Reading Is Like Driving a Car

 

By Maggie Dail, M.A.

Recently I watched a recorded webinar given by Terri Noland, Vice President, Educator Initiatives of Learning Ally and hosted by EdWeb.com: “Why Reading Is Like Driving a Car: Automaticity Is Critical”  Here are some key points:

When we learn to drive we must think about every little thing that we are doing. As we gain experience many of the tasks involved in driving become second nature and we can do other things while driving.

Like driving, reading requires a number of foundational skills. Our goal is for these skills to become second nature.  Once students use these skills automatically, they can concentrate on other actually enjoying the story or understanding the concepts.

During childhood, we can multiply the age times 10 and get a general idea of how many words per minute he should be reading.

Fluency:

•  So readers benefit from the pleasure and information that reading provides.
• Includes: accuracy, automaticity, rate and prosody (expression).

• Is the most  the most important  impediment in reading problems

Further fluency requires the following proficiencies:

• Phonological awareness
• Accurate decoding
• Vocabulary
• Recognizing words – automaticity
• Constructing with prior knowledge
• Monitoring comprehension
• Adjusting as necessary

Two things that help with this process:

• Schema – building pathways in the brain
• Working memory – “capacity – 7” -remembering long enough to use

Remember that remediation is not replaced by accommodation nor is accommodation replaced with remediation. Our children need explicit instruction (in those skills mentioned above) plus they need access to grade level material.

Some of the neurodevelopmental activities that we use to build these skills include:

• Audio books (with and without the text)
• Reading 100 easy books within a set time period
• Paired Reading (neurological impress method)
• Auditory Digit Spans
• Auditory Conceptual Word Sequences
• Hearbuilder or Cognitive Fun or Lumosity

10 Ways to Motivate Struggling Readers

Terri Noland, Vice President of Learning Ally gave a webinar earlier this school year. I finally found the time to watch. Here is what she presented:

Stories leave endorphins in the brain. This can motivate a struggling reader.

Students need to work on skills, but we must still give them grade level content. Sometimes that means audio books (Learning Ally provides human-read audiobooks) or graphic novels. (We also have access to ‘high interest- low vocabulary books’ – google that phrase and see all that is available.)

Reading achievement is directly linked to motivation – which one causes the other is not clear.

Terri presented these research-based strategies:

1. Provide access to audio books.

2. Model Reading and Reading Behaviors

(Use the 5-Word Rule – reading the first page of a book, if the student cannot read or understand these first 5 words, the person cannot read it independently. Further, if the struggling reader can understand, but not read, he can enjoy it as an audio book.)

3. Reading Aloud – Many students consider this their favorite part of the school day. Reading aloud allows you to provide your child with a variety of content.

4. Incorporate goal setting. Help the child create personal and manageable goals.

5. Provide access to a wide array of materials. They say that a classroom library should have 7 books per student and a school library should have 20 books per student. At home, we must provide children a variety of reading materials.

6. Create time and Space – a worthy goal consists of 20 minutes per day.

7. Opportunity for Self-Selection – a must.

8. Allow time for discussion.

9. Reading has to be relevant.

10. Provide specific feedback such as: “I really like how you do…..” rather than, “Good job.”

7 Ways to Identify a Reading Problem

 

Does your child have trouble

1. recognizing words accurately?
2. reading a sentence smoothly?
3. spelling?
4. decoding words?
5. with below average language skills?
6. maintaining focus during reading time.

7. with a reading level is far below that of his overall intelligence.

(These are Learning Ally’s criteria for “dyslexia.” 1 in 5 of America’s school children has dyslexia. Hidden in Plain Sight white paper)

Generally, people go for a diagnosis of a learning problem. In a school setting, this leads to services. However, in a homeschool setting, having a diagnosis will not affect how much time you spend helping your child. Those who exhibit these behaviors will probably have:

1. A mixed dominance
2. Low auditory processing
3. Maybe other difficulties

At Unlocking Learning Potential, we assess children; review information parents give us, design an Individualized Neurodevelopmental Plan and provide Brain Training sessions (support for child and parent). Our INPs help stimulate the brain to establish one-side dominance, increase auditory processing and deal with other areas. Plus we offer other services to provide help for struggling readers /learners, including Scientific Learning’s Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant Plus. Once these areas have been resolved a diagnosis may no longer apply.

Schedule a FREE 30-minute Consultation:  mdail@familyacademy.org

Receive info regarding Scientific Learning’s programs: mdail@familyacademy.org

Visit our website for more information: www.unlockinglearningpotential.net

 

New Release: Stories from Unlocking Learning Potential —Coming this Summer!

