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 Hardly Believe It? Check it out…
The FREE Live Teleseminar is filling up fast – Only 100 68 52 Spots left!
Reserve your spot now.

Mid-Summer Training Call

I have had so many calls from parents recently, wondering how to help their child between now and when school starts back up. They realize it’s not too late to give their child a boost, but they also want to be sure they have an enjoyable rest of the summer. So, I decided to have a teleseminar where I will present information on summer activities to help your child’s skills improve as well as activities rich in experiences and family time.

I’m hosting a FREE Live Teleseminar on Wednesday July 14th at 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Central, 6 pm Mountain, and 5 pm Pacific. Upon registering you will receive a FREE Handbook on the 5 things you can do to help your child over the summer. Those that attend live will receive a surprise FREE gift.

Searching for Mid-Summer Activities to Improve Your Child’s Skills and Still Have Fun?
FREE Live Teleseminar on Wednesday June 2nd at at 8 pm EST, 7 pm CST, 6 pm MST, and 5 pm PST.
Space is limited. You can attend via phone or via internet!

Reserve your Teleseminar line now at:
Title: Mid-Summer Activities to Improve Your Child’s Skills and Still Have Fun
Time: Wednesday, July 14th at 5:00pm Pacific
Listening method: Phone + Web Simulcast

To attend, visit:
Mid-Summer Training Call
LD Specialist and Board Certified Educational Therapist Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., is answering your questions about summer activities to help your child improve their skills. The teleseminar will be recorded; if you can’t attend, you’ll be able to listen later. Plus special surprise bonus just for registering! Those that attend live will receive another surprise FREE gift.

Mid-Summer Training Call

Join Bonnie Terry’s call and find out what you can do in just 20 minutes a day to boost your child’s reading, writing, and math skills and have fun at the same time.

I’m hosting a FREE Live Teleseminar on Wednesday July 14th at 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Central, 6 pm Mountain, and 5 pm Pacific. Upon registering you will receive a FREE Handbook on the 5 steps you can take to help your child over the summer even if they have a learning problem, LD, dyslexia. The activities and steps are for all age students – kindergarten through adults.

Those that attend the Live Teleseminar will also receive a surprise FREE gift. And, of course, if you can’t make it live on the call, you will get access to the recording!

Mid-Summer Training Call
FREE Live Teleseminar on Wednesday July 14th at 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Central, 6 pm Mountain, and 5 pm Pacific.
Space is limited. You can attend via phone or via internet!

Reserve your space for the Teleseminar now at:

Title: Searching for Summer Activities to Improve Your Child’s Learning Skills and Still Have Fun?
Time: Wednesday, July 14th at 5pm Pacific, 6 pm Mountain, 7 pm Central, 8 pm Eastern.
Listening method: Phone + Web Simulcast

To register, visit:
Mid-Summer Training Call

Learn About:
1. How to improve your child’s reading, writing, and math skills in just 20 minutes a day
2. 5 steps you can take to help your child
3. Activities to do at home, in the yard, or in your neighborhood

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

 “We’ve already done some of the exercises you told us about. My kids thought they were fun! I just wish we had found you before we had spent thousands of dollars.” Kathy G

 “I like that I can use this for all of my kids, not just my struggling one. I like that. That’s a big plus.” Linda E.

 “I was able to join the call via the web conference and from what I heard, it was very exciting! Then I had tech problems. Any chance of being able to listen again?” Elise C.

 “I sooo appreciate your making it doable via computer.” Tricia L

 “Thank you so much for the information!” Rachel B

 “I didn’t know there were so many easy ways I could help my son.” Susan B

For those of you that were unable to attend, I have twisted Susan’s arm and we are doing it again this Saturday. This is another chance for you to join in to the FREE private training call.

How to Help Your Child Improve Their Reading, Writing, & Math Skills in 20 Minutes a Day

Sat. March 13th 11am PST, noon MST, 1pm CST, and 2pm EST.

Register here:

http://www.homeworkwars.com/privatetrainingcall/

Upon registration, you will receive the call in information and a Handbook on How to Help Your Child Improve Their Skills.                                                                                                                                                                                      

You can either call in or attend via the web.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

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 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

When I tell parents that there are only 8 spelling patterns they are usually quite surprised. But, we only put letters together 8 ways to make words. Then, they become curious as to how I teach the patterns to my students. They ask me all the time to show them how to use Making Spelling Sense.

Here is a home schooling family using Making Spelling Sense with their younger kids. They use Making Spelling Sense II with their older kids. You can even see one of their older kids helping the youngest (who is in preschool) join in the lesson. Spelling is really a family affair! Watch the Woods family using Making Spelling Sense (with one of the first lessons) and see how easy spelling can be. They are doing the spelling lesson with multiple age kids.

Scroll down and watch a family learning the 1st Spelling Pattern:

Hope this was helpful. Be sure to get your FREE teaching and Homework Tips – go to the upper right side to get them!

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET