Bonnie,

I found you through Youtube and am intrigued by the 10 Minutes to Better Study Skills!

My home-schooled daughter is 16 and dual-enrolling in our local community college and currently in her first class.

She is struggling with note-taking!  She also took the SAT in June and scored poorly in the reading portion, especially the “passage” reading. I’m beginning to make the connection with these two problems… there seems to be a struggle, for her, in pulling out keys points in a written document, or passage, and in an oral lecture.

She tends to want to write down too much from a lecture and gets overwhelmed when given a passage to read with questions to answer, especially when timed. For writing assignments, she is gifted in vocabulary usage, spelling and grammar, but the process of writing becomes a long, drawn-out process.

She wants to “hover” over a slew of ideas but struggles to land the plane.  When she does land the plane, it will take hours.

Will your book and the forms therein help us?

Karen McGold

Karen,

There is a direct connection with the ability to pull out the main idea and important details and note-taking. You want to be sure the notes you take are meaningful and when you don’t know how to quickly pull out that information from either reading a passage or listening to a lecture, you are ‘sunk’.

That is one of the specific reasons I designed the graphic organizers in Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills in the manner that I did. These forms not only help you with note-taking, they also become a ‘study-guide’ for you when you are reviewing the material or answering the questions at the end of a section or chapter. They can also be used to learn how to take notes while listening to a lecture or presentation.

The graphic organizer fill-in-the-blank forms are designed specifically with your daughter in mind.

Another product that will also help her is our game the Comprehension Zone because it teaches you specifically how to pull out the main idea, details, and sequence what you read or listen to in a game format. It can be played for both reading or listening comprehension. Playing with the skill, practicing the skill through play, and then utilizing the Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills will go a long way in teaching her those missing skills.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET
http://bonnieterrylearning.com

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve purchased materials that haven’t worked. That is what I keep in mind when I design materials to use with my struggling (LD, dyslexic, ADHD, or gifted) students – whether they are in 1st grade, 5th grade, 8th grade, high school, or even adult students. I want to create materials that will work, that will improve their reading skills, writing skills, and spelling skills and be affordable at the same time. It truly is one of my passions.

Each reading, writing, and spelling product is developed out of the needs of my students and is tested with them to be sure they work. We look at ease of usage and the results the reading, writing, and spelling materials produce. But, I don’t want you to take my word for it. After all, I created the materials, although I am truly inspired when I create them, so I can’t take total credit at all!

What I would like to do is to share what Donna Morello has to say about our program here – our Awaken the Scholar Within Program where I coach you on how to help your children yourself and provide you with the reading, writing, and spelling materials to do so. Because I walk you through the materials – the program, holding your hand so to speak, they work. You are no longer alone just buying something and hoping it will work.

With our Awaken the Scholar Within Program you have the opportunity to ask me your questions twice a week. You have every avenue of support available to you. Do yourself a favor and listen in to hear what Donna Morello and Janet Landerholm have to say.

Donna Morello

Janet Landerholm

Awaken Your Scholar Within Today! Give our international office a call today: 530-888-0351

Writing doesn’t have to be so hard! There are easy ways to teach paragraph writing, using graphic organizers. Paragraph writing becomes as easy as putting a hamburger together. Their are a few key ideas to use with the graphic organizers and your kids will be on their way to paragraph writing with ease. Watch and see how easy paragraph writing can be.

Order your graphic organizer study skills book, Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills today.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Should you do your own summer learning program?

Fact: More than half of the achievement gap present in 9th grade between lower- and higher-income children can be explained by summer learning loss.

Make Learning Stick with learning games and reading fluency training over the summer. There are many things you can do at home to bridge that summer learning gap.