Back in 2006, this book was released as our first published book!

This story represents many of our clients who struggle with learning to read.

Chris, a middle schooler, shines on the baseball field and with his teammates but struggles with reading. His parents try to work with the teachers in his school but in the end realize they need to take a more personal approach. With the help of other homeschooling families and with a neurodevelopmentalist from ICAN, we read of  Rounding the Bases: Chris Learns to Read. This story presents the model used by most ICAN neurodevelopmentalists in working with their clients.  http://www.icando.org/

This and two new stories will be released this summer as an e-book available through Smashwords, Amazon and our website: www.unlockinglearningpotential.net 

 

Annual Assessments for Homeschoolers

By Maggie Dail, Learning Specialist

 

Many homeschooling parents begin to think about the annual assessments for their children at this time of the year. In around 20 states these tests are required by their homeschool laws. Washington State is one of those and allows for two types – standardized and non-test assessments.

 

• Standardized tests – While some are administered in online formats, they have traditionally been administered by having the student fill in the bubbles on an answer sheet. They are then normed and standardized meaning that they tell you how your child compares to a representative 99 others. Further, they are to be administered according to set rules and times.
• Non-test Assessments – In the Washington State homeschool law these are not defined per se, but they are to be administered by a certified teacher currently working in the field of education.  Since the assessments are not defined, qualified test administrators use a variety of measures – some more subjective and others more objective.

 

Whether your state requires annual assessments or not, you can gain valuable information from these experiences. Other than “the homeschool law requires assessments” these may prompt you to have your children tested:

• Assess a starting point in your homeschooling (given before you begin or early on).   Using the same instrument of assessment before and after provides comparable scores.
• Assess whether the curriculum, learning styles or methods you are using are helping your child learn.
• Provide preparation for your child to take college entrance tests in the future.
• Provide objectives or ideas for study for the next year, semester or month.
• Provides a “third party” assessment of the academic process
• Identifies areas that the child may need some additional help.

 

Unlocking Learning Potential provides non-test assessments for homeschoolers in any state via video conferencing:

 

Non-Test Assessment – NTA (qualifies for WA State homeschoolers)

 

• PIAT-R (Peabody Individual Achievement Test-Revised) Given orally – General Information, Reading Recognition, Reading Comprehension, Math, and Spelling.

• Optional – evaluation of a one-page writing sample – corrected with criteria that you receive along with an instructional lesson for one area of concern.

• Neurodevelopmental Screening (auditory and visual processing; dominance).

• A brief consultation with parents.

• NTA Report.

• Fulfills requirement for annual homeschool assessment in Washington State.

• Standard Price – $60.00
• Optional: Writing Sample Assessment – $25.00
• Optional: Learning Style Analysis – $25.00
• Especially good for younger students and those who have a difficulty in taking tests.
• Time: About 1 ½ hour for the student and time with the parent to discuss results and answer questions.

 

In addition, diagnostic assessments are available using KeyMath.

 

KeyMath-R serves as a supplement to the Brain Training Assessment or Non-Test Assessment or as a stand-alone diagnostic math test for pre-high school skills. Success for high school math depends on a good foundation.  Cost: $60.00 Time: About 1 ½ to 2 hours.

 

If especially interested in assessing math, but want this to be the annual assessment, spelling and reading can be added.

 

Should you suspect a learning challenge, the annual assessment could be turned into a:

 

Brain Training Assessment – BTA

 

Includes all of the Non-Test Assessment, plus with parent completed forms, the Learning Specialist designs an Individualized Neurodevelopmental Plan (list of activities to stimulate the brain to encourage development) to complete at home with our support.  Cost: $150

 

Depending on the results of the NTA or the BTA and the goals of the parents, families may be offered access to one or more of our professional accounts with Scientific Learning’s Fast ForWord or Reading Assistant, HearBuilder and Sensory Enrichment Therapy.  Also, parents may choose to add Brain Training as ongoing support provided via video conferencing.

 

Another option for determining abilities that need to be developed Unlocking Learning Potential provides Structure of Intellect online assessment, training modules, and support.

 

Structure of Intellect Assessment (SOI)

 

Dr. J.P. Guilford designed an assessment that decreased the attrition rate of dropouts out of pilots during WWII. Drs.  Mary and Robert Meeker further developed this model of assessing and training different learning abilities.

 

Assessment Cost: $150.00

Training Materials and Support: $100.00

 

For more information regarding our services:

 

https://www.unlockinglearningpotential.net/services-1

 

We are currently scheduling through the end of June.

How Research Leads to Solutions for Struggling Learners

Have you or a loved one received a diagnosis of “developmental dyslexia” or “dyslexia”? Have you or a loved one struggled with learning to read – no matter what methods and curricula have been used? Research leads us to more answers to our questions and more solutions for those who struggle.

How would you feel knowing your student would have more tools to succeed in life? What would it be like for him to learn fascinating information on his own? What would it be like to be carried off to a faraway time and place by reading a great story?

While many have considered dyslexia to be a combination of two deficits, the more current view, based on new research, providers believe that multiple deficits contribute to a diagnosis of “developmental dyslexia” will prove more helpful in helping those who struggle with reading.  Belief that “weaknesses in either the visual (rapid automatized naming -RAN) or the auditory (phonological awareness-PA) can cause dyslexia has led teachers to address these two areas.  Those with both deficits experienced severe difficulties in reading. (Wolf in Journal of Educational Psychology, 1999)

Now, more and more look to these areas and some additional areas: genetics, environmental, and perceptive/cognitive differences.  With the use of fMRIs we can see what is going on inside the human brain.  In a recent webinar, neuroscientist, Dr. Martha Burns, reported new research that confirms how these factors interact to present different kinds and degrees of learning challenges.

Not surprisingly the research shows that reading and language share specific parts of the brain that includes both the visual and auditory areas. While searching for the cause and effect relationship within genetic factors, researchers learned that the brain of an infant show signs of genetic causes of learning challenges discovered later. In 2017, Gaab published findings that 50% of children with a sibling or parent with dyslexia were likely to also receive a diagnosis. This number rose to 68% in identical twins.

Finding the underlying cause leads us to specific strategies for the individual since all of these factors combine in different ways.  At Unlocking Learning Potential / Family Academy Online we address reading challenges using the neurodevelopmental approach ( www.unlockinglearningpotential.net) as well as with Scientific Learning’s Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant. Dr. Martha Burns, of Scientific Learning, says that Scientific Learning programs paired with an effective curriculum provide the best outcome for our children.

My name is Z.C. I began working with the learning specialist at Unlocking Learning Potential in 2009. By 2011 I could see how I had grown tremendously with my education and learning.  With the neurodevelopmental evaluation, I found out that I was far below my grade level academically. At first, I thought the activities were silly, futile and would not work, but as I kept doing them I started noticing the big differences in every area of my learning. I could read faster, comprehend more, my vocabulary increased, and my memory improved.” Z.C. graduated from high school in 2011.

Watch this video to learn more about these scientifically based solutions to learning challenges. Plus, learn how you can unlock your child’s learning and reading abilities.

https://youtu.be/5BmNPJ9KdSo

3 Ways to Help Students Achieve Success in Reading and Language

Do you wonder why your student struggles with reading? I have spent much of my forty years of teaching searching for ways to help student learn. Teaching reading has consumed most of those efforts. As you probably realize, many of our students today are missing developmental pieces and cognitive skills.

I have found that children are so very different and learning challenges do not always respond to the same interventions. However, educators across the country help students achieve success in reading and language using two Scientific Learning programs: Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant

These programs provide us with 3 ways to help our students:

1. Build students’ cognitive skills. Cognitive (learning) skills addressed by Fast ForWord products:  memory, attention, processing rate and sequencing  Reading Skills addressed: phonological & phonemic (sound) awareness, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, decoding (sound out words), working memory (remembering long enough to do something with), syntax and grammar (structure of our language)

2. Prepare students’ brains to hear English. Once we fill in the missing pieces of development in the brain, a child can read and use the English language.

3.      Have students practice reading aloud, with support. Finally, we can provide opportunity for the children to read aloud – to other people and with Reading Assistant to the computer which provides timely correction.

You can read a blogger / inservice provider’s experience:  3 Ways to Help Struggling Readers and English Language Learners http://inservice.ascd.org/3-ways-to-help-struggling-readers-and-english-language-learners/

Over 250 studies show that Fast ForWord and Reading Assistance provides all of this for children across the country. www.scientificlearning.com/results

To learn how more about Fast ForWord  / Reading Assistant and how we use it with our students watch this video:  https://youtu.be/5BmNPJ9KdSo   Be sure and watch to the end for the special offers.

Celebrating New Website with a Special Deal – www.unlockinglearningpotential.net

 

by Maggie Dail, M.A.

We are excited to announce that we have a new website:

www.unlockinglearningpotential.net

It joins our blog:

www.unlockinglearningpotential.com

To celebrate we are offering our remaining printed books with FREE SHIPPING:

Rounding the Bases – Chris Learns to Read 

All of our publishing will be digital – available in a variety of e-book formats.

https://www.unlockinglearningpotential.net/maggie-s-e-books