What does summer mean to a struggling student?

Posted on by

 

Why is it so important to work on academic skills over the summer for struggling students?

If a child struggles during the school year they are mentally exhausted after a day of school.  These children work three to five times harder than their classmates to get fewer results.  During the summer these children’s minds are fresh and ready to grow.  When they only have to spend an hour or so a dayfocusing on educational activities, they remain engaged participants in learning. 

An average student loses 25% to 33% of their previous years academic growth over the summer.  Struggling students lose more, if they aren’t engaged in educational activities.

Given these two factors, it’s important for struggling students to receive target instruction to strengthen their weaknesses. Let them start the next year with a new confidence that can be gained by working in a one-on-one setting either with a tutor or parent.  For some children this is a good time to receive Occupational and/or Speech Therapy.  While for those that are on track, summer is a great time for experiential learning or possibly a language immersion opportunity.

Upcoming Community Events

Posted on by

Parents Advocating for Student Success in EDucation (PASSED)
Monthly Lunch Gathering

Bixby’s Bagels (Mount Royal Shopping Center)
Wednesday, May 21st
11:45 ish to 1:00 ish

The movie “Journey into Dyslexia” will have two showings:

Monday, May 19th @ 6:30pm @ Cloquet Gospel Tabernacle
and
Thursday, May 22nd @ 6:30 @ Myers-Wilkins School (old Grant)

Questions call 340-7393 or email [email protected]

Mission Organization

Posted on by

From ‘the parent connection’ Feb. 2013 workshop with Sarah Ward.

Top Ten Takeaways

1. Executive Functioning (EF) refers to the way the brain manages plans, organizes, and sets goals to execute and complete tasks in a timely fashion.  Executive Functions are controlled by the prefrontal cortex of the brain.  This area matures over time and is not fully developed until early adulthood.

2. Children with Executive Functioning challenges have trouble with “situational intelligence” or reading the physical components of a situation.  Use the pneumonic STOP (Space, Time, Objects, People) to encourage children to read the room: for cues to gain the situational intelligence they need.  To use STOP, have kids ask themselves:

     Space – Where am I?
     Time – What is happening now? Later?
     Objects – How is the room organized?
     People – What are the facial expressions / body language of the people?
3. Often times children with EF difficulties are labeled as defiant or uncooperative. This is because these children have not developed the ability to visualize the future.  Use ‘future glasses’: literally with younger students (have fun sunglasses or interesting frames)  and metaphorically for older students (asking them to envision or predict the future).  Have the student put on the glasses and picture what the finished assignment will “look like.”  This skill will help the student plan and organize materials and time to complete the task.
4. Designate areas by color to reinforce the three steps necessary to complete tasks or school assignments.  Encourage your child to physically move the items in progress from one stage to the next. 
     a) “Get Ready”  – yellow
     b) “Do” –  green
     c) “Done” –  red
5. Begin by asking your child to imagine the work “DONE” rather than starting with the “GET READY” phase.  Prompt your child by asking “what would a finished math sheet, finished poster, or completed research project look like?”  Visualizing the completed task or assignment will empower your child to formulate ideas and gather the material to GET READY in order to DO the work and get the work DONE.
6. Visuals and photographs are much more helpful than words lists.  Use them whenever possible to communicate with your kids.
7. To help with routine tasks such as getting ready for school or sports activities, take photos of kids fully dressed with all their equipment or gear.  Tor school that might include fully dressed, coat shoes, backpack, lunchbox, etc.  Tell kids to “Match the Picture.”  For sports, take a photo of kids ready for the sport with equipment, uniform, cleats, etc.  This technique works well for cleaning a room, organizing a desk or setting a table.  Apps such as Doodle Buddy or Skitch for handheld devices can also be used to help match the picture.
8. Break long-term projects into steps.  Sketch or outline what each finished step looks like and cut out each step.  Paste each step to a calendar to map out the timeline and get a visual of the time involved for each piece.  Use sticky notes so that if a step is not completed on the day scheduled it can be moved to the next day and the student can see the work piling up if too many deadlines are missed.
9. Create a special homework space.  Use a tri-fold board or transform a closet into a student carrel to avoid distractions and set up a flow for the work.  Sarah suggests that children pull out and open all notebooks needed for the night’s homework.  Stack them up on top of one another to illustrate the mound of work.  As each assignment is complete, all materials get placed right back into the backpack, ready to go to school for the next day.
10. Be aware of “time blindness.”  Students with EF issue are not tuned into the passage of time or pace of work. To help children develop a sense of time increments, invest in an analog clock and ask children to predict how long a particular task or assignment might take.  Use time markers such as magnets or sketch pies of time on the clock (a glass face works best with a dry erase markers) to visually show the passage of time.  It is also helpful to mark a halfway point to check that the task is being attended to.  Help identify “time robbers” such as being hungry, scattered papers/notebooks, and too much phone/screen time.
 
 

 

 

 

Essential Reading Skills

Posted on by

Orton-Gillingham methods build strong, confident readers.   If your child is struggling in school, consider working with an Orton-Gillingham tutor over the summer to help them build reading confidence and a lifetime love of learning.  Don’t let them struggle for years.  Signs that a child will struggle with reading are evident in kindergarten.

The sequential part of Orton-Gillingham teaches reading skills in a direct, systematic, orderly way and including: phonemic awareness, letter recognition, concepts of print, sound/symbol relationship, word reading and spelling, syllables, fluency skills, vocabulary, and comprehension.  When a child struggles with fluency, usually one of the more fundamental building blocks, listed above, is weak.   Fluency involves the pace and accuracy of reading and prosody.  Prosody is the expression, volume, phrasing and smoothness.

Minnesota has adopted Read Well by 3rd Grade, but most of us don’t know what that means.  We read to comprehend information, but before we do that reading fluency is key and before that, other building blocks.  Today, in many of our schools children’s fluency is measured by giving them the same three grade level passages multiple times over the year and having a child read each for one minute. A recorder marks the errors a student makes and indicates the number of words the child read.  Sometimes comprehensions is tested by having the student retell the story…. but that is a different conversation.  Most research expect that a third grade child should begin the year reading grade level material at a rate of 70 or more words per minute and end the year reading 100 or more words per minute they are considered meeting their benchmark with 95% – 97% accuracy, respectively.  The numbers for the rate of reading represent the 50th percentile.  If a students falls below the midpoint they should be receiving additional intentional support in the area that they have demonstrated a weakness in that comes before fluency on the continuum of learning to read.  If your child is not meeting the midpoint by the end of third grade, fourth grade will be significantly more challenging than previous years.  I could argue that for some students meeting the middle is even too lower of a threshold.

I’m happy to talk with any family about reading, if I can’t help you, I can often direct you to someone that can.  Please feel free to call me at 218-340-7393.

 

 

 

iPad Apps for Struggling Reading

Posted on by

from http://www.educatorstechnology.com

February 1, 2014
Whether you’re the parent of a child with a reading disability or an educator that works with learning disabled students on a daily basis, you’re undoubtedly always looking for new tools to help these bright young kids meet their potential and work through their disability. While there are numerous technologies out there that can help, perhaps one of the richest is the iPad, which offers dozens of applications designed to meet the needs of learning disabled kids and beginning readers alike. Here, we highlight just a few of the amazing apps out there that can help students with a reading disability improve their skills not only in reading, writing, and spelling, but also get a boost in confidence and learn to see school as a fun, engaging activity, not a struggle.

Helpful Tools

These tools are useful for both educators and students with reading disabilities alike, aiding in everything from looking up a correct spelling to reading text out loud.

Speak It!: Speak It! is a great text-to-speech solution that can allow students with reading disabilities to get a little help with reading when they need it.
Talk to Me: Talk to Me is another text to speech application. It can be used to read words out loud as they are typed, which can help students to better correlate the letters and words with how they’re pronounced.
Dragon Dictation: Dragon Dictation works in reverse of the two apps we just listed. Instead of reading text out loud, the applicationwrites down spoken text. For students who struggle with writing, it can be a great way for them to jot down ideas or get help learning.Merriam-Webster Dictionary: If spelling is a problem, it’s always a good idea to have a really great dictionary on hand. This app from Merriam-Webster can provide that.
Ditionary.com: If Dictionary.com is your go-to place for definitions and spelling help, this app can be a great way to bring that functionality to your iPad or iPhone.
Prizmo: With Prizmo, users can scan in any kind of text document and have the program read it out loud, which can be a big help to those who struggle with reading.
Flashcards for iPad: This app makes it easy to study words, spelling, and other things that young and LD readers might need help with.
Soundnote: Using Soundnote, you can record drawings, notes, and audio all at once, balancing reading-based skills with those that are auditory and visual.
For more apps see
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2014/03/40-ipad-apps-for-struggling-reading-and.html

What Are the Warning Signs of Dysgraphia?

