Love Learning

How to help your at-risk students learn

How to help your at-risk students learn. Wow, there’s a topic for you that looks super ambitious and way too general. But there are some ideas we can consider that will go a long way toward helping at-risk children learn successfully. The challenges these children face might be in reading, in math, or in every subject they have.

And I want to clarify what I mean by “at risk.” To me, at risk can refer to “at risk of failing to learn to read” or it might mean, “at risk in life in general.” I have taught in “at-risk schools” and have taught in middle class “safe” schools, and in both scenarios, I had children who were at risk in life and children who were at risk of failing in learning to read. What I want to share is not rocket science but hopefully will be an encouragement to those of you who are teaching children who are at risk in one way or another.

Recognize the primary obstacle the child is facing

Any child who is at risk is going to be hindered because her emotions are hijacking her thinking brain to one degree or another. A child who is living in an unstable home situation is going to come to school preoccupied with just getting through another day. Some children live with neglect, with criticism, with anger, with poor diet, inadequate contact with a parent. Some don’t know where they are going to even sleep that night. I’ve taught them. I have had students who had a parent in jail, one boy who saw his father kill his mother. I’ve had children in my classroom who were severely abused; many who came to school hungry and exhausted. No matter what the situation, if the child does not feel secure and cared for, he or she will be at risk also in the classroom.

Recognize what is going on with the child

When a child faces threat of any kind, his emotional brain takes over and puts him on high alert to help him avoid danger or threat. When this happens, the thinking brain shuts down. So, quite simply, the biggest obstacle to learning for an at-risk child comes from inside his own mind. As long as he feels any threat or danger, he will remain controlled by his emotional brain. And as long as the child remains controlled by the emotional brain, learning is not likely to happen.

“Threat” and “danger” don’t have to be physical, either. They can be emotional in nature and still hijack the child’s ability to think and reason. Ridicule, failure, and derogatory comments are all threats to a child. For children who have failed, the very idea of doing a task again that they were unable to do before looks and feels like threat. Under threat of this nature, behaviors can vary from a child zoning out, to a child acting out horribly in class. All the behaviors are calculated to help the child avoid what he perceives as threatening.

What to do

• Obviously the very first thing to do is to remove the threat and make the children feel safe. We can’t change their home life, if this is where the threat originates, but we can make our classroom a safe haven for our students.

• Be as consistent as absolutely possible. A child who is already in fight or flight mode doesn’t need to enter a situation that is unpredictable. A moody adult who one day is happy and overlooks little annoyances and the next day is hardnosed – well, this will just exacerbate the “behavior problems” of the children in the classroom.

• Choose very carefully which hill you plan to die on. Choose very wisely which things absolutely must happen in your classroom and let everything lesser go. Let me give you an example. In the last school in which I taught, the attitude of the administration was that because we were a failing school planted squarely in the ghetto, we had to look and act even more together than we normally would. This meant teachers had to wear closed shoes, never open back ones, kids could not wear printed tee-shirts and had to at all times have their shirts tucked in their pants, you know, really critical things like that. My room was full of at-risk kids. In fact I can’t think of any one of my students who was not simply surviving. So when we lined up to come back in from recess, I didn’t feel it was my hill to die on the make sure all my kids’ shirts were tucked in and I certainly did not write them up for wearing printed tee-shirts. For one thing, they were not buying their clothes as second graders, and for another thing, we were lucky the kids were even IN school wearing something. In addition, the children who were perennially late and showed up sans homework and even sans book bags did not incur my wrath. There were children who never knew where they were going to sleep that night, and I didn’t feel it was critical to try and make them always keep their book bag on their person. My hills to die on for these children were simple: don’t hurt anyone, don’t hurt yourself, we take turns talking, and during class we don’t do anything that will keep the others from doing their work.

• Ensure success for each child. Just because the lesson plan book says that my class should be able to do X, Y, Z by today doesn’t mean that all the children have the necessary skills to perform at this level. So it is my job to be aware of exactly what each child is able to do, and support them as they stretch out a bit. For one child this might mean if he agrees to stand up and read something he wrote, I will be right beside him to make sure he feels he is not alone up there. For another child maybe it means he gets a little play money dollar every time he double checks his letters to make sure they are not backwards. Above all, I must never ever shame a child or expose him to the gazes of the other children when he has failed.

• Involve multiple regions in the brain and body. When I teach, I will not do so only verbally. I will use pictures, will give examples, will make it fun, (yes even teaching punctuation can be fun!) will insert humor, will let them act out the learning, and will take them outside for a novel and memorable lesson. I will also encourage each child to use their area of strength to show me what they learned. For example: In my reading group, if I sensed that a child was still a bit shaky on the sight words he would have to read in the book for the lesson, I would display the SnapWords™, picture sides showing, and let him refer to them as he read the book. His feeling of being supported and safe allowed his thinking brain to take charge and he did much better.

• Teach in such a way that you are teaching the child, not the lesson. For example, I knew well which ones of my children needed to see the end result before they could do their project. I knew which ones needed me to fingermap their spelling words (they needed the visual map of the word in order to see it in their heads and then successfully write the words), I knew which children learned from whole to part and I didn’t make these children have to sound out words – because they just couldn’t do it. After all, I wanted them to be able to read, not sound out words.

• Support each child by taking the time to find out his or her strengths and then make sure and share this information with them so he or she can feel competent.

• Don’t focus on bad behavior. Distract, redirect, attract their interest away from what they were doing. I had a child for two years who was a bit of a hellion in class. One day I realized I was spending a whole lot of time trying to get this boy to STAY IN HIS CHAIR. Because I knew this boy was in a very precarious situation at home, I didn’t want to make his being in his chair my focus. That was not the hill I was prepared to die on – and I would have, too. He just would not stay seated. So one day I said, “Zechariah, you may stand up all day if you want to. Here are my conditions – don’t get in any other student’s way by standing in front of them, and get your work done. Zechariah stood for two years, even while writing. And his behaviors vanished. The only time he acted up was when there was a sub in the room for the day. I would come back to school the next day to find angry notes about this horrible child who would not obey.