1. Reading Fluency using Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills…and Yes…it only takes 5 minutes to do. Sally Shawitz, author of Overcoming Dyslexia states, “I urge parents to make fluency training their number one priority.”
2. Take a weekly trip …to the zoo, a local park, the pool, the river, a local factory…and afterwards as a family write down what you did and what your favorite part was…using the fill-in-the-blank forms from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills and create a booklet to keep for all of your weekly trips.
3. Do some nature activities such as listening to outdoor sounds, nature rubbings, shape hike, incher hikes … again use the fill-in-the-blank forms from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills to describe what you found or did.
4. Activities to do at home like making puppets and putting on a puppet show. Bake cookies together, have a backwards day where you eat dinner in the morning and breakfast in the evening, do add-on-stories. Again write down your favorite things or worse things about the activity.
5. Have a Game Night or a Game Day…choose learning games…they are fun as well as work on skills. Some great ones are The Sentence Zone (play & learn sentence building and grammar while having fun) , The Comprehension Zone (play & learn reading comprehension and listening comprehension), or the Math Zone (play & math calculation practice).
6. Read books together…and write a review or report on it, or have a review night where you all act as book reviewers of the book you read.

Check out the books, games, and guides here:

Reading

Writing

Math

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

The alarming realization that your child is struggling at school, followed by frustration of not knowing why, and the “is there anything you can do about it” often leads to sleepless nights. However, there is much that you can do to give your child reading help, writing, help, and math help. Join us on our upcoming call to find out more.

The upcoming private training call is Tuesday, March 2nd at 8 PM EST; 5 PM PST. To register for the call, just go to http://homeworkwars.com/privatetrainingcall

However, writing poetry doesn’t have to be so-o-o hard! There are many different types of poems, and I’ve found one of the easiest types of poetry to teach my kids is the Haiku, specifically the Cinquain type of Haiku Poem. Learn how to use the Sentence Zone for writing poems.  This is made really easy using The Sentence Zone game because you can write the poem with colors.

Using The Sentence Zone game makes writing poetry easy for kids with LD, dyslexia, ADHD, or even gifted.

Hope this is helpful! Don’t forget to sign up for the FREE teaching and homework tips!

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

It is difficult to tell if you don’t understand learning disabilities well, or are just ‘dumbing down’ the material to the point it becomes confused.

Hi Trexpaddock,

I do try to make things clear and somewhat simplified – rather than speaking in technical terms.

The breakdown I was referring to between the brain and the hand is actually called finger agnosia. It is written about in the book Windows Into the ADD MIND by Dr. Daniel Amen. Finger agnosia is when a person struggles with the mechanics of writing or when you try to write your brain becomes scrambled. Common symptoms of finger agnosia include:

1. Messy handwriting
2. Trouble getting thoughts from the brain to the paper
3. Staring at writing assignments for long periods of time
4. Writing sentences that don’t make sense
5. Frequent spelling and grammatical errors
6. Many erasures and corrections
7. Timed writing assignments are particularly hard
8. Printing rather than writing in cursive.

This is very common in people with ADD and occurs in part because the person has to concentrate so hard on the actual physical act of writing that they forget or are unable to formulate what they want to write.

Suggestion for dealing with finger agnosia:

1. Print as often as possible
2. Learn to type or use a computer
3. Try out different types of pens and pencils – also different types of pencil grips
4. Break down assignments and long reports into parts (an easy way to learn how to do this is by using Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills
5. Write an outline of the assignment to help keep you on track – use graphic organizers that are in Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills
6. Write down your ideas before worrying about spelling and grammar
7. Whenever possible, dictate your answer or report first
8. Use a binder/organizer to keep your writing assignments together
9. Modify writing workload
10. Avoid timed situations; give tests orally if necessary
11. Avoid having other students grade your work

Hope this is helpful.

Don’t forget to ask a question AND get your FREE Teaching & Homework Tips!

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

http://bonnieterrylearning.com

What would it be like if your kids started taking notes from their books confidently and independently, without complaining! That’s what happened after my kids started using the graphic organizers from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills. They are specially designed with the end use in mind, so that even kids with dyslexia or a learning disability, or ADHD could use them with ease.

Watch this video of kids using the specially designed graphic organizers from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills. They decide which form to use with their assignment. You’ll see how easy it can be as well as learn other uses of the graphic organizer forms!

