Love Learning

How to design units that access each student’s giftedness…

…and turn on their excitement for learning

It would be amazing to take a protracted field trip and visit the schools across the nation, walk the hallways, and peek in the classroom doors to see what we can see. Doubtless what we would witness would be incredibly varied. We would see everything from classrooms in which students are engaged, participating, and energized, to classrooms in which children are passive, indifferent, and checked out. In some of these latter classrooms, behaviors are out of control, while in others, students are silent.

What makes the difference in classrooms?

I have a theory: if we access each child’s area of giftedness, we will turn them on to learning. In reality, the brain is already wired to learn. What remains is for us to figure out how to create a learning environment in which brains can learn, want to learn, and do so without a ton of effort on our part as teachers.

How can we do this?

Some ideas need to be in place before successfully designing units of instruction that engage students and access their best abilities. We should assume that:

• All children are gifted in varying ways.

• Students don’t all learn the same way.

• The ultimate best means of conveying what they have learned will vary from student to student.

• Lecture/verbal instruction is the least effective way to teach.

• Listening to verbal instruction is the least effective way for students to learn.

• It IS possible to teach one lesson and reach all the students in a classroom.

• Children can perform far beyond what we view as their ability level.

• Children rise to the occasion when they are given control over their own learning.

• Children don’t always learn concepts in the order we view as “the correct order,” be it sight words or math facts.

• Most children learn by sorting through a wealth of ideas and making order out of them in their own minds.

Planning a unit

As an example, let’s use the topic of European influences on the settlement of North America – 6th grade level.  The unit includes the history of the first European visitors and settlers to America as well as what animals and plants were introduced from Europe. I actually prepared this unit back in 2001 and taught it to two sixth grade classrooms in a rural, at-risk population of students with marginal home support. Suffice it to say, the topic was not on the list of “burning issues I need to know about” for my students. Decide ahead of time exactly what you want all the students to come away knowing and understanding, and be prepared to share this with the students.

Prepare your unit in ways that speak to the modalities of the students. It is not the time to say “read pages 225-228 and answer the questions at the end of the unit.” Speaking to the modalities of the students means that you will show more than you will tell. As you are sharing the food stuffs that originated in Europe, create a huge map (on the whiteboard or smartboard) showing images of the various foods/animals; use arrows or put the items in little ships that are headed towards the new world. Use rhyme and color-coding. Encourage the students to use their hands to reflect the lessons you are presenting, even if it is to draw the map in their notebook and draw or cut out images of the influences from Europe.

At the end of the unit, share that you want to find out what they each understand. There will not be a test to study for; there won’t be a certain way for them to show you what they know. Each of the students will be able to choose a way to share what they have learned with you and the class.

Give them the list of concepts or questions you want them to be able to respond to. At the same time, give them some ideas for options they can choose from just to prime the pump.

1. Verbally gifted students could choose to do a TV news report or write an article. 

 

2. Interpersonally gifted students could do a TV or radio interview, do a game show where the host asks questions and the contestants answer the questions, etc.

 

3. Intrapersonally gifted students might choose to create a diary from the point of view of a young person traveling over to the colonies for the first time, recounting their experiences. Or, they might choose to make a scrapbook with cut outs illustrating their entries.

 

4. Visually gifted students might choose to collaborate on a mural/map complete with key, illustrations, etc. They might elect to create a product using color-coding to show source countries of different plants and animals or customs.

 

5. Rhythmically gifted students might make up a song or chant or  poem or ditty about various aspects of the lesson.

 

6. Kinesthetically gifted students might create a choreographed play and act out the content of the unit.

 

7. Logically/Mathematically gifted students might recount the events, focusing on the challenges of the expansion into the Americas and the way these challenges were overcome. They might be interested in the data and numbers surrounding this period in our history. They might create graphs and other numerical charts as a way of sharing data.

The rubric

The teacher’s rubric must focus not on the means of conveying learning but on whether the substance of the unit was understood and communicated. Did each student show they understood the unit? Did they convey the concepts that were central to the unit?

Consider having a simple rubric for students to use to rate each presentation, prepping them ahead of time to focus on content more than on the means of presentation.

The structure of the rubric should include the major concepts and have a place for rating maybe from 1-4 the excellence of communicating each concept. The student rubric should be simpler and focus on the main elements and the extent to which they were communicated.

Taking it further

As you teach more and more frequently using this model, encourage your students to learn all they can from each other about what each child finds easiest to do. Encourage collaboration, not by teacher-led grouping, but instead by giving the students the liberty of planning future presentations drawing on the skills and gifts of students who are different from themselves. For instance, a visual spatial student could team with a verbally gifted child to create a presentation that showcased both of their abilities. The mathematically gifted child might team with a body/kinesthetically gifted child. The resulting projects would be so diverse and amazing for the class to enjoy as their learning and their understanding expands with each new presentation.

The result?

Your students will love learning. I can guarantee it! 

The Impact of Hemispheric Dominance on Learning to Read

As is often the case when we discuss people in terms of classification, we tend to over generalize and label people. This is certainly the case when discussing right- or left-brain dominance. I would love to have a dime for every time I’ve heard someone say, “I’m right-brained” or “I’m left-brained.” When I hear those terms, a picture flashes into my head of a hemisphere in the brain running around on little legs and bare feet.