Posted on by

From the National Center for Learning Disabilities

Just having bad handwriting doesn’t mean a person has dysgraphia. Since dysgraphia is a processing disorder, difficulties can change throughout a lifetime. However since writing is a developmental process—children learn the motor skills needed to write, while learning the thinking skills needed to communicate on paper—difficulties can also overlap.

Dysgraphia: Warning Signs By Age

Young Children

Trouble With:

  • Tight, awkward pencil grip and body position
  • Avoiding writing or drawing tasks
  • Trouble forming letter shapes
  • Inconsistent spacing between letters or words
  • Poor understanding of uppercase and lowercase letters
  • Inability to write or draw in a line or within margins
  • Tiring quickly while writing

School-Age Children

Trouble With:

  • Illegible handwriting
  • Mixture of cursive and print writing
  • Saying words out loud while writing
  • Concentrating so hard on writing that comprehension of what’s written is missed
  • Trouble thinking of words to write
  • Omitting or not finishing words in sentences

Teenagers and Adults

Trouble With:

  • Trouble organizing thoughts on paper
  • Trouble keeping track of thoughts already written down
  • Difficulty with syntax structure and grammar
  • Large gap between written ideas and understanding demonstrated through speech

New Tutor Consortium

Posted on by

Tutoring Duluth is joining a new group of area tutors.  This new cohort is a group of like-minded tutors meeting the needs of students on an individual bases. Most important, for us as tutors, this will help us help our students, but we will also be able to support each other and grow as tutors.  In addition to the reading and writing support I offer, one of the cohort tutor’s does high school and college level support for students in math and science and another is a professional writer.  These tutors will be able to support students in preparation for the ACT/SAT as well as day-to-day academia.  We are scattered around the Duluth-Superior area and the Arrowhead region making it easier for families to find conveniently located services.  Look for the new website….

TwinPortsTutoring.org …..coming soon.

I’m so excited to be part of this group.

Parents Advocating for Student Success in EDucation

Posted on by
Reply

Lunch Gathering @ Noon

Wed., Nov. 20, 2013

Vineyard Church ~ 1533 W. Arrowhead Rd ~ Duluth, MN 5581

This group meets monthly to share ideas and support one another.  If your child struggled last year in school this may be a good opportunity to hear what others in our community are doing to ensure their children’s success in learning.   Occasionally, a speaker joins the group to cover a specific topic.  All  families are welcome.

A variety of six inch subs, chips, cookies are available, with a suggested donation of $5.00.   You are free to bring your own.  Coffee, tea and water are available.

We also have a monthly evening gathering at Barnes and Noble 7PM.  The next meeting for that is Dec. 12th.

Our lunch gatherings are usually the third Wednesday of the month and the evening meetings are usually on the first or second Thursday of the month.  Email [email protected] if you’d like more information.

October is Dyslexia Awareness Month

Posted on by
Reply

 

Film Screening– Tuesday, October 29

12:00pm-1:00pm,

and

7:00pm-8:30pm

Lake Superior College 

Room S1981 

(Parking near the S bldg. entrance)

Q&A follows 7:00pm showing 

Refreshments Provided! 

Co-sponsored by

Lake Superior College Disability Services & PASSED

For additional information contact Deb Dwyer                                                 [email protected] – 218-340-7393 or PASSED on Facebook

Individuals with disabilities may request reasonable accommodations by contacting LSC’s Disablility Services at (218) 733-7650 or [email protected]

Upcoming Dyslexia Workshop

Posted on by
Reply

DYSLEXIA:  WHAT A PARENT NEEDS TO KNOW

In this workshop students will learn the definition of dyslexia and reading difficulties including signs/symptoms, accommodations, 504 plans vs. the IEP, and the importance of the paper trail.  Discussion will also include current research, assessment, remediation, and assistive technology.

Location: Denfeld High School                                                                                          When:    Tues., Sept 24, 2013  ~   6:30-8:30 PM

Cost:      $15.00

To register contact:  Deb Dwyer – 218-340-7393 – [email protected]  or http://www.duluthcommunityed.org/

Also PASSED (Parent Advocating for Student Success in EDudation)                                  Lunch Gathering                                                                                                                   Noon @ Wed. Sept. 18th                                                                                                Vineyard Church – Lunch available for $5.00 or bring your own.

Dysgraphia Workshop – Wed. October 8th at 6:30