• What about homework? As a first and second grade teacher, I didn’t find it productive to be mad and punish my children who didn’t bring homework. For one thing, I felt this was a function of home and lack of management there. I did reward those who brought homework, found out who didn’t have paper or pencil at home and supplied that, and for many children I had them show me they knew the concept they were supposed to practice for homework. For the most part, I didn’t go the homework route anyway because that created a hill I would have to die on, and I didn’t feel like going there.

I think the bottom line here is that we have to be counterintuitive with at-risk kids. They will be behaving badly and our nature rises up and wants to correct the bad behaviors. They might appear lazy. They will be forgetful and careless. They might lash out and be mean to other children. All their behaviors will tax us and drive us crazy if we let them. But remember the chaos in the brain as the child is feeling unsafe and threatened. What is going to help that? Yelling? Punishment? Or a warm welcome, an understanding teacher, and the ability to be in a safe place where there is good stuff going on. And use pictures! This is the most brain friendly way to communicate ideas to children. Especially tired, hungry and insecure children. The more brain-friendly, the better!

Tips for helping children with symptoms of ADHD

According to the CDC, 3%-7% – or 5.4 million – of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD. In addition, the CDC also reports that 66% of the children with an ADHD diagnosis have been treated with medication. Medication seems to usually be the first course of action when a child is not performing well at school and at home. But is the need for medication always indicated? Is it always the best option? Here are a couple of negatives to the widespread treatment of ADHD with stimulant medications.

1. Some experts believe that the negative long-term effects of taking stimulant medication far outweigh the benefits of taking the medication. According to NeuroCore, a treatment facility for people with attention difficulties, long-term use of Ritalin or other stimulants can result in decreased cardiovascular health.
2. Several other conditions mimic the symptoms of ADHD, such as stress, lack of sleep, anxiety, and the like. Because much of ADHD screening involves observing behaviors, other conditions can be confused with ADHD, resulting in a child being misdiagnosed and then taking unnecessary medication.

Is it really ADHD?

I believe that before we label a child with anything, we first must exercise due diligence and learn as much as possible about the challenges the child is facing, what might be causing those difficulties, and what we can do to help them without resorting to testing and labeling or medication. There are things we can do to help children with attention difficulties without resorting to medication as a cure-all. Here are some thoughts:

• Sleep is a big issue when it comes to attention or the lack of it. A child who does not get to bed early enough will not be able to listen and focus the next day. A very predictable bedtime routine will help with this. Use earplugs, white noise machines, and a calm orderly bedtime routine. Darken the room, avoid stress near bedtime, and try to avoid anything that will stimulate the mind of the child before bed, such as wild car chases on TV or discussing a troublesome situation with the child.

• Structure is your friend when you have a child with attention or self control issues. Someone I read over a decade ago (I wish I could remember who it was) suggested that in order to prevent undesirable behaviors, we train children beginning at a very young age on how to behave in every situation they will encounter. The author called these situations “frames.” One frame is called “How we behave at the table.” Instructions can include things like, “stay seated until your food is gone,” “wipe your mouth with your napkin,” “take your plate to the kitchen when you are finished,” or whatever else your family decides is important. There are many other frames. Bedtime, riding in the car, being in a store with a parent, getting dressed, taking care of one’s things, preparing for school in the morning, eating at a restaurant--and the list goes on and on. Explicitly teach your child what you expect him to do in each situation. Structure and information is your friend and will be his as well.

• Lessen the stress and you will see a calmer child. Some things that often bring stress to a child include loud, agitated discussions between parents, hurrying too much, too much packed into a day, not enough time to have free play, not enough physical movement, pushing a child to perform, competition, and the list could go on and on.

Mental controls

In his book A Mind at a Time, Mel Levine M.D. claims that children with ADHD are struggling with deficiencies in the area of mental controls, and that these mental controls fall into three broad categories: control over mental energy, control over intake of information, and control over output. (See page 57 and following.) These controls affect every part of life from social to academic.

Control over mental energy. Mental energy is required for thinking, focusing, planning what to do, listening, and working at a task. If a child is lacking in mental energy, ironically the result is hyperactivity. The child will need help bringing his/her focus back to where it should be. The tricky part about focus, however, is that too often in school children are expected to sit, listen, pay attention, and work for hours at a time. They are just not equipped for this kind of focus. In addition, too often the work they are given is dry, boring, under-stimulating, and irrelevant. We want those behaviors in place, but we demand the desired behavior in place of enticing the child with learning activities that are fresh, exciting, relevant, and hands-on. Some tips for keeping content vibrant:

• Teach in short blocks of time. Fresh, new content should be limited to 10 to 15 minutes and then time to use the new information so that learning will deepen.

• Involve the children in hands-on learning as frequently as possible. Don’t tell them; let them figure things out using their hands and concrete materials.

• Use the element of surprise. Hook them into the lesson in a way that grabs their attention. This might be a story, a novel object, or a question that attracts the child to your content.

• Novelty is your friend. Take the lesson to another room, into the hall, out on the driveway, or on the porch. Tape sight words or math facts in a line down a hall and let your child hop and skip as he learns.

• Break tasks into specific parts to be done in sequence. Short bites.

• Supply cold water to keep the brain hydrated and the child alert.

• Let him stand up to work, swing her legs, or walk around the room while reading.

• Provide ample physical activity that will pump oxygen into the brain.

