I never imagined all the different ways kids could and do hold their pencils until I started seeing how they actually held them. I know when I was learning to write we actually had handwriting as a subject and my teacher put great emphasis on correctly holding the pencil.

Some kids have more trouble than others with handwriting. Doing any kind of fine motor work will actually help, since handwriting is a finemotor skill. But one of the critical things to promote good handwriting is to actually teach our kids how to hold their pen or pencil correctly. This will help them to write their letters with greater ease.

Watch the video for how to hold a pencil and to see what I consider one of the best aids in doing that.

Trust this is helpful,

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

The following activities work well with all kids, whether they have dyslexia, LD, ADHD, are falling through the cracks, or are gifted. I have done the activities successfully with all of them!

I have two favorite things to do to not only help my kids, but to stay motivated doing it too. The first thing is to have more frequent game nights, playing educational games – learning games like The Sentence Zone, The Comprehension Zone, or The Math Zone. When you play games with your kids, they build skills while having fun and get a lot of modeling from you too. At the same time you get to have quality family time, so it is a double win situation.

The other activity I like to do is to have an evening where I might turn the heat up a degree or two, and everyone gets dressed in ‘summer’ clothes, and we have a ‘picnic’ on the floor of the living room. Afterwards, we might tell stories to each other – what I call ‘add-on stories.’ In these stories one person starts off and then the next person adds on to the story. We keep going round and round and the story gets longer and longer. The only thing is, the kids have to pay attention and so do you, so what you add on makes sense to the story. This builds listening comprehension and memory as well as a really good time.

Hope this is helpful!

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

Listen to what Sara Hathaway had to say about the difference Bonnie Terry’s Products made with her son.

Hope this is helpful.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Actually, both a 504 and an IEP are legal documents and must be complied with, and as a parent you must be involved in either meeting and you need to sign off on the plan. Since they are both legal documents, both 504′s and IEP’s hold the schools accountable.

An IEP is more encompassing than a 504 plan. If your child is under an IEP, in addition to specific measurable goals and extra services with a specialist, there are usually specific accommodations written regarding the child’s time spent within their regular classroom. These are things like extra time to do the assignment, modified assignments, planners, or recording answers to tests on tape recorders if writing is a problem. In effect, the accommodations that are written into an IEP are what a 504 plan would have. (The IEP should have anything in it they would put in a 504 plan + the goals and time with a resource specialist or other service provider).

A 504 is typically used for students that do not qualify for an IEP because there is no significant discrepancy between the IQ and performance of the student, BUT the student is struggling in the classroom.

The following paragraph is an excerpt from the book From Emotions to Advocacy, written by Pam Wright and Pete Wright

To be eligible for protections under Section 504, the child must have a physical or mental impairment. This impairment must substantially limit at least one major life activity. Major life activities include walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, writing, performing math calculations, working, caring for oneself, and performing manual tasks. The key is whether the child has an “impairment” that “substantially limits … one or more … major life activities.”

I usually suggest to parents that they not sign off on the plan at that meeting and say something to the effect, “we’ve talked about a lot of details today, it is a lot to absorb. I would like to go over them with my husband/spouse/ significant other or if you are both there – we need to go over them and review them.”

You may see some ‘jaws’ drop, but this will help you to be sure you are getting what you need. This does give you time to really look over the document and be sure it contains everything you need for your child. And, sometimes you realize you really need an additional service. Sometimes the additional service or accommodation is added without a problem because the school needs to get the IEP or 504 completed in a timely manner.

To help you have a better understanding of your child’s difficulties and the underlying causes of them, you will want to use a parent friendly informal LD dyslexia assessment tool.

Hope this is helpful.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Typically when a child has difficulty with spelling it is due to problems with the auditory processing areas of auditory discrimination, auditory closure, auditory memory, auditory visual integration. Visual processing may also impact spelling, specifically visual memory problems.

However, learning to spell doesn’t have to be hard. All children can learn to spell when you teach spelling in an auditory, visual, and tactile method that teaches the structure of the language at the same time.

One of the hidden secrets of spelling is that we only put letters together 8 ways to make words. See an example of how I teach the first of the 8 spelling patterns.

Hope this is helpful.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

P.S. Be sure to leave a comment below or ask a question to your right.

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Patter,
The core program I would suggest you use is the Making Spelling Sense, Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills, and Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills. With those you will be working on not only her reading, spelling, and writing skills, but also the underlying causes of the problems (the visual and auditory processing problems.) You will need to add content material: a reader and social studies/history book, math book, and English book.

Each day you start off with addressing the underlying cause of the learning disabilities – the visual and auditory processing skills. Using the Making Spelling Sense and Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills does this. Then you would have her read a selection from a reader. There are many high interest low vocabulary readers available. (Making Spelling Sense addresses the auditory processing problems. Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills addresses the visual processing problems.)

After reading from the reader, you pull out the Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills and your daughter takes notes from what she has read. Then I would do an English page.