Hope this has been helpful. Please leave a comment below or a question to the right.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Dysgraphia and Sequencing

“Dysgraphia is a learning disability that affects writing abilities. It can manifest itself as difficulties with spelling, poor handwriting and trouble putting thoughts on paper” (National Center for Learning Disabilities [2006], found at LD Online). Those with dysgraphia usually have an unusual pencil grip, often with the thumb on top of the fingers. Their writing is slow and belabored, with unusual starting and ending points. They will usually make spelling errors and will have difficulty with capitalization and punctuation. They may also have unusual spatial organization on the page. Their words may be widely spaced or tightly pushed together. They may also have an issue with directionality, which is often the reason for spelling errors.
Dysgraphia is usually found in connection with dyslexia, since both are language-processing issues and are affected by weaknesses in directionality and sequencing. Writing, in general, is difficult for them but past the mere mechanics of handwriting. They also have an issue getting their thoughts down on paper for an essay or a report. They have a difficult time with proper sequence and organization. This, coupled with the basic handwriting issues, make this a task that most will avoid at any cost. Certain accommodations can and should be made.
A few accommodations would be:

Encourage students to outline their thoughts. It is important to get their main ideas down on paper without having to struggle with the details of spelling, punctuation, etc.
Have students dictate their ideas to someone else to type or into a tape recorder to write down later.
Being able to use a computer will help them with spelling and handwriting issues so they can produce work faster and clearer.
Students should be allowed additional time on writing tasks.
Students should be provided an outline for notes so they can just add the details rather than trying to process the information and copy it down all at once. That is too difficult for them. They are usually too slow and will fall behind.

Those with dysgraphia can benefit from handwriting practice and can work with directionality. Being taught the mechanics of the language in a systematic, sequential phonics program will help them with their spelling, which is a huge hurdle for them in their writing. Giving them clear, concise organization strategies for writing papers will be invaluable to them. Dysgraphia, as with any processing disorder, requires patience and understanding. With time, proven intervention, and applicable accommodations, those struggling with this challenge can achieve success.
Shantell Berrett has a B.A. in English specializing in reading and dyslexia.  She has three wonderful kids ages 13, 11, and 7.  Her 11 year old son has dyslexia and is the reason she works in this field in writing, research and educating in schools and at home. Visit her website at ReadingHorizonsAtHome.com.

Source: http://www.homeschool-articles.com/dysgraphia-and-sequencing/

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Graphic organizers,  fill-in-the-blank forms, will help your children with dysgraphia with their note-taking, paragraph writing, and essay writing.

Learning writing skills is relatively easy when you use graphic organizers as an aid such as those in Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills. Then, to improve on their rough drafts, I suggest they use a variety of sentence types in their writing. Remember, good writers use a variety of sentence types in their writing. That is what makes their writing interesting.

So, how do you learn how to write good interesting sentences that are different types? An easy way to learn about the different types of sentences we have in the English language is to play the game The Sentence Zone. While playing the game you actually learn the 6 basic sentence types we have as well as how to punctuate them.

One of the really neat things about it is the different ways it can be played. For instance, 1st graders can play it to learn how to write a sentence. Middle school students can play it to start learning more complex sentence writing and grammar such as the difference between a direct object and a predicate nominative. High school students can play it to prepare for the grammar portion of the SAT test. (It includes advanced vocabulary for older students.)

The Sentence Zone is a grammar game that can be played at multiple levels as your children grow, so it never just sits ‘on the shelf’. It is one that helps your children:

1.      Write sentences with their spelling words.
2.      Understand grammar as well as their English homework.
3.      Prepare for the grammar portion of the SAT test.

The game is a fast fun way to cement in that nitty-gritty grammar. I have a video here showing you several of The Sentence Zone’s uses. I start off with 1st, 3rd, and 4th graders playing and then move on to a 9th grader playing The Sentence Zone. Hope you enjoy it.

Remember, whether your children are gifted or have dyslexia, playing educational games helps to cement concepts into their brain. Playing educational games does this because your brain is in a more relaxed state while game playing. This relaxed state frees the brain to retain more information. The game is color-coded and studies have shown that using color improves retention by 25%.

Hope this has been helpful.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET