Love Learning

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

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.

Sight Word Applications

Sight Word Applications:

What are Sight Words and why do they matter? A lot of research has been done on the material that children read. What has resulted is some pretty specific lists of words that comprise a between 60% to 85% of all words appearing in children's texts. These words are commonly called Sight Words or High Frequency Words and there is a big push in most schools for children to memorize these words so that they can experience success in reading. Our Sight Words are a combination of a couple of lists and our idea is NOT to replace a systematic, explicit phonics instruction curriculum that includes a frequent dose of phonemic awareness activities, and expect children to memorize 306 words, but rather, for children who have difficulty in working on left-brain functions, embedding visuals into the letters and high frequency words allows the child to focus on what he's reading, learn good phonics strategies that COMBINED with VISUALS will help make him a fluent reader. While the child is learning these high frequency words, practicing them using our decodable text books, all in a way that is fun and easy for him, he will be building new neural pathways that will ensure his subsequent success at reading new words in later texts. Our goal is to give every kindergartner a super chance at reading and success in school! (Get our SnapWords and Start Today!)

Teaching children to read using Dolch sight words:

Who will benefit from using Stylized Sight Words:

    Child1st sight word cards propel children into reading... no matter how difficult reading has seemed before. For those children who cannot decode, are stuck in the decoding stage, or who have little short term memory, Child1st wight words are the answer. Providing multisensory reading instruction is vital for Learners with Dyslexia, Aspergers, Autism, ADD, Reading Comprehension Problems, Visual Learners, and other RIght Brain Learners, we provide a path to reading success using explicit phonics instruction combined with visual, kinesthetic (body movement), & tactile elements that provide multiple channels into the brain.

Suggestions for using Stylized Sight Words:

    Rather than adding one word at a time to a word wall, I prefer to display groups of words from one set in a pocket chart easily visible to all the children, then play some of the games and word wall activities that you will find in the free booklet, Activities For Use With Stylized SnapWords that accompanies each Sight Word order. There are many activities to teach the sight words including "Pop Up" in which children take turns popping up to identify and read a word they know. As the days go by, choose together which words may be turned over to the plain side until all the words in the chart have been turned over. While the group of words is still displayed, children can collaborate in creating short sentences or phrases from the words, such as "See me run!"

Early Childhood applications:

    Even in pre-school and kindergarten, learning to recognize those high frequency words becomes child's play when you have our sight words displayed in a chart. Children are attracted to them and love hanging around together where the words are. It will amaze you the learning that goes on in those situations!

ESOL:

    Our sight words greatly enhance the learning experience fr speakers of other languages, as the visual becomes a vital memory prompt to meaning. At first, children might say the word in their own language, but over time, they will make the transition to English words!

Exceptional Education:

     For any child who struggles in reading, adding the visual and kinesthetic elements is like giving him a fresh approach, a friendly approach, one that is non-threatening and is not a reminder of past failure. Some children do not successfully learn to read the expected way: they might not understand decoding, might not have a good retention of sight words, but giving them visuals and motions as additional pathways for learning can make all the difference in the world. Some children will continue to do the motion for the word for a while after they have come to recognize and read the words, but what that shows is that the motion was a critical piece in their learning and recall of the word.

Kinesthetic & Tactile Learners

What does it mean if my child is a kinesthetic or tactile learner?
Kinesthetic learners learn best when they are moving. If they are using their hands and bodies in learning, their attention will be focused right on the learning they are doing. Conversely, if they are expected to sit very still and pay attention and listen, success will not follow. The more they have to sit still, the less they can focus and learn! 

In traditional classrooms, often children are expected to sit quietly in their seats, listen, and then learn what they are hearing. Many times there is not the opportunity for students to experience the learning with their bodies and hands, apart from writing with a pencil on paper. While some people believe that a teacher would have to teach several different ways in order to accommodate the various learning styles, we don't think so.   
   Teachers will be successful in reaching all their learners at one time if they will develop a teaching style that is a synthesis of methods that target the whole brain. Child1st exists to help provide teaching materials that are multisensory; materials that make this task of teaching to the whole brain easier for the parent and teacher!
   Learners who need body movement and hands-on work include tactile, kinesthetic learners, and children who have been labeled dyslexic, ADD, and ADHD.

MORE:

• Kinesthetic learners need to move. They wiggle, tap, swing their leg, bounce, and sometimes just don't seem able to "stay in their seat"
• They will struggle with focus unless their hands are working on the learning
• They will benefit greatly from motions that are directly tied to learning
• They will do better if given actual objects to manipulate in learning to replace pencil and paper
• Their attention follows their hands. If their attention wanders, pointing to the next math problem to be solved will focus their minds on their immediate task
• As with visual learners, kinesthetic learners learn best in a way that is highly automatic: that of body motions stored in the body and cerebellum
• Kinesthetic learners are often gifted performers as athletes, dancers, and any skill that uses their hands
• Kinesthetic learners generally are very coordinated and have an excellent sense of body timing
• Kinesthetic learners will learn and remember best when allowed to move
• They can be taught to not disturb those around them while they move during learning
• Tactile learners are closely related to kinesthetic learners
• The tactile style is more moderate, involving fine motor movements, rather than the whole-body movements
• Tactile learners take in information through the sense of touch and feeling
• Tactile learners may feel like they have to touch, and explore objects in order to know them
• Tactile learners learn best with hands-on activities 

 Tactile learners enjoy manipulatives, using different media such as finger-paints, art materials, building projects, blocks or objects for math, hands-on science experiments, lap-booking (making their own books), games, making models, dioramas, etc. If your child is a tactile-based learner, you will find a project-oriented method of learning will probably appeal to your child's need to have active hands. Their motto? "Don't TELL me, let me DO it!"

Go to www.child-1st.com to learn more about our multisensory products.

Visual Learners

What does it mean if my child is a  visual learner?
Visual learners learn best from pictures, patterns, maps, charts, and from seeing how details fit into the whole. Visual/spatial learners think in pictures instead of in words, and they see the big picture rather than individual details. The magic for these children lies in the fact that they learn all at once and when their light bulb goes on, learning is complete and permanent. Liken this mental process to the flash of a camera snapping a picture of a whole scene at one time.

Because our educational system is doing a super job of teaching to left brain learners, visual learners are often perceived as being not quite as bright as their classmates.
     The problem does not lie in the minds of the visual learners, but in our system of educating all children in the same way. We must let go of the notion that all children can and should learn from teaching that is directed primarily to the left hemisphere of the brain. (Reading and Math are both taught in this way, and these disciplines form the foundation for all their learning.)
     Some people believe that a teacher would have to teach several different ways in order to accommodate the various learning styles, but that is not an accurate assumption. Teachers will be successful in reaching all their learners at one time if they will develop a teaching style that is a synthesis of methods that target the whole brain.     
     Child1st exists to help provide teaching materials that are multisensory; materials that make this task of teaching to the whole brain easier for the parent and teacher!

 Sums for the visual learner

• All the sums to ten are shown at one time
• Each sum is a new color for contrast with nearby sums
• Arrangement on abacus shows the pattern made by stacking the sums in order (space slanting to the child's right)
• Numbers form another pattern in that they range from 1-9 on the right and from 9-1 on the child's left.

Is my child a  visual learner?

• Visual learners learn instantly from pictures and do not benefit from repetition and drill (ex: math facts flashcards)
• Visual learners do best with a visual map don't do well with oral instructions (ex: giving directions for how to get somewhere vs. showing them a map which their brain snaps a picture of and remembers)
  
• They must first be given the goal of the activity or lesson, and cannot deal with step-by-step instructions without the final goal presented to them (ex: making a woven paper mat: "Cut your paper into strips, then weave the strips together" vs. showing them a completed mat like the one you want them to make)
  
• They start by understanding the goal, and then make steps to reach the goal; they do not always find steps designed by others to work as well for them as ones they create for themselves
• They must see the whole picture - they work from whole to part, rather than from part to whole (ex: spelling lists do not work for these children. Much better to teach them sounds spellings with many examples of words that follow that same pattern, let them color the target sound spelling yellow so it stands out visually, etc.)
• Visual learners work best when they know the desired outcome and can make their own steps for getting there
• They rely on their visual capacities to succeed and tend to have less working memory (ex: sounding out a word requires a child to retain in memory the sequence of sounds in a word. They then have to retain these sounds in correct sequence long enough to figure out the word. It is much easier for visual learners to learn whole words using stylized sight words, much easier for them to deal with chunks of words they have learned using patterns, such as T - AUGH - T which is a three-sound word.
  
• Visual learners tend to be emotionally intuitive
• They learn best by seeing relationships between things, rather than facts in isolation (ex: seeing ALL the facts to ten as shown in the above example, or seeing all the words that contain AUGH in them rather than just learning that TAUGHT is spelled T-A-U-G-H-T). They need the global view.
• Visual learners may appear scattered and disorganized with details and "stuff", unattentive, and sometimes incapable. But they have an amazing capacity for working with systems and global organization. What seems to be correct and logical to left brain learners might make no sense at all to visual learners.
  
• Visual learners tend to be creative, dramatic, artistic, musical, good with their hands, good at building things, solving puzzles, and solving problems

Go to www.child-1st.com to learn more about how using multisensory products can help your child.