Then I would play The Comprehension Zone and/or The Sentence Zone. They work on reading comprehension and English grammar.

For math I would use the Math Zone for calculation practice and the BT Easy Math Reference Guide as the core information regarding math (how to add, subtract, multiply, & divide, calculating with fractions, decimals, and percents, and how to do word problems). You will need to get additional math workbook/s for actual problems for her for fractions, decimals, percents, and algebra. There are some great ones out there that would be great for her to use.

After math I would have her do history and science, using the forms from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills to help her get more out of the books.

Remember, the books and games I’ve mentioned are multi-level and can be used year after year, even with a 9th grader. Each activity takes just a few minutes so they are perfect to use with ADHD students. I created all of them from my work with learning disabilities – those with visual and auditory processing problems.

Hope this is helpful.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Fortunately times have changed and we have computers with spell checker that make life a lot easier for us now. But, that still doesn’t solve the spelling dilemma. I shot this video to explain what is actually going on when you have difficulty with spelling. I also suggest in it what you need to look for in a spelling program to be sure it will be one that will actually help you to become a better speller. Hope you enjoy it.

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Be sure to leave your comments or questions.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Remember, I work with students from 1st grade through adults. Some have been identified with dyslexia, or a learning disability. Some of my students are falling through the cracks. Some are even gifted. Even my wiggly ADHD students do well with it since it’s hand-on. But, it doesn’t matter. When I can improve a student’s retention with using a color coded game I’m going to do it.

I like to have my students sort out the cards so they start to get a feel for the types of words that are in each category. For instance, they might not realize that the word about is an adverb. When they initially sort out the word cards by color, they get an idea of what types of words are in each part of speech.

Then I have them look at the cover of the box so they see how to set up the game and that  the game strip is just there so they will have an easy reference point for placing the cards. It is NOT a game board, it is not used for making sentences. It is just used as a reference for placing the cards. They know they will be making their sentence in front of themselves while I make mine in front of me.

I use this game with students from 1st grade on up – even high school students and adults. With my advanced students (any age) we do more sophisticated sentences and grammar work. But, back to the basics…

My younger students soon realize they need to have a gray card (capital letter), a blue card (noun), a red card (verb), and a buff card (punctuation) in order to have a sentence.
They learn they can add adjectives, adverbs, or prepositional phrases to their base sentence to make it more interesting, but they need to only have one subject and one verb for the first round of the game.

For example, the following are all legal 1st round sentences.

The dog barks.            The dog barks loudly.               The dog barks loudly at the park.

When a student makes a 3-word sentence I often start asking questions to encourage them to make more interesting sentences. This helps them to see how to improve and expand their sentence.

Example with prompts:

The dog barks.

(What kind of dog is he? Let’s use these adjective cards to find out. How does he bark? Let’s use an adverb to tell us how.)

The big dog barks loudly.

(What color is the dog? Use another adjective to tell us. Where does he bark? Use a preposition, article, and a noun to tell us.)

The big brown dog barks loudly at the park.

This type of conversation helps to equalize the game with more proficient learners and helps that younger student to become proficient more quickly.

(Sometimes making funny sentences makes the game even more fun and sentence writing is no longer work.)

The long hairy dog barks loudly at the tiny ant.

Then the magic happens! I have my students go to their bookwork where they are supposed to underline the subject once and verb twice. Instead I have them use colored pencils (blue and red) and underline their subjects with the blue pencil and underline the verb with the red pencil. (They are able to identify the subjects and verbs more readily because they have been playing with blue nouns and red verbs.)

Nouns and verbs start to almost jump out at them as a result of playing the game. Additionally, they are much better at not confusing the assignment. For example, when the assignment was to underline the subject one and verb twice, I can’t tell you how many times my students used to underline the subjects twice and the verbs once. They say to me, “Well, I underlined them, what more do you want?”

When I have them use a colored pencil it takes that away and impresses on their brains which word is the noun (subject) and which is the verb. We even color code whole sentences according to the colors in The Sentence Zone, identifying the prepositional phrases or dependent and independent clauses.

I find that students who are just beginning to write sentences soon find that they can write more interesting sentences after playing the game because they start to make sentences that are worth more points. They often compete against themselves, keeping a running tally from turn to turn or day to day.

Also, when a student has a writing assignment and his sentences are all about the same length, I just have to say, “You need to have some small point sentences and some big point sentences to be a good writer. Remember, good writers vary the length and type of sentences they write.” They know what I’m talking about because they have seen small point sentences and big point sentences.

Students who are proficient with basic sentences start to learn more complex grammar nuances such as subject – verb agreement, or needing to compose a sentence with a direct object and an indirect object in it etc. In fact I also use it for SAT prep.

Hope this gives you some new ideas for teaching and improving sentence writing and grammar. Learn more about The Sentence Zone.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Sincerely,

Gena Smith

Gena,

I always like to start with understanding exactly what is going on…why a student is struggling and what areas are they good in. This helps me to be more patient and efficient when I’m teaching them. I want to be sure that I’m addressing all of their needs.