The fact is, we think and learn using both sides of our brain. Having said that, however, it is a fact that each of us has a dominant hemisphere that dictates our learning strengths, impacts our view of the world, and determines how we function in it. It is particularly important, then, for us as parents and teachers to understand our children’s dominant learning styles and adjust our practice to those preferences. If we don’t, chances are very good that the children will struggle with academics to one extent or another.

The functions of the hemispheres

A person’s dominant hemisphere is usually the one that processes incoming information, and the less dominant hemisphere can be strengthened through practice. If we want to help our children learn to the best of their abilities, it will naturally help for us to know which are their dominant hemispheres, and which are their less dominant ones. Armed with this knowledge, we can teach new information in a way that is best received by their dominant hemispheres, and then we can review or practice that information in ways that involve their less dominant hemispheres. Doing this will strengthen the connection between hemispheres and improve the children’s ability to do well with reading.

The hemispheres go to school

Academic skills associated with the left hemisphere include:

• Handwriting

• Symbols (letters and numbers)

• Language (spoken and written)

• Reading

• Phonics

• Working with details and facts

• Talking

• Following directions

• Listening to spoken language

Academic skills associated with the right hemisphere include:

• Haptic awareness (recognizing objects through touch)

• Spatial relationships (where things are on a map, relationship of one object to another in space)

• Shapes and pattern recognition

• Mathematical computation

• Sensitivity to color

• Singing and music

• Art expression

• Creativity

• Visualization

• Feelings and emotions

(See Unicorns are Real: A Right-Brained Approach to Learning by Barbara Meister Vitale, p 11)

Hemisphere dominance and reading

Hemispheric dominance has everything to do with learning to read. This might explain why so many, many children are struggling to learn to read and why some don’t learn. In spite of our society's focus on trying to make sure every child learns to read, we have not yet embraced the notion that maybe it is not our children that are at fault when they don’t learn to read but is instead the fact that we often continue to insist on a wholly left-brained approach to teaching reading. Also very much to the point is that when children are entering school, they are at a developmental stage in which their right hemispheres are developing rapidly; this means that children at the age for learning to read are not as developed in their left hemispheres!

This left-brained approach has been in place for decades; it has been endorsed and blessed by national associations, and it is taught in all our teaching colleges. It is no wonder that we educators are comfortable in believing that this method of teaching reading is right. But what follows that assumption is that children who cannot learn in that universally accepted way of teaching reading are broken, disabled, and incapable. Sadly, it is one reason why thousands of people grow to adulthood unable to read.

Specifics of how teaching reading is related to hemispheric dominance

1. The traditional way to teach reading is from part to whole using specified sequences of learning. We teach in little steps and expect the child to remember the little pieces until he gets to words in a book. This is perfect for dominant left-brained children! Right-brain dominant children take in information exactly the opposite way. They work from whole to part. What does this mean really? Right-brain dominant children must first see the final product, the goal, the whole thing, and the whole pattern; only then can they make up a way of learning and remembering. If you give a right-brained learner a sequence of little steps to learn, he cannot learn them well because this is not how his brain processes. He will be unable to remember the steps because he needs the final product in order to make sense of the steps. The perfect way to send a right-brained child into a coma during language arts is to ask him to learn the blends, for instance (bl, pl, pr, sl, sw, etc.)

2. Left-brain dominant learners think just fine using symbols. Right-brain dominant learners learn most easily through touch, the senses, and body movement. Their strong suit is not paper and pencil exercises. Phonics worksheets fall perfectly into this category of activities that are difficult for right-brained learners.

3. Left-brain dominant learners are most secure when they have a sequence to follow. For example, step by step directions, guidelines, rules of thumb, and details they can check off. Right-brain dominant learners are random in how they perceive. With these children, it works really well to surround them with learning and let them notice patterns and make connections.

4. For instance, it is the rule in most classrooms that the teacher should teach words in a particular sequence and only put on the word wall the words as dictated by school or district. Because I am a right-brained person myself, my classroom walls were covered with words from day 1. Literally every wall had words. Some were high-frequency words in alphabetical order, others were huge words grouped by part of speech (that were considered way above the grade level of my students). What I found was that my little rebellion worked in the favor of the children in my classroom who automatically began noticing patterns in words (the “part” in the phrase “from whole to part.”) They noticed, for example, that the “tion” in “nation” showed up in really big words like “vacation” or “abdication” and because they noticed this on their own, they remembered it.

5. Left-brain dominant learners are logical and work through a problem step by step. They start with a little tidbit and begin to logic through to the answer. “If this is fact, then this is also fact.” Right-brain dominant learners rely a lot on their intuition. Where this becomes a problem for them is when they have to explain or justify their answer using words. For example, a right-brain dominant child might solve a math problem by visualizing images or shapes in his mind, but when it comes to translating images he saw in his head into words and words in a sequence, he will likely struggle.

6. Left-brain dominant learners are usually quite verbal. They usually acquire and recall words a plenty. They think in words, or so I’m told. Right-brained dominant learners are not primarily verbal. The stronger the image in their mind, the more important the concept is to them, the less they will be able to translate that into words. Let them draw a picture or make something with their hands to show what they see. Interestingly enough, some right-brain dominant people can communicate in words best when they can write or type—it is a tactile activity that frees their mind from the need to verbalize the words, which I suppose adds an extra layer of left-brainedness to the process.

7. Left-brain dominant learners can hear, absorb, and deal with abstractions. By this I mean things like math rules, equations, phonics rules, spelling sequences (letter sequences). You can give them a rule, which is an abstract concept, and they can remember it and apply it to a problem in their homework. Right-brain dominant learners do not learn this way. They do not handle abstracts. They need examples, analogies, stories that explain why, and a habit of relating to known objects to help them remember abstract facts.

How do I know if I have a right-brain dominant child?

Good question! I’m so glad you asked! First of all, make a habit to pay very close attention to your child. A dominant right-brain child will:

• Tend to daydream

• Lose track of time

• Have a hard time expressing ideas in words

• Tend to handle, touch, pick up objects

• Have difficulty with verbal directions

• Communicate non-verbally (body motions, faces, etc)

• Remember faces, places, events but not names or numbers

• Be active

• Embellish a story at times

• Like to handle things and bepretty good at taking something apart and reassembling it

• Rather attempt to put something together without following directions

• Maybe be good in athletics

• Be impulsive

• Not sit still in his seat very well

• Have a messy desk, room, backpack, etc.

• Sometimes go into a room and forget why he went there

• Intuit a right answer, but might not be able to show proof

You might find it helpful to help your child take a casual online quiz that will point you in a direction of which hemisphere is dominant. Of course I am not sure how utterly scientific this test is, but I did take it myself.

It was no surprise to find out that I am 5 parts left-brained to 15 parts right-brained!

I have a right-brained dominant child. So where do I go from here?

While most of the traditional teaching materials are geared perfectly to left-brain dominant learners, there is hope for your right-brain dominant children. Here are some suggestions for helping right-brained learners read.

1. Start with whole words. Talk about what the word looks like. Use it in a sentence or five. Have your child come up with a body motion that reflects the meaning or shape of the word. Find the word in books. Have your child write it and draw a picture of it or build it out of materials of some kind. Or, check out our sight word cards that already include pictures and body motions.

2. Post the words on the walls of your school room. Post LOTS of words. For instance, if you introduce the word PLAY, post lots of words that have the AY ending. If you introduce OVER, post other words that have the ER ending. Never introduce a piece of learning in isolation from other similar or related items.

3. If you introduce small words such as PLAY or OVER, play around with bigger words that contain those smaller words such as PLAYGROUND or OVERPASS.

4. Introduce words from a story well loved by your child. You do not have to introduce particular words in a particular sequence. Your child might want to learn DINOSAUR first. So, do that word first! Whatever the child’s brain is captured by, he will learn and remember.

5. Use drawing every day. I always began school with very young children by giving them lots of coloring and drawing implements in flat boxes that allowed for easy access. Avoid broken or grimy crayons! Let the child draw whatever is on his mind and then begin to work on labeling the picture. For instance, if your child draws a dinosaur in his back yard, ask him what he drew and how he would like to label the picture. If he says, “I have a dinosaur for a pet,” help him write those words, and then put any word that is new on a card on the wall. This is how many young children acquire the ability to read.

6. Look for teaching materials that utilize images, body movement, rhyme, and other right-brained teaching elements.

7. And finally, do all you can to affirm the beautiful design of your child’s mind!

 

Check out these alphabet materials for right-brained learners.

Find out more about whole words with pictures.

Read about this effective reading program for right-brained learners.

Check these Math resources for right-brained learners.

Why It's So Important to Know What Kind of Learner Your Child Is

We parents can have a pretty linear view of our children’s ability to perform well in school. We tend to speak about children as “smart,” “struggling,” or “learning disabled.” The problem with this view of children’s scholastic ability is that there is room for a whole lot of error—of mis-labeling children—and when we have subconsciously determined what group a child falls into, it might not occur to us to make the effort to find out what exactly is causing a lack of success.

Areas of Giftedness

This is the whole issue: there are certain cognitive strengths that are necessary for children to have in order to do well in traditional classrooms or with traditional teaching materials. There are also various ways of describing this learner who finds school easy. “Smart” is probably the least accurate way to classify these successful learners because there are many ways in which children can be smart.

In the Old Testament when God was gathering workers to collaborate on building the temple, He gifted each person with skills in different areas because all those skills were necessary to make the project a reality. Today, in our society, we accept without hesitation that some adults are gifted in the arts, some in calculations, some in leadership, some in organization, some with numbers, some with illustration, some with speaking, others with writing, etc. We are not expected to all be gifted in the same way.

If a person is gifted in art and design, I am pretty sure that person would never attempt to enter a field in which they would need to excel in engineering or math. They would hone their skills and enter a field that required their particular gifts.

Strengthening Weaknesses

When it comes to school, however, we tend to expect all children to be able to perform well in a field that focuses the most on symbols, on verbal abilities, and on sequences and rules. Those children who are gifted in these areas, do well. Those who are more gifted visually or spatially will likely struggle. If your child’s area of strength or learning preference is not identified, what often results is failure and discouragement. Once we identify each child’s learning strengths and weaknesses, we can knowledgeably work on strengthening those weak areas. Learning weaknesses are not life sentences. Thanks to our very plastic brains, doing exercises in areas in which we are weak will result in stronger “learning muscles!”

There are several different ways to describe learning strengths: Visual/spatial, kinesthetic, left-brained, right-brained, figural, semantic, symbolic, etc. Let’s choose one set and expand on them.

Figural Intelligence

Children who are strongest in the area of figural intelligence do best with concrete, tangible information that they can see, touch and manipulate. The key descriptor for these learners is HANDS-ON. These children learn easily when they are given images, charts, visuals, graphs, and when images are embedded in their symbols (letters and numbers). They do best if they can see what you are teaching them, rather than just listening. They do better if they can see a visual example of what you are describing to them. They enjoy and benefit the most from seeing learning concepts inside a map.

Most young children fall into this group and even after age 7, many children remain strongly figural. One reason for this is because young children’s experience to this point has been with tangible, touchable objects. They are also in a developmental stage in which the right hemisphere of the brain is rapidly developing. As children listen to and tell stories, color, handle new objects, sing, look at pictures, draw pictures, etc., their right hemisphere will elaborate more and more.

What figural learners struggle with the most is learning that is primarily about rules, verbal directions, symbols, etc. This means that teaching them numbers, calculations and phonics rules or asking them to look at this word and sound it out and remember the sounds the symbols represent will be hard for them. The more you can use images completely integrated into the symbols, the better. We've created over 400 sight word cards that incorporate each sight word into a relevant image. The cards also include a body motion and word used in a sentence to provide context and meaning and to deepen learning.

Children who are figural learners very often have a difficult time learning to read. They are frequently labeled as learning delayed or disabled. This does not need to be the case! Identifying your child’s learning intelligence early on will prevent him from experiencing failure.

Semantic Intelligence

Semantic learners handle ideas and intangible concepts well. The key descriptor for these types of people is WORDS. Semantic learners deal with words as their stock in trade. They are great teachers, presenters, counselors, and communicators. It is not hard for them to put their ideas into words in a linear fashion as it is for figural learners. Semantic learners are valued very highly in school settings. The tricky thing about semantic learners is that while they are really good at linking symbols of language (letters and words) to sounds, they are not so good with grasping the meaning of what they are reading. Typically the children who can read fluently but cannot tell you what they just read fall into the category of semantic learners. A good way to help semantic learners practice making meaning out of what they read is to practice visualization—have your semantic learner read a sentence to you out loud and then close his eyes and make a mental picture of what he just read. Doing this often will encourage him to think about the meaning of what he reads, even when he reads quietly on his own.

Symbolic Intelligence

Of course for symbolic learners, the key descriptor is SYMBOLS! These learners handle abstract representations well—letters, numbers, and musical notes. Because much of early education involves using the symbols of numbers and letters for math and reading, those children who are weak in symbolic intelligence will have a harder time than their symbolically intelligent peers. Figural and semantic learners will experience more difficulty with sounding out words, spelling, or calculations in math. Although symbolic learners typically do very well in school, they may struggle if asked to create something out of nothing or to think outside the box. Playing imaginative games with your symbolic learner will help get her used to thinking imaginatively and strengthen her creativity.

Preparing for school

Most of us expect that a child will approach school ready to learn, especially if we have spent time with them, talking, reading books, counting objects, singing the alphabet song and other preparatory activities. It might be distressing to find when you begin to introduce your little figural learner to the joys of arithmetic and reading that he or she shuts down. But don’t despair! There is help readily available that will make it easy to teach your semantic and figural learners successfully! The first step towards successfully teaching our children is to identify the type of learner they are. Next, we need to get our hands on teaching material that is friendly to these types of learners. For all of us with beginners, this means materials that we can use to teach math and reading that relies heavily on right-brained elements such as images, stories, body motions, charts, graphs, mind maps, and so much other fun stuff! Let’s plan ahead and let our children love learning!

How to Choose the Best Educational Environment for Your Child

Recently I heard from a parent on the other side of the world about concerns she had with her daughter’s difficulties in some areas of school. She expressed that her daughter is primarily a right-brained learner and that she struggles with subjects such as writing when she needs to translate information from mental ideas or images into a sequence of words, or in math class when ideas utilizing symbols are called for. All of these present challenges to be overcome.

Subsequent discussions with this parent led to her question, “What is the best educational setting for my child?” She was doubtless considering whether or not she would be able to support her daughter sufficiently from home. This is a huge question, however, and one only parents can answer for themselves and their own children. But I asked this particular parent to describe in more detail what is easy and what is hard for her daughter in the school setting. Here are some of the ideas she expressed about her daughter:

What is hard for her: 

• Spelling. She is able to learn her spelling words for her spelling tests, however the spelling words are not used correctly in her writing thereafter.

• Mathematics. Simple addition, subtraction, division and multiplication take a long time to work out and sometimes when she gets the correct answer, she will write the wrong answer on the sheet.  If she cannot see the picture of the problem at hand, she cannot understand what is being asked of her.

• She is very tough on herself and wants to get everything right.  I cannot reason with her that mistakes are a part of learning.

• Often daydreams in class. She says that she uses the time to process information, however her teacher believes she is not on task.

• Moves, rocks, fidgets all the time; this helps her focus on the task at hand.

• Cannot follow verbal instructions.

• If she verbalizes before writing, her thought process is much clearer and she can write in a sequential manner.

What is easy for her:

• Reading - her reading level and comprehension are at grade level.

• Art - is very creative and thinks outside the box.

• Dance - very expressive in her dance, always getting acknowledged at school.

• Intuition - picks up people’s moods very easily.

• Writing - if helped, she can write some very imaginative and entertaining pieces of work.

• Science - loves science and is very excited to discuss science concepts.

As I read through these bullet points, what struck me was that this lady's daughter truly does sound like a visual/tactile child! [For more information about visual-spatial learners, see this blog post and this one.]

Another idea that struck me is how thoroughly this mother had gotten to know her child. This knowledge of our children is fundamental to truly being able to guide and help them. Once we’ve identified their gifts as well as their areas of challenge, we can choose wisely for them because we will have the information needed.

So how do I choose?

While I cannot answer this question, I will say this: Once you have determined your child’s learning needs and strengths, the next step is to find out what your options are. Is there a school your child could attend where consideration is given in coursework for right-brained or visual learners? If you have various options open to you, take the time to interview and ask specific questions about how your child would be helped through her areas of need.

If you feel there are few options for your child, one idea to consider is to supplement her education at home by using materials that are designed especially for visual or other right-brained learners. Visual learners learn very quickly when the setting is right. If the materials you are using have images and body movement incorporated into them, working with her at home might be all you need to do.

Please don’t hesitate to call (1-800-881-0912) or email (info@child-1st.com) if you would like to chat about your own child and what might help him/her out the most. Or, use the comments section below.

How to Meet the Needs of Many Types of Learners at One Time

Or, teach once and reach them all

One of the biggest challenges for teachers is to find ways to meet the needs of the many types of learners in their classrooms day after day. For several years I experimented by trying various strategies, all while watching the kids to see what helped them, and some things began to stand out that seemed to work very well in reaching a lot of different types of learners. Using multiple strategies at one time was astonishing—children who had been failing for years suddenly had the lights go on. And this was not because the material was dumbed down to their level, but instead because the vehicles that carried the information to the brain were different.

It took me several years of refining before I developed an approach to teaching many kinds of learners at one time that assured that they would all learn. Below is a global map of the various elements that are included in the design of Child1st materials, and following are short descriptors of each of those elements.

Global Whole/Graphic Map:

Many children are global learners who learn by seeing where the detail they are being taught fits into the big picture. For example, if you teach a child 2+5=7, he'll likely be distracted by trying to recall where else he saw numbers that add up to 7 and so not remember that detailed equation. If you tell a global learner that one strategy for reaching non-traditional learners is to embed the learning within the global whole, she will immediately begin wondering what the other strategies are that are good to use. If you tell a global child that LAUGH is pronounced L-A-F, and that TAUGHT is pronounced T-O-T, a flurry of question will be unleashed in his mind, all of which will prevent him from remembering what you told him. What a global learner needs to see is the whole picture. “Where does this fit in the whole?” “What other words are spelled with the AUGH sounding like O?” “What other number pairs add up to 7?” and so forth. The strategy then, should be to show the global whole from within a diagram or chart, and then having done that, teach a detail at a time if need be.

Draw/Write:

From the very beginning, we need to provide immediate writing practice for what we teach a child. For example, if you show a child a SnapWords™ image such as the one at the right, talk about what it says and what the image conveys in terms of story or situation, and then be sure he understands what the word means. The very next thing to do is ask him to study the word, then close his eyes and “see” it in his imagination. When he says he can see it, have him open his eyes and draw or write what he saw in his mind. This practice is very simple, but will do a number of things. It will teach the child to rely on his strong visual sense, teach him to rely heavily on the pictures his brain snaps when he sees something, and give him a chance to use other senses to deepen learning when he draws or writes what he saw. The cycle of learning is complete when the child has drawn or written what he learned. Finally, this approach is very important as a means of showing you what the child really grasped. Many children can seem super attentive, when in reality they are staring at you but dreaming of something else.

Metaphor:

Whenever we liken a new piece of learning to something tangible and known, we are utilizing a very powerful tool that will help a child remember the new learning. For example, we can tell a child that M is Mmmm or we can say “M is Mmmmountain.” The shape of the known object reflects the shape of the letter M and also carries with it the sound of M. If you add to this a visual of M being mountain, you have tripled the learning potential for the child. Other metaphors: “Your circulatory system is a huge system of roads and highways…” “You brain is a very complicated computer.”

Color:

Color is a powerful aid to learning, sorting, and remembering. When used thoughtfully, color coding can make learning easy. One caution, however: if your coloring system gets super complicated (such as a distinct color for every sound) the child will be forced to try and memorize a color coding system before he can use it. This is going to be counter-productive! But if you use a color to highlight a target sound spelling, the different color will make the target letters/sound pop visually and the child’s brain will snap a picture of the lesson.

Gesture:

I cannot say too much about the teaching power of gesture. Many children can learn only when moving, and gestures that reflect the detail being learned are also hugely important. I have personally seen children who unconsciously made slight hand motions as they were reading—either motions for letters, or body motions for sight words they had learned using gestures. It became clear to me that while the gestures were vital for carrying information into the brain, they were also utilized to retrieve the learning!

Music:

Music makes a wonderful clothesline to clip learning pieces to! Can you see it? No detail will get lost if you have tied it to words in a song! Collaborate with your child in coming up with a tune to accompany some lesson they are learning. Music will make it easy to learn and recall the information.

Acting:

Acting out learning is another form of gesturing, but is definitely whole body and brain! When you are teaching the science concepts of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, have the children act out the movement of the water. It will be unforgettable! If you are teaching prepositions, have the children act out where they are in relation to their chair or a table. For learning fractions, act out the action in the math equation using real, concrete objects and a table or desk.

Rhyme:

The use of rhyme or jingles will help children learn and remember details. For example, in our SnapLetters™ Card for the letter A, we have the visual of A (anthill with ants crawling up and down it) and also have a jingle that ties the shape of the letter to both long and short sounds of A. “Amy’s ants on an anthill, actually.”

Rhythm:

Marching in a line to learn odd and even numbers is so great. If you are learning to count by 2’s for instance, march in a line, counting out loud. Each time you get to an even number, lean over to the side dramatically so that children subconsciously relate the deep bend with the even numbers. Rhythm can be linked to gesture if you clap or stomp in rhythm. If you are learning your 5’s table, use each hand to represent a 5. So if you say “4 x 5 is (slap both hands together twice to represent the four 5’s) 20” you will combine rhythm and gesture. The learning will be absorbed by the child’s body.

Story:

Story is one of my all time favorite tools. Once you let go of your inhibitions (mildly), you can really get imaginative with the stories you make up on the spot to explain learning concepts. For instance, see our previous blog posts about the story that explains inch, foot, and yard, and the story that explains contractions. Also, Alphabet Tales is a book of stories that explains how letters came to have their shape and sound. Once children hear a story and learning is embedded in it, they will not forget!

Visuals:

Visuals are incredible in their ability to transfer learning to the brain in an instant. Everything we create at Child1st utilizes visuals for sure. When right-brained learners, visual learners, active learners, and children who struggle see a learning concept embedded in an image, their brains will usually snap a photo of it, and it is there… forever in memory.

All of Child1st products utilize as many of these elements in their design as possible. In this way, we can be sure to not neglect any learner! Go check the materials out and help your children love learning!

Which Materials Would You Recommend for Patients with Aphasia?

A customer recently wrote us asking what materials we'd recommend to help someone with aphasia learn to read. Although everyone has different learning strengths and struggles, two products stand out as effective products to begin with in teaching those who need very visual, concrete helps with letters and words.

The SnapLetters™ Alphabet Teaching Cards contain the alphabet letters embedded in visuals which tie together letter shape and sound. If you think that the alliterative jingle that accompanies each letter might be too much for the individual you're working with, just say the sound that the letter makes and the image that goes with it. For example, in the image to the right, the letter M has been made into a series of mountains, tying together the shape and sound of the letter M. Emphasizing the letter shapes and sounds through visuals helps those who'd otherwise struggle to learn the letter of the alphabet through repetitive drilling and memorization.

The second product we recommend for those who need a strong visual is our new set of SnapWords™ Nouns Teaching Cards. This set of cards contains 59 nouns commonly used across the curriculum, including animals, landforms, space, people, geography, seasons, weather, body parts and clothing, school-related words, and others. The concrete words are a perfect start for those who struggle to remember (such as those with aphasia), as the words tie to concrete objects around the individual. The powerful visual also remains in the individual's mind better than an abstract concept like a plain word would. 

Those are two products we recommend beginning with as you seek to teach someone with aphasia to read. Use the comments below to share what you've found to be helpful in working with individuals with aphasia.

Are Learning Accommodations for Right Brained Learners Actually Crutches in Disguise?

Over the years I’ve heard a variety of opinions about whether or not we should adhere to a strictly traditional approach when teaching reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic to children who are struggling to learn basic skills. In past years, what I saw in special education classrooms was that the same approach was used to teach strugglers, but the number of math problems or spelling words were reduced. Today it seems like more and more educators and parents are embracing non-traditional helps to ensure the success of those children who are not successful with traditional lessons.

Because I also am a non-traditional learner, I was particularly sensitive to reactions that ran contrary to my own belief about using alternative methods in teaching. Some of the comments I have heard include the following:

• I learned it this way. He should be able to also.
• I’ve taught this way for 40 years. He should be able to learn it like everyone else.
• Using visuals is a crutch. She should be able to learn without pictures.
• If you teach with [pictures, stories, or metaphors] it will just confuse my child.
• He won’t be able to read plain text if he learns his sight words using stylized words.

While reading A Mind at a Time by Dr. Mel Levine, I came across a comment he makes about how specialized we allow ourselves to be as adults, but how rigidly we teach our children, expecting them all to learn the same way and be a master of every subject. I don’t advocate pushing children to master every subject equally – nor do I support the notion of turning a blind eye to a child’s failure in a particular subject. What I do believe is that we should take the time to find out in which areas the student excels and use that talent to help him learn other subjects. For instance, a child who loves to draw can be encouraged to draw to help himself remember concepts in a subject he finds difficult.

In her book The Way They Learn, Cynthia Tobias encourages parents with struggling children to focus completely on what their REAL desire for their children is. Is it that a child do her homework, or is it that she learns the subject matter? Along those same lines, is it really important HOW a child learns and by what means, as long as he is happily successful in learning the material?

I have seen many children who had shut down in the process of learning to read that suddenly came to life when we included some right brained elements in their learning. Far from being a crutch to them, the visuals, stories, motions and activities greased the wheels and allowed these children to learn quickly and deeply. This makes all the difference between failing and succeeding; between dreading school and enjoying the process of learning.

So to answer my question, this is what we at Child1st believe: that it only makes sense to make learning those basic concepts as attractive and easy to assimilate as possible so that no child will shut down or come to hate reading or learning. With that goal in mind, we design learning tools that deliver concepts quickly and naturally to the child by means of images, stories, humor, body movement, patterns and much more. Let’s help our children love learning!

Why strengthen the link between right and left hemispheres?

There is a lot of discussion these days about right-brained learners and what we can do to help them become more left-brained in their processing. Sometimes the implication is that if they are right-brained learners, they are processing in a less desired way. Two things about that idea: Which hemisphere is more desirable depends fully on what we are trying to get the child to do, and quite honestly, both left- and right-brained processors have limitations if they are processing very strongly in their dominant hemisphere.

Left-brained, or logic dominant learners succeed in school more readily when the task has to do with following steps and dealing with words, letters, numbers and various types of rules.  These children perform well in our traditional educational system, and this is why people tend to see the left brain as the smarter hemisphere. However, if a child is processing in a very left brained fashion, what he is not accessing is all the stuff processed in the right hemisphere of the brain, such as the whole picture, comprehension of the meaning behind the words, and the ability to see goal and steps to the goal as a whole in order to detect steps that might not be working as well as other steps might. In the right or gestalt hemisphere, intuition abounds, and it is there that the person can pick up on the emotions of others. It is also where a brand new solution might be imagined.

Right-brained, or gestalt dominant learners process strongly in the gestalt hemisphere and so have a really hard time verbalizing what they see and what they have learned. They struggle with anything at all that has to do with symbols (letters and numbers), if they are taught in a linear way. For example, a teacher might say, "First learn this little piece, then this little piece, but don’t forget the first piece you learned because you’re going to need it later. Now learn this rule for how to use these little pieces." This is precisely how we traditionally teach reading and math in school: with symbols and in a linear step-by-step way. It is for this reason that many right-brained learners end up in special education classes.

Is one hemisphere the smarter of the two? Or do we need to access both hemispheres any time we think or work on something? Of course we need both. Logic dominant children need to add the meaning and emotion and comprehension to their great logic skills so that they can improve as problem solvers. Gestalt dominant children need to match all the linear stuff with the colorful right-brain stuff they are so good at.

So where do we go from here? The obvious answer would be to guide children into accessing their less dominant hemisphere. And here is where the rub is. How do we do that? The prospect of redesigning our teaching materials so that we are teaching in an integrated way that will automatically access both hemispheres can be daunting in the extreme. Who has time for that?!

The quickest route to integration is to enlist the help of your students. Teach your students that some of them are gestalt dominant while others are logic dominant in their processing. They need to understand their strengths as well as what is hard for them so that they can help themselves. In a utopian classroom, we would group children together so that half of the group is logic dominant and the other half is gestalt. These children would work together to turn each activity into an integrated learning experience. But what you can do in every classroom is teach children to help themselves by relying on what comes easy to them when learning new concepts.

Since traditional schools already employ left-brained tools, share the tools utilized by right-brained learners. Focus on color, music, pattern, rhyme, movement or gesture, the global whole (or the whole picture), images, stories, skits and metaphor ("this is like _____," a statement that's generated by asking the questions, "how can I remember this? What does it look like or remind me of?") Start with a small lesson – maybe some terms in science you want your students to learn, or a phonics rule. Challenge the group to integrate a right-brained vehicle into the lesson, maybe by making the rule into rhyming lines, putting it to music, illustrating it, acting it out, etc. At first it might be slow going, but like any other skill, it will increase in fluency the more you have the children work on this.

So maybe that utopian classroom is possible after all! Can you only imagine the learning gains for all students? The increase in self confidence for those gestalt learners? How the lessons will become student-driven with the students doing the hard work of teaching and learning instead of you? Remember, the best question to ask the children (gestalt) is, “What can we do to help us remember this?”

At Child1st, our goal is to design learning materials that do the hemisphere integration for you. But since we are primarily focusing on reading and math resources at this point and students have to learn so much more in school, let them become your very best helpers, whatever the subject. Carve out time for them to work together in independent centers. As they work through designing the concept, complete the learning experience for them by having them share with the class. Then call me up. I want to come and see.

The Frog Box: a Perfect Gift for Encouraging Struggling Readers

The Frog Box is one of my favorite Child1st products. What I love most about it is everything that's included to encourage students who are frustrated with learning to read. From the Safari Ltd® flying tree frog and colorful tracking chart, to the mini lessons inside each reader, the kit is designed to help children succeed in reading and then reward them.

All letters and sight words are taught through visuals and movements, using SnapLetters™ Teaching Cards and SnapWords™ List A Teaching Cards and Numbers & Colors Teaching Cards. The focus on visuals and movement meets visual and kinesthetic learners right where they're at by providing a point of context for new information and enabling them to remember it later.

The Frog Box comes with 22 leveled, decodable readers. Each humorous reader details exactly what skills a child needs to know before being able to read the book, allowing teachers/parents to make sure the child knows those concepts and so ensuring a successful reading experience. For example, here's the mini-lesson from Jig the Pig:

        1. Teach letter sounds li (short sound), Bb, Jj, Ww, and Rr using Alphabet Teaching Cards and stories in Alphabet Tales.

        2. Practice making little words, sounding them out as the child writes them. Possibilities include: Bob, bib, big, jig, fig, rag, rib, jib, bat, cab, bog, jog, cob, wig, wag, wit, etc. If the child is leaving out the center vowel, or mixing up letter sounds when he writes, make certain the child says the sound right when he is writing each letter. Also, hold up three fingers, one for each letter the child will write, and before he sounds and writes, articulate each sound in the word while you point to each finger. Have him sound with you, then repeat sounding while he writes the word.

        3. Review all sight words learned to this point.

        4. Teach the sight words HAS, WILL, and BIG. Use in oral and written sentences, and written phrases such as "It is big." "Will you jog?" Continue working on color words, and for this story especially, "yellow," "pink," and "brown."

        5. Display WILL in a pocket chart or write it on a white board and generate additional words that are in the "ill" family, and words that end in double ll. Ideas include: pill, Jill, fill, dill, mill, sill, gill, and ball, fall, mall, tall, wall, etc.

        6. Read Jig the Pig, and do follow-up activities.

        Follow-up Activities:

        1. Make sentences out of the cut up words and put in snack baggies for the child to unscramble.

        2. Make a bingo board using the newest sight words. Play Go Fish or Memory with them. Put three letters which form a word inside a snack baggie. Continue until you have made a few mixed up words inside baggies. Challenge the child to put the letters from each baggie in order so that they form a word that makes sense. If they don't notice, point out that the vowel will always be in the middle.

        • The 29 sight words from List A that your child should be familiar with by this point are: a, and, at, big, by, do, go, has, he, help, I, in, is, it, me, my, no, not, now, or, on, out, see, sit, so, the, to, up, will. (From color words: brown, pink, yellow).

Best of all, the kit is fun for any child, whether just beginning or struggling to read! The Frog Box includes colored pencils for coloring each black and white reader once a child has successfully read it, a colorful tracking poster for keeping track of books read, frog stickers for marking progress on the chart, and a large Safari tree frog. These all motivate a child to want to learn to read, perfect for encouraging a struggling reader or helping a beginning reader to soar!

-DLG

Why Use Multisensory Teaching Methods?

It is ironic to me that we adults readily accept the concept of differences in gifts and talents and yet, when it comes to our children’s education, often expect them to all learn in the same way. Not only is traditional education based on teaching material in a mostly flat, linear manner that does not mesh with the various ways children learn best, but we then grade children based on their ability to “learn” or not within that approach that may just not work for many of them.

I suspect there are many children who have failed within our traditional approach when if they had had a multisensory approach to learning, they would have had no trouble. Information abounds about how visual, auditory, and kinesthetic children learn, but still, the idea has not yet transformed traditional education.

Maybe the problem is that we’re not totally clear on 1] what a multisensory teaching approach looks like, or 2] maybe we are so used to how things have always been done that we don’t view multisensory approaches as anything other than the newest fad to hit our educational system. Many scores of fads have come and gone, some just ineffective and some totally damaging, but this idea of multisensory instruction deserves a thorough investigation.

The easiest way to show why multisensory teaching methods are so important if we each stop and consider how we take in information and how we help ourselves remember. I for one can't absorb information if it is given to me orally. I have to stop and concentrate really hard to process what I hear orally. If it is new material, the reason for this is that I have to translate everything I hear into images, which is how I absorb and remember information. For instance, when I need to recall a phone number, the quickest way is to look at a key pad. What I am looking for is the shape my finger would make during the process of dialing the number. If I am sure I need to remember something, I take the time to relate it to something that will jog my memory when I need to retrieve that piece of information. I think in pictures, not words, so imagine how it would be for me as a six year old having to “learn” everything from a teacher who is talking to me orally using words.

Many other people learn something and remember it because they have physically done the piece of learning with their bodies. The motions are stored in their bodies and brains for later recall. Without the ability to move in concert with their learning, they would not be able to remember and use the information. For these learners, it is not enough to just be mindlessly moving (such as hopping or swinging a leg back and forth); the learning needs to be replicated in their bodies.

Auditory learners need to hear themselves talking about their learning in order to remember the material. Reading aloud often helps such learners.

So how does one teacher accommodate all learners? Teach three to 15 times? No. The easiest, most effective way is to teach from a multisensory approach because in this way the needs of ALL learners will be met. The visual learners will rely on the visual elements incorporated in their lessons, the kinesthetic learners from the movement integrated in the learning, etc. Also, no one is purely one thing to the exclusion of anything else. So it makes a whole lot of sense to use elements of all three modalities in every lesson, doesn't it? In this way, children will naturally take in the information through whichever means is most effective in each situation. 

For a multisensory reading curriculum that includes visual, kinesthetic and auditory elements, check out the Easy-for-Me™ Reading Program.