• Provide a challenge with specific goals to shoot for and applaud achievement.

Control over intake of information. Any environment is full of things to pay attention to. Visual elements, sounds, movements all vie for attention. Children with attention challenges need help with selecting what to pay attention to. They can learn to help themselves with this if you talk to them about what to focus on. Here are some simple tips:

• I can use my index finger to point to the place on the page I need to be paying attention to. For example, when working a math problem, I will point to it with my index finger. This tells my brain, “Pay attention to THIS.”

• When doing work that requires focus, I will sit facing a blank wall free of visual distraction.

• If sounds keep sapping my attention, I can use headphones or earplugs to block out sounds.

• When doing a page of math problems, I will cover all but one line with paper to block out all the other problems. As soon as one problem is done, I will point to the next. At the end of row one, I will jump up, touch my toes or walk around the room once, then come back and slip the paper down to uncover the next row.

• When my teacher is speaking, I will look at her face and ignore everything else. (Teacher, keep it short and to the point!)

• When I hear my teacher giving me directions, I will whisper/repeat what he said to myself so I will pay attention to it. (Teacher, consider writing your directions on a whiteboard for those children who absorb directions better if they are not oral).

• I will keep everything off my desk when I am working, and I will shine a lamp right on the place I need to focus.

Control over output. This is one of the most distressing aspects of hyperactivity in children – the lack of impulse control, the failure to plan ahead, and the discordant choices they often make. But children can learn to help themselves if we spend time with them and give them very specific, concrete tools. Children can understand their own areas of challenge and must understand if they are to help themselves. We often say, “Look before you leap,” or “think before you speak.” But this is the very thing that many children don’t do well. Here are some ways to help children help themselves in the area of their actions and choices.

• Before I act, I will STOP, count to five, and then I will ASK myself, “If I do this, what will happen?” The challenge is to teach the child to pause. Tapping his hand against his leg for five beats is a tangible way to create some thinking time. It can be a physical routine that becomes a habit. Before I act, I will STOP, TAP, ASK.

• Before I act, I will realize that I have many OPTIONS for what to do. I might not want to do the very first thing that comes to mind. If someone calls me a name, my impulse is to slap them, but I am going to STOP, TAP, and ASK myself if there are other options available to me.

• As I am working I will PACE myself. If I have a page of math problems, I will need 15 minutes for the whole page. This means I need 5 minutes for each row. I will point to each problem, and if I tend to go too slow and fall into a daydream, I will be careful to immediately point to the next problem. If I have the habit of rushing very fast and making a lot of mistakes, I will slow down. When I finish one problem, I will look at it one more time to make sure I did it right.

• When I am doing something, I will ask myself “How is this going?” Does it look good? Am I rushing so fast that I can’t read my own writing? If I am dusting the furniture, am I getting ALL the dust?

• When something goes really super well, I am going to pay attention to what I did that made it work well for me. That way, the next time I have similar work, I can look at my notebook to see what I did that helped me out the most.

In the early stages of learning to STOP, TAP, and ASK, it might help to have something visible with which to cue the child. You could hold up a red ping pong paddle for a silent and visual reminder to stop. Or, you might find a red knit glove, stuff it tightly and affix it to a dowel and use that as a friendly stop sign. The main thing is to begin the practice of teaching your child to self regulate. When your child no longer needs you to hold up the stop sign, her own reminder can be something she comes up with. Whatever she chooses to use as her reminder is great. She could wear a smooth pendant under her shirt, a simple band around her wrist – what the object is does not matter.

Start small and finish well

As with any skill that is new, it will take time to develop a habit. Children aren’t Olympians at age two. They start to become Olympians by taking a few little steps and falling a lot. But over time, with practice, by repeating new habits until they become second nature, the skills become refined and result in success!

What can you do to bring your children up to speed with reading and math this summer?

Summer is a great time to work with your children in a more laid-back, less "schoolish" way. You can be intentional about using materials and methods that will bring your children up to speed and give them the confidence of knowing they're capable of succeeding, while still keeping it relaxed. I'm going to share some suggestions for which materials to use for specific learning needs. And now through June 27, 2012 use coupon code FREEDOM4 for 15% off hard copy products and coupon code 8197635N for 15% off product downloads*.   


For help with reading fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, and grade level in reading, 607 SnapWords are a must. The accompanying book of mini-lessons provides a game-based way of catching up on reading in a short amount of time. The older the child, the more quickly he will catch up!


For help with spelling, phonics, decoding new and unknown words and reading in general, grab our amazing resource The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns. I don't know of another such resource out there that will accomplish more in a few minutes a day. This resource is for any age and any level of reading or not reading. If you do every lesson in the book, your child will emerge reading adult material. Begin this summer and then just keep on through the school year until the book is complete. Reproducible.


To teach children to read from scratch with a program that provides everything you need to make your child read successfully, snag our Easy-for-Me Reading program. The resource leads you tiny step at a time to teach your child no matter his or her learning preference. All activities are provided and the lessons are self pacing and take about 30 minutes a day to accomplish the outlined tasks. Skill level is Kindergarten and first grade.

Struggling with math? Use Addition and Subtraction for the right-brained based way to remember all the facts up to 10. Place Value provides a fun and effective right-brained way to teach adding and subtracting for any number over ten. Finally Right-Brained Multiplication & Division will free your child of the need to memorize their multiplication and division facts. SO effective for children who have trouble memorizing facts!

 

 

See what else we have available that we didn't mention here.

 

If you have specific questions about your child, please comment below!

 

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*Offer applies to all Child1st hard copy products except B&W B Books, Writing the Visual, Kinesthetic, and Auditory Alphabet 1st Edition, Toobaloos, Whisperphones, Quick Draw Kit, Extra-Wide Pocket Chart, MINDMap, I Can Sing from 1 to 10, Safari Animals, achievement certificates with Safari animals, Sight Words in Sentences, Complete Sight Words in Sentences, SnapWords™ Spelling Dictionary, SnapWords™ Spelling Dictionary 2nd Edition, and Sound Spelling Teaching Cards.

Both coupons expire June 27, 2012 11:59 PM. | Discounts valid on internet orders only (not valid on purchase orders.)

A Fresh Look at Teaching Children with Learning Challenges

A decade ago when I was still in grad school, I could hardly contain my excitement when the time came for taking remedial reading courses. I just couldn’t wait to find the answers to questions that had plagued me about why seemingly bright children struggled to learn to read. Imagine my chagrin when I found that the class was preparing me to test, to detect learning differences, to track reading rates, to classify text as to reading level, to… in short… do everything but successfully teach reading to a non-reader.

Over the past ten years, I have learned about a whole array of classifications for disabilities. There are so many! The impression one could get is that children are getting more and more broken, and we are developing more and more detailed labels for describing them. What I have NOT seen, however, is more and more evolved solutions to accompany all this highly classified collection of labels. The SOLUTIONS are what have always interested me!

[Note: this intro is long, but bear with me because it does lead to the rules of thumb!]

So should I scrutinize the child or the educational system?

1.    If we continue to examine the child, we are “pitting” thousands of children against one educational system. There is one specific educational approach with teensy variations here and there (but still basically pretty recognizable) but there are thousands upon thousands of specifically God-designed children out there. Which are we going to scrutinize? The children or the method? Which are we going to measure against the other? Imagine taking your five children to shop for clothes. You walk into Kid’s Clothes dragging your children after you.  Kid’s Clothes is very organized and research-based to give you the shopper the best shopping experience. There is a long rack of boys’ shirts, another of boys’ pants, a long rack of girls’ dresses, etc. So you take your girls to their area and the boys to theirs. Within a few hours all of you are distressed and upset. You have only one child that fits into the clothes! OH NO! The other four children are ALL WRONG!

2.    When we focus on the child and label him using a term that sounds absolute and professional, the child will become that even more! (Imagine pouring concrete into a wooden form… and watching it set up). “As a man [or child] thinketh in his heart, so IS HE!” One day that is branded on my memory was a day in which I was subbing for a fourth grade teacher. I entered the room and was accosted by a slender boy, a very articulate boy, who announced assertively that he is ADHD and cannot control himself. And he spent the rest of the day proving it. He informed me, very articulately, every few moments what he couldn’t help doing. He was living up so perfectly to what his diagnosis said he was.

3.    The more we focus on the imagined problem with the child, the less effective we will be as teachers. When I was a little girl trying to learn to ride a bike, there were two big things I wanted to NOT hit as I wobbled across the yard. One was our concrete block house, and the other one was a particularly thorny orange tree. The more I wanted to avoid hitting those obstacles, the more I looked at them, and guess what? The more unerringly my bike steered right into them! If I am teaching my child and in my mind I am focused on her inability to memorize spelling words, my disbelief in her will be transmitted to her and my focus on the problem will become her focus on the problem as well. Nothing good will come of this.

4.    Every adult I have taken the time to talk to can describe what they are good at, and what they enjoy doing, how they remember things, what tasks they are gifted at, etc. Some of us know well that we can’t hear verbal directions and recall them for more than a nano-second, so we look at and rely on maps to navigate by. Other people can do really complex math problems in their heads. Why is it then, that we assume every single child should be able to memorize strings of letters (spelling) or memorize math facts, or memorize and apply phonics rules? Does this make sense? I don’t think it does. Back in the day when God planned a temple, He chose and gifted people to perform all sorts of specialized work on the temple. We are all wonderfully designed to perform exactly what we should in our lifetimes. And none of us should compare ourselves to the other person. We don’t tend to as adults, but the minute a child comes along, we try every way possible to get him to fit into a narrow educational mold. Oh dear!

Let’s take a look at our traditional educational system

It doesn’t work for many children. So the question is, do we change it or try to change our child to make them fit into the system?

Rules of thumb for teaching all children, but especially children with learning challenges

(All Child1st teaching materials are already designed with these rules of thumb applied, so it will become easier for you to pick up a teaching tool and know you will have it covered! It is not an easy task to redesign a whole traditional program in order to suit your beautiful snowflakes!)

1.    Get rid of the unnecessary clutter. For instance, in teaching reading, you DON’T have to learn all the names of the letters first, nor do you have to memorize their related sounds, nor be able to put the letters in ABC order, etc. Those traditional steps, including sounding out, memorizing blends, etc., are SO familiar that we feel if we don’t teach them, we will fail our children. The best way to teach a child to read is to get to the point immediately! Our Easy-for-Me Reading program (K-1st grade) will do this for you. The non-essentials are gone! This helps many types of learners. I can attest to the amount of clutter that exists in our teaching day. One really foreign concept to many adults is the fact that some children learn whole words more readily than they do the little pieces and parts of words. (See our SnapWords sight word cards.)

2.    Learn to distinguish between effective lessons and busy work. Much of what filled our day in the classroom (yes, when I was teaching) was busy work with minimal gains made by the child. You can tell which activities fall into this category because the child is simply not enjoying it and is not engaged. For instance, copying anything is absolutely a waste of time. It will make the child’s hand tired and will put the brain to sleep. Try it yourself. Put on a TV program that interests you a whole lot, and then sit down and copy a whole page out of the dictionary while you watch the program. Did you get much out of the copying? Any activity that is effective and useful and that will engage the child is going to be one in which he has to figure something out, has to invent something, has to think! If he is engaged, he is learning!

3.    Use images everywhere you can. Images are magical for many, many children who don’t memorize well. Try it for yourself. Ask someone to do you a favor. Have them drive to a street not too far from you and snap a picture of something distinctive such as an interesting house, or a weird building, or anything that is out of the ordinary. Then have them come back to you and first describe verbally, orally, what they saw. When they have finished, have them show you the picture they took of that very interesting object. Which is most effective at getting across the reality of the object? The oral description or the photo?

4.    Use a body motion to help remember. When I have trouble remembering a phone number (which is always), I know to “dial it” on a key pad. While I am doing that, I notice the shape of what I dialed and I also am storing up that visual pattern in the muscles of my body. Every child who is good with some physical activity is going to benefit from a physical movement to accompany learning. And I don’t just mean bouncing; I mean a movement that reflects what they are learning. When counting by two’s, for instance, have them march in a line but lean over heavily on each even number. Their bodies will remember the even numbers as they hear their mouths say the even numbers at the same time.

5.    Relate the learning to a real-life experience. When learning to tell time or count money, do it throughout the day, not at a desk with pencil and paper. Measurement is best learned when the child is creating something very interesting to him.

6.    Have the child figure out some things for himself. With any science lesson, the more hands-on and real the lessons, the better. Anything a child can just cut out and paste is marginal at best. It might just be time fillers. Anything a child investigates and then makes or writes or puts into action (that he has to figure out) is going to be valuable.

7.    Find patterns and likenesses in all you teach because that is what the brain loves. There is beauty in patterns, and nature is full of them. Music is made of patterns; math is as well. I have seen a child come to life when he or she saw the patterns in learning. Unrelated details are hard to do anything with. A good example of using patterns to teach is our Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns book (as well as our math books). Rather than memorizing the spellings of the words in our language, use patterns (and images and humor) to teach in a way that by passes memorization and gives the child tools for deciphering unknown words. One 15-20 minute lesson a day will take the place of the boring spelling and phonics lessons!

8.    Don’t just tell; SHOW. I would love to have a nickel for every time I’ve heard a teacher complain, “I already told you that more than once.” Hmmm. Could it be that telling is not effective? Show them. Show them examples; show them how you do it (modeling); show them what a good outcome is. Remember, “Don’t tell me… show me!”

9.    Keep lessons as short as you can. Stop the minute the child is tired or restless. Of course I don’t mean ten minutes into the school day! I mean, however, that when your child begins to wiggle or be restless, check the activity or lesson you are doing for interest level. If you can inject some mystery into it, some novelty, by all means do it! But if you follow step one and get rid of the clutter and stick to the meat and potatoes of school work, you might just find that your daily work, the meaningful part, can be accomplished in a couple of hours in the day or three.

10.    Don’t, please don’t, keep on doing what you see doesn’t work. What the child needs is not more drill, but a radically different approach. Remember, we are going to abandon the notion that the child is broken! We need to change up what we are doing when the child at first doesn’t respond. Please know we are here for you. We have a lot of information, how-tos, teaching tips, lessons, examples, resources on our blog. And know you can email for assistance.

Use Writing to Teach Reading

For many children, using writing as a vehicle for teaching them to read makes a whole lot of sense. For those children who are global, random, right-brained, visual, kinesthetic, or tactile learners (anything other than the obviously left-brained learners), it is most certainly a method worth starting with when they are first learning to read. It is also a great thing to do if the child has already been in a traditional teaching environment and had little success in learning to read.

I had the luxury of teaching a group of beginners this way, although at the time it was not my intention to use writing to teach reading. It is so funny how often we do things and later see the benefits (or possibly the mistakes) of doing such a thing!

I think that what is prompting my train of thought to write about this today is that I read a comment the other day written by an educator of many years. He said that for a young child, listening to speech comes first, then attempting to talk, talking, writing, and finally reading. It was the first time I heard anyone make that comment so it remained, loitering in the back of my brain. The more I thought about this, the more it made sense to me. Especially for the types of learners I mentioned above, but really for any beginner or any child who is struggling to learn to read, writing is a great and worthy vehicle for learning to read.

Admittedly, it can be really scary to branch out, leaving the traditionally accepted methods and sequences of lessons to try something you believe your child would respond to. But whether you're a classroom teacher, a parent working with their child at home in the evenings, or a full-time homeschooling parent, the question to ask is what the single most important goal? If it is that your children/students learn to read (as opposed to you perfectly teaching the accepted method of teaching reading) it might make it easier to follow your children/students’ lead.

Some common misconceptions about teaching children to read

• It is a hard process and has to be really complicated.

• The child must learn his letter names first, then individual sounds, then he/she must sound out words, learn phonics rules, etc.

• If I introduce whole words, the child will be limited in reading later; after all, how many whole words can one child memorize?

• If I use pictures or images or anything that looks easy and fun, it is simply a crutch that will hold him back later on; he won’t really be reading or able to decipher new words.

• The teacher/parent always knows better than the child what they need to learn and in what sequence.

• Words are grouped by grade level – there are specific words for kindergarten, certain ones for 1st grade, and so on.

• I learned to read just fine in this particular, traditional way, so that must be the best way to learn to read and it should also work just fine for my child. Tried and true vs. novel and random.

I’m very sure this is not a comprehensive list, but it will do for now.

One way to teach reading through writing

Materials you will need:

• Some children – at least one.

• Paper – top half empty and bottom with lines. If you don’t have this, any paper will do.

• Crayons in a tray (please don’t use ugly crayons that have been peeled, have been broken into tiny bits, and have black marks all over them), pencils, colored pencils, markers.

• A serene frame of mind empty of expectations of specific results nor a sense of needing to “teach” something nor a niggling that you need to hurry the process.

• An “advisor” hat you will wear during this process. This hat can be invisible as long as you purposefully put it on your head.