For instance, you work on phonics with a student and he really gets it, but is still struggling, the problem may be visual tracking, visual memory, visual closure, or any of the other areas of visual, auditory, or tactile/kinesthetic processing that were not addressed with the phonic program. So what you actually needed to do was to work on those areas. Ultimately you spent time, effort, and money and haven’t solved the problem. And, in the meantime your son gets more frustrated because learning is still hard.

Another example would be when a student has trouble remembering their multiplication tables, knowing if they have visual memory or auditory memory problems makes a difference. If the problem is one of understanding the concept of what is mathematically happening with numbers when you multiply them you would do something different to help them. Spatial awareness comes in too with the understanding that 4 x 5 is the same as 5 x 4 (They take up the same amount of space if the boxes below were all the smae size. Unfortunately the size changed when I put the tables in.)

4 x 5

5 x 4 = 20

So, when I created my products, I created them in such a way that each of them would address multiple areas of auditory, visual, and tactile kinesthetic processing sub-categories. That would ensure that I would be addressing their problematic areas, even if I didn’t know what each of their specific problematic areas was. Just using these materials would ensure that I’d be hitting the critical areas that students have problems with and at the same time teach them the specific skills they needed.

That said, no the learning pack does not include the Learning Difficulty/Disability Pre-Screening Tool and Informal Comprehensive Identification Tool. That is sold separately. It is very reasonably priced at only $37.00. Remember, taking your son to someone for testing can be anywhere from $500.00 to thousands of dollars.

I’ve listed the areas of perception that each of the products addresses.

Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills

Addresses: auditory and visual perception difficulties, specifically visual closure, visual tracking, auditory discrimination, auditory visual integration, auditory closure, and auditory memory. It is phonological, incorporating every vowel and consonant combination in the English language, with lots of review built in. It also includes a retrieval automaticity component that is critical in ensuring that children understand what they read.

Making Spelling Sense and Making Spelling Sense II

The auditory areas addressed are: auditory discrimination, auditory closure, auditory visual integration, auditory memory, and auditory visual coordination. The visual areas addressed are: visual tracking, visual closure, visual discrimination and form constancy, visual motor, and visual integration. The tactile-kinesthetic areas addressed are: laterality, directionality, spatial-temporal, and sensory motor integration.

The English language has a specific structure. There are eight spelling patterns in the language and the patterns are taught with story explanations. The process used shows students how letters come together eight different ways to make words. It takes the guess work out of spelling.

Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills

Addresses the following visual, auditory, and tactile-kinesthetic processing areas: visual memory, visual figure ground, visual closure, visual language association, visual language classification, auditory-visual coordination, auditory language association, auditory memory, laterality, spatial temporal, and sensory motor integration.

Writing and study skills it covers include: note taking, paragraph writing, essay writing, research paper writing, and letter writing. You will be able to teach your students the secrets to improving their reading comprehension as well as the secrets to improve their studying and the seven steps to take on test day to improve their test scores.

The Sentence Zone

Addresses visual motor, visual language classification, visual closure, spatial-temporal,
laterality, directionality, contact, and sensory motor areas of perception.

The Writer’s Easy Reference GuideTM is an individual resource for all students. It includes paragraph writing hints, essay writing hints, steps of the writing process, words to make your writing more interesting, common prefixes, suffixes and root words, grammatical and literary terms, how to write a bibliography with examples and much, much more. It “unlocks the code” of how to write a sentence, then a paragraph, then a better paragraph, then an essay. The guide helps all to be confident and competent writers.

The Comprehension Zone

Addresses visual memory and auditory memory too! Students read short passages of materials, identify the main idea and details, and rephrase the content in their own words. That is exactly what students do when they play the Comprehension Zone. Bonnie has created a visual/kinesthetic method for teaching kids of all ages how to read for meaning. They play for main idea, details, both, or to sequence what they have read or listened to.

The Math Zone

Addresses spatial awareness, visual form constancy, and visual motor areas of perception.

The BT Easy Math Reference GuideTM starts with addition and subtraction. Then, this 16-page guide shows step by step how to solve all elementary math calculations right up to fractions and decimals. Also covered are all those “other” math topics, such as word problems, bar and circle graph, rounding and estimating, place value, geometry, measurements, money, and averaging. You’ll learn the how, the why, and the memory tricks to help your students remember. Simple, clear examples, all in a sturdy, 3-hole-punched format you can slip into a binder. It’s a great supplement to any math program, for both parent and student.

B & D Posters are used by families as well as classrooms, typically one per classroom at the primary grade levels. The B&D Stickers come with 10 in a pack and are used with primary age children, typically placed on their desk as a reminder. Middle Grade and High School students who still have reversal difficulties love them and usually put them inside their binders as a reminder.

Hope this is helpful.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

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