, shows diffused activity scattered throughout the brain; much less efficient for reading.

Furthermore, studies have shown that instruction using direct, explicit, systematic, multisensory phonics actually changes how these poor readers use the pathways in their brains for reading. This kind of instruction, including an early emphasis on phonemic awareness, taught two hours per week for a year, significantly enhances students' overall reading accuracy and fluency. The changes in brain imaging after this kind of intervention show a significant increase in the focused use of the left hemisphere of the brain during reading tasks. The brain activity of the poor readers appears more and more like the brain activity of the good readers! These formerly "poor readers" are developing reading systems in their brains that were not present before the instruction occurred.

Additional studies supporting these results have been conducted in many research facilities, including a team led by Associate Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Guinevere Eden at the General Clinical Research Center at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC, and a study at the Medical College of Wisconsin, with Jeffrey R. Binder, MD, Professor of Neurology and Robert F. Newby, PhD, Associate Professor of Neurology.

Early identification and intervention in kindergarten and grade one using this research-based instruction can prevent many at-risk students from ever struggling with reading. This kind of proven and effective instruction for older students who already struggle with reading skills acquisition can reverse the on-going difficulties, changing those learners into more competent readers. For dyslexic, learning disabled and ADD individuals, these instructional methods give them specific strategies and skills to work with their learning differences, allowing them to become successful readers and spellers, significantly impacting their schoolwork and life-long success.

Excerpts from the article "School Support for Learning Disabled and ADD Learners"

By Laurie Wagner

Reading and Language Arts Centers

800-READ211 (800-732-3211)

Sample Activities

Sample Activities:
Download TryBuySnapWords -  After you download, print (two-sided), and cut out your sample SnapWords, you may use these sample activities with your child:

INTRODUCING NEW WORDS:

*Choose 1-5 sight word cards...display in pocket chart.
*Talk about each picture as it relates to the word it depicts. Let the children share what they see.
*Do the body motion together found on the reverse side of the cards.
*Use the word in the sentence provided.
*Identify the sounds in the word, whether single letter spellings, or multi-letter spellings, such as "ow" or a two-vowel spelling such as "ai."
*After introducing each word, check to be sure the children correctly read each word while looking at the fronts of the cards.

"POP UP" GAME

*With the class near you, explain that you are going to play a game in which they will "pop up" when they hear their name, and will come up to the pocket chart to choose a word they can correctly read.
*This game works best when the pocket chart is full of words, rather than displaying only a handful of words.
*Encourage children to be selecting a word when it is not their turn so they are ready to pop up quickly when their name is called.
*Do not use this activity for teaching; rather keep it moving quickly so that no child gets bored. Stop the game as soon as interest begins to wander.

"WHERE'S Word-O?"

*Display a group of words in the pocket chart.
*Call one word at a time, saying, "Where's ____?"
*Children will take turns trying to quickly point out the word called by the teacher.
*Do not use this as a teaching time, but rather as a review activity.

WHICH IS WHICH?

*With the children in two teams in front of you.
*Line the teams up so that the two children in the front of the line compete first.
*Hold up two cards at a time, asking "Which one is [say one of the words]?"
*When the pair of children have answered, they go to the end of the line.
*Give the teams points for calling out the correct word.

AROUND THE WORLD

*Display one card to a child for him to identify.
*That student will read the word, then choose a word card to display to another child.
*Continue through the group until all the words have been reviewed.
*This activity may be concluded by turning the cards to the back so that the children are reading the plain dolch sight words.

WORD FLIP

*Have students vote on which words, one at a time, they think they can recognize without using the picture.
*Flip those words over as they are voted on so that the plain word is displayed on the reverse.
*Take five minutes to review all the words per day.
*Limit the number of words flipped over to a couple of day depending on your group and their progress in recognition of the plain words.
*The goal to keep in mind when using the stylized sight words is to use the visual, motion and language as learning tools, then to progress to the plain side of the card as soon as possible.
*You may determine what is helping each child learn their words by asking "How did you remember that?" when they correctly and instantly read a word unstylized. Some will say they can still "see" the picture in their minds, some will remember because of the motion they have come to relate to the word. Asking your children this question frequently will guide them into learning about how they learn best.


These activities to teach sight words and word wall activities are part of our booklet "Activities For Use with SnapWords" - a free gift with every sight word order.

Transitioning

Transition from SnapWords. . . 
         . . . to Plain Text
 Children with a variety of learning styles or learning needs will benefit from having support as they make the transition from Stylized SnapWords to plain text. The more fun the activity is, the more engaged the child will be in the art of learning to read.

WHILE READING A BOOK:
Before reading each Easy-For-Me Book, review just the sight words that are found
in the book. (see inside cover for list of words, or consult the Sequence of Lessons 
you received in your box of readers.)

Prepare the child for reading a title by arranging the sight word cards by his book
and letting him know they are there to refer to if he needs them.

During reading , if the child hesitates over a sight word, wait a few seconds, then 
just point to the appropriate word card. Let the child tell you when he is ready to turn
the sight word cards over to the plain sides, and then when he's ready to do away with
the sight word cards altogether.



ACTIVITIES to help a child relate a Stylized SnapWord to a plain sight word:

FLASH N' MATCH: You or the child can write five or six sight words on index cards,
one word per card. When you flash a Stylized Sight Word, the child will find the plain
word printed on the index card that matches the word you displayed. If he chooses
quickly and correctly, he keeps the word and moves on to another word.

MAKING PAIRS: Give the child the cards from FLASH N' MATCH which you have
shuffled, and ask him to quickly match up the Stylized Words to their matching plain
words. Make a game out of how quickly he is able to do this. If he hesitates over a
match, discover clues together that would link the words, such as initial sound, shape
of the word with its tall and short letters, etc.

SIGHT WORD RUN: Give the child the Stylized SnapWords, and lay the plain word
cards in a line on the ground. The child will stand a few feet away from the line of plain
cards, will then choose one Stylized Word from his hand and when you say "GO!" the
child will move quickly to select the matching plain card. He will then run back to his
position and wait for your next "GO."

SIGHT WORD TOSS: Write the plain words on both sides of the index cards. Give
the child the Stylized SnapWord cards. When the child is ready, fling the index
cards in the air and let them "rain" down to the floor. As soon as the cards hit the
floor, the child will rush to find matches for the SnapWords he is holding in his hand.