What to do:

• First thing in the morning, by way of warm-up and after chatting a bit, let the children draw whatever is on their mind to draw. It might be something they have been thinking about or something that came into their mind while you were chatting. Anyway, let the drawing begin.

• Be present, but not directing anything, nor trying to influence their direction. Your focus on them will help them be focused on their “work” so avoid the temptation to go get something else done while they are drawing.

• When the children are brand new and can’t write anything yet, help them label their drawing by asking them what they want to write and then sharing with them how to spell the words. You could write them on a whiteboard for them to see or if they know their sounds, let them start and sound out for themselves. It is this part of the activity you will use for a teaching moment.

• When the children are finished, let each talk about their picture, sharing it with the group.

• Each day you do this, make notes of the words that the children didn’t know how to spell correctly, and share this with the group. Be positive. Do NOT say, “You spelled all these words wrong.” But rather say, “I want to show you a word. Let me write it for you on my whiteboard.”

• If the word has a common spelling pattern, add other words that also follow that spelling pattern. (For example, if a child wanted to use the word AWAY as in “My dog ran away” you can teach them other AY words: “day, play, stay, bay, hay, jay”.)

• Working together, take a strip of paper and write the new word at the top. For example, the word “AWAY” would captain this list of words you are generating together. Under “AWAY” add the other AY words in a column. Post this on the wall so you and the children can add other AY words as you come across them in reading.

• Repeat this process every day and over time, you will amass quite a collection of words the children will have learned to read and use.

• Remember to never teach a sound spelling in isolation, but rather show how the sound spelling is a pattern of letters and therefore sounds that occurs in our language. The children will make a lot more sense out of words and language if they know there are patterns that repeat often.

Keep a record:

What I ended up doing was keeping track of the sound spellings we were covering as we did our early morning drawing and writing so that I could nudge the children towards a sound spelling they had not automatically gravitated towards. By spring, the children had gotten so familiar with the various spelling chunks (sound spellings in words) that they could read material that was far above their grade level.

For ELL:

This practice worked very nicely with ELL students. They would use our stylized sight words as references for writing their own sentences, and then when their writing was complete, they read me their sentences without any need to peek at the stylized words! This showed me how much of a constructive activity it was for these children to learn to read from their own writing.

First steps to take when your child struggles with reading

Each child differs from the next in how they learn, what their strengths are, and what they prefer as they learn. Within traditional classrooms whether at home or in school, many children struggle and others fail outright. Children that struggle or fail are very sensitive to their failure, which gives rise to a whole new set of issues. The confidence that fuels success in learning is an emotional state that arises from our experiences. If we have confidence that we can accomplish something, we will perform to our maximum, but if we have lost our confidence, we will likely underperform or fail completely. Confidence or lack of it is directly tied to our experiences. If we have attempted something and have failed, depending on the importance attached to that task, we will shrug and try again, or we will shut down, convinced we are incapable.

When a child is struggling, I believe in looking at the child first and uncovering the beauty of her design. Next, I believe in tailoring instruction to her. Most of the time, this will not happen when a child is in a traditional setting. Testing as an option or solution will likely come up first and the child will be evaluated. For sensitive children, testing is a huge red flag telling them that something is wrong with their brains. And this is sad. The intention with testing is to detect the underlying issues so we can help the child. But what all too often happens in testing situations is that parents are told there is a disability present, but how to successfully remedy or make up for that disability is not forthcoming.

My personal belief is that testing should not be the first line of defense. Testing puts the focus on the child as though something is wrong with him. Reality is, what is lacking is a methodology that matches the child. What I would like to do is to list a couple of common scenarios and then suggest some things a parent can consider trying before resorting to testing.

Scenarios:

My child is able to sound out letters in a word, but he laboriously sounds everything out. Years have passed and now he cannot sound out words that have more complex spellings, or he’s so sick of the tedious nature of sounding out words that he will not try any longer. Every time he comes to a word it is as though he’s never seen it before.

    1.    Use 3" x 5" cards and choose a handful of words that are easy to sound out. Ideas are "help," "sand," "tent," "stop," "grass," "hand," and "desk." Write the words, one word per card, in nice block letters. Lay them out in front of your child and have her pick up a card and tell you what the word says. She will likely sound it out. 

    2.    Next, ask her to think of ideas with you to help her remember that word the next time she sees it. It is NOT necessary to sound out a word… words are like faces that we can see and remember. Say she chooses the word “sand.” An idea you could use to help your child remember “sand” is to use colors or markers and make sandy colored dots all over and around the word. If you want to pretend you are at the beach, she can put a head on the D and let it be a child who is sitting in the sand at the beach.

    3.    When she has finished decorating the word, have her choose another word and do the same thing. For “tent” she could draw a tent being held up by the two t's that are at the beginning and end of the word. Take your time with this and avoid the temptation to hurry through. The point of this exercise is to help your daughter learn how to help herself, which will result in her gaining confidence in her own ability to learn and her own ability to use her gifts to her advantage.

    4.    Over time, choose more difficult words. For example, one set of cards can be words that use the sound spelling OI in the middle of the words or the sound spelling AY at the end. Have all the words in the group contain the same target sound spelling.

    5.    Remember that your child will be her own best helper if she is encouraged to believe in her own abilities and be shown that she can help herself. Every child needs to feel her own competence!

My child can recognize words, but reads one word at a time, tediously, without phrasing and with very poor comprehension if at all.

Nothing is wrong with your child’s brain. What is happening is that your child is doing what he thinks you taught him to do: name words he sees one after the other. We assume children understand why they are learning to call out the words we teach them. We most often don’t introduce the concept of reading as the magic communication that will open all sorts of worlds of rich images and concepts to our minds. We approach teaching of reading with letter recognition and then with the tasks of sounding out words. Many, many children focus on doing just that and are never led into the skill of using words as messengers for ideas and images.

    1.    Choose a word that you feel your child is interested in. Maybe it is “truck” or “dinosaur” or “mountain” or “airplane” – any word you feel he would be drawn to conceptually. Talk about how those letters in the word are just symbols that are used to make many different words. It is the arrangement of the letters that make up the word “airplane” that make that word mean something totally different from the same letters arranged to make “a praline.” So, say you choose the word “airplane” to play around with.

    2.    Using the word airplane as a theme, ask your child what he imagines when he hears that word. If he likes to draw, let him draw a picture of what he’s imagining when he hears you say “airplane.”

    3.    Once the picture is complete, working together to write a sentence or two using the word “airplane” that tells what the drawing is about. Repeat this exercise several times over time. You are attempting to connect the symbols (words) to images and stories in your child’s head. However long it takes, keep it up if you see that your child is absorbing the point.

    4.    Next, choose a book that you feel your child will enjoy. Share with him that this time, the words are there already, and he will need to imagine or draw the pictures that go with the words he reads. Start with a short paragraph. He will read to you, think for a moment and then draw what he read. This is a powerful exercise that at first will seem so very slow to execute, but is effective to help your child perfect his ability to translate those black squiggles on the page into beautiful and colorful images in his head.

The more actively your child is involved in 1. finding out wherein his talents lie, 2. working through the learning process, and 3. finding ways to help himself, the more his confidence will rise which will in turn fuel greater and greater successes.

Above all, remember, there are no bad brains out there. Let’s purpose to run away from name calling our children's particular learning tendencies. Let’s instead celebrate their unique design and focus on their strengths, gifts and talents. Remember that if we have a child who is just not growing, it will not do any good to take him from office to office getting him measured. Maybe just buy shorter pants, instead.

Teaching Prepositions Unforgettably

In a previous post we designed some lessons for teaching prepositions of location in ways that allowed children to act out their learning, manipulate objects as they learned, and then draw and/or make cut outs to show their understanding of prepositions of location. (Ex: “The cat is ON the table,” or “The boy crawled UNDER the porch.”)

Today we are going to do a similar planning session with prepositions of time. These are not as concrete, so we are doing them now that the students are familiar with the prepositions of location.

About prepositions of time

These prepositions are words that have to do with time such as BEFORE, AFTER, and DURING. Example sentences include:

        We will play after lunch.

        He cleaned his room before dinner.

        They daydreamed during the speech.

        I’ve missed her since she left.

        She will wait until class begins.

Teaching prepositions of time

Sentences using prepositions of time can be acted out, but they are not as concrete as prepositions of location which can be shown by positioning two items relative each other like you would do if you were showing “The ball is ON the rug.”

1 - Use a timeline when teaching prepositions of time

You can make one timeline that is large enough for the class to see, and then have cut outs that divide the timeline into sections. Here we see breakfast, lunch and dinner. So if you are using this time line, your sentences can relate to time in relationship to the means.

        I packed my book bag before breakfast.

        I put my dishes into the sink after breakfast.

        I told jokes at lunch.

        We talked about going camping during lunch.

        Mom said I had to take a nap after lunch.

        I set the table for dinner.

Model for the class how to place a little figurine or doll on the timeline to correspond to each sentence.

2 - Follow-up

The children can make their own timelines using long strips of border paper and crayons.  Markers on a timeline could include days of the week, birthdays, seasons, day or night, hours of the day etc.

 

Another post about prepositions is a recent one where we provide practice in recognizing prepositional phrases and using them to help with reading fluency and comprehension.

The role of emotions in learning…

…and why it matters so much that we understand well.

Too often adults behave as though we (subconsciously, not intentionally) believe that all learning happens in the thinking, rational brain, and that if a child is not performing well with reading or math, their rational, thinking brain is somehow at fault, i.e. disabled. For years, my passion has been to learn the reasons why some children who are bright fail in school and what I can do about that as a parent, educator, and product designer, so I focus on learning from these children. Lately my focus has gone beyond “the child is obviously bright, so why is he failing?” to “the brain is wired to learn naturally, so no matter how bright or not bright the child appears, what is preventing learning?”

The clash between learning and teaching styles

What I have come to believe is that one of the biggest obstacles to learning has to do with a mismatch between teaching style and learning style. It is as though we speak Swahili to children whose native tongue is Tagalog. We can talk slowly, more loudly, repeat ourselves, have them try and write what we say, have them drill with flashcards, cut the required work in half, lower expectations for them… but as long as we’re speaking Swahili and their ears are trained to hear Tagalog, nothing good will come from the exercise.

The results of the clash

Children are naturally wired to scan the faces of adults who care for them – parents, teachers, or anyone who is important to them – and to read body language. They want to please, they want to belong, and they need our approval. They need to see our faces light up with love and approval when we look at them. Unfortunately, when we are busily chattering away in Swahili, what registers on our faces and in our body language is frustration, perplexity, maybe a sense of helplessness, or exhaustion. The child will absorb all that, and in the habit of children, will sense that he is failing us… and that the fault is his. The child will not understand that he should be spoken to in Tagalog; he will berate himself for not understanding our steady stream of Swahili.

Negative emotional connections

The next thing that will happen is that the child will begin to make negative emotional connections with anything that reminds him of the unpleasant experience he had with trying to learn in a Swahili classroom. The chair, desk, pencils, papers and books will all remind him of his failure to learn. At this point, there is the child’s failure, yes, but other things are happening as well.

Shut down

The more a child associates negative emotions with learning, the more his brain will shut down. He will be immersed completely in his emotions which are urging him to avoid the danger he is in. I have seen children who get to this stage in their life check out, act out, display bravado, drop out, become behavior problems so they will not have to be faced with their failure yet again. And of course learning does not happen.

The design of our educational system

 Our traditional system of education (which includes curricula, teaching style, testing, philosophy, and really everything about it) is accepted nationally in spite of the fact that for all the research, money spent, and initiatives initiated, our children are failing in greater and greater numbers. What is hard to understand is that for the most part, the focus remains on the failure of students; not the failure of the system to reach the students.

Does research impact practice?

Our children don’t all learn the same way; we have known this for decades according to research conducted by the most expert of experts in educational and neurophysiologic fields, such as Carla Hannaford, PhD., educator and neurophysiologist. We know so much about how children learn, in theory, but what research reveals doesn’t seem to effect change in our educational system. We have seen the system become more and more skilled at identification of learning disabilities, but PRACTICE has not changed universally. And until it changes, we will not see a change where it counts: with our failing children.

Chronic stress and its results

We as biological beings are wired for survival. When we perceive danger or think we do, our limbic system goes into full alert and we react to the “dangerous thing,” (fight or flight) even before we’ve had sufficient time to allow our thinking brain to process whether or not we truly are in danger, and to formulate a considered response to the incoming stimuli. Our thinking brain takes a bit longer to respond, which is why impulsive reactions are often not productive. Children in particular respond to perceived threat from within this emotional, reactionary place, and their responses are to fight or to flee. For many children, the one of the greatest threats they encounter is found in the classroom.

In her book Playing in the Unified Field Carla Hannaford writes, “In the 1950’s, Swiss researcher, Hans Selye discovered that people were exhibiting the survival response in a chronic way to non life-threatening situations. He terms this incoherent state 'stress,' and claimed it was an aberrant, inefficient use of our survival mechanisms. Though very little if anything in our daily lives is truly life threatening, the body reacts as if it were whenever we become fearful, anxious, confused, frustrated, out of balance, or critical of others or ourselves.”

Dr. Hannaford also writes, “If we are stressed, these disturbances can cause a steep rise in adrenaline and cortisol and a decrease in brain function causing us to react rather than reason.” She already discussed the results to unborn children of stress in the expectant mother and what the surge in cortisol does to the infant. “If the pregnant mother is chronically stressed, the high levels of survival hormones will cross the placental barrier and cause the developing embryo and fetus to also be in survival mode. This early pattern of chronic stress can lead to poor development and incoherent patterns of response.”

Finally, Dr. Hannaford states, “Chronic stress that produces high levels of adrenaline and cortisol and greatly decreased levels of dopamine (possibly our most important learning chemical) on a regular basis is not natural.... Cortisol inhibits the immune system, uptake of protein for cellular growth, learning and memory, and increases the transport of fat molecules that can clog vessels going to the heart and other organs... Unfortunately, stress has become normal, being stimulated by common life situations, and setting the stage for the emotional, physical and social ailments in our lives, those of our children and of the world in general.

Chronic stress: contributes to depression, hyperactivity, memory loss, learning difficulties, allergies and diseases like AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.”

Sources of stress

So we know chronic stress is at the least a detriment to learning, and at the worst physically damaging to humans.  What I want to discuss here is the sources of stress for our children.

• As soon as a child realizes he is not living up to expectations and not pleasing his significant adults. This might be in a class setting or might be as sweeping as expectations for a career choice.

• Stress can come from tension in the home; problems faced by parents and how parents handle those problems is absorbed by the children. The stress in the adult is transferred to the child. Disharmony between parents, chronic rushing around, habitual impatience, lack of quality face time with the child, financial stressors, and more.

• Being expected to do things he’s just not gifted in, particularly in a school setting whether at home or school. We tend to expect our children to be a master of everything even as we adults recognize that each person is endowed with gifts and also with un-gifts. We expect every child to master reading, math, handwriting, spelling, science, public speaking, calculus, brain surgery... (ok, sorry, I got carried away). It is critical that we spend a lot of time making eye contact, watching, studying our children to help them discover their unique gifts and then FOCUS on those with the child. Of course we can help them find ways to strengthen areas in which they are not as gifted, but our primary focus must be on their gifts.

• The early involvement in competitive sports with the lose/win pressure attached. Reality is one team or person will always lose, and the chance that your child will lose is 50/50. I am not convinced the benefits of participation in the sport outweigh the effects of losing on a child who is too young to separate the inevitable loss from his self-worth.

• Anything that pushes our children into a stressful mode, and we can learn exactly what is stressful by observation.

What can we do?

• Learn your child, and it takes time and attention. Make it a priority to notice what is easy for him, what he gravitates towards, and encourage those things.

• Realize her brain wants to learn and embrace fully the knowledge that if conditions are right, she will learn.

• When she encounters something difficult for her in school, take the attitude that her brain is fine, but maybe the presentation is not fine and find an alternate approach to teaching that topic.

• Encourage exploration and creativity, whether it be outside play, construction projects that take up his whole bedroom floor, or making concoctions in the kitchen.

• Provide a model of serenity as you go through the day. Identify what is stressing and figure out if that thing should really be as stressful as it currently is, and if not, what can be done to change the stress level. Do I need to really have all these demands in my life? Can I prioritize them so that some are “must-dos” and some are “oh wells”?

• Limit demands on your child to those hills on which you are prepared to die. Honesty, obedience, responsibility… things that will help make your child into a responsible member of society – those are important. Evaluate honestly which expectations emerge from our own desire to look good because of our child’s performance. Which demands stem from a preconceived notion of what the child’s career path should be?

• Enjoy life to the utmost. Possibilities are endless once we release ourselves from unnecessary fears, constraints, expectations, and free ourselves to reach for the moon. Focus on relationships, friendships, creativity and what builds us up as people.

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! 

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.