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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

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

Ever since I informed my daughter’s teacher that we suspect she has ADHD and that she is on a waiting list to have tests done, her teacher seems to be worse with her rather than more understanding. In fact, she no longer has time for her. She’s constantly shouting at my daughter now for struggling with her work and not getting it finished in time and getting it wrong. She is even giving my daughter extra assignments as a punishment for it. My daughter is really stressing out about this and she stays up late refusing to sleep until she completes this work. Is it just me or is the teacher doing the opposite of what she should do?? What should I do?

Pamela

Whether your daughter is diagnosed with ADHD or not, her teacher is responsible for teaching her and creating an environment that is safe and conducive to learning. It might be that your daughter’s teacher is feeling overwhelmed with the possibility of teaching someone that doesn’t fit into her square peg or round whole, so to speak.

That being said, you do have your work cut out for you. It sounds to me that you need to do some educating of the teacher, although I don’t know how receptive she will be.

There are two issues going on here. One is the ‘yelling’ or ‘shouting’ at your daughter. The other is the additional homework assignments. Short of sitting in the classroom all day long, you are limited at this point to some extent with changing the teacher’s behavior.

First, set up a meeting with your daughter’s teacher and say something to the effect of, “I know that you are being pushed at times by your daughter’s name and I know you know her ADHD is what is interfering with her learning and it can’t be helped until we get the official diagnosis and develop a plan to address it. In the meantime, I was wondering how we might be able to work together to help your daughter’s name cope better in the classroom.”

Coming in in a non-confrontational way and ‘giving her the benefit of the doubt’ by saying that you know she realizes it’s the ADHD should put her in a more receptive mood.

If that doesn’t help, you might want to enlist the help of the vice principal, principal, or counselor and ask them what they suggest you do. I would go in saying you know your daughter’s teacher is qualified, but your daughter and she seem to be having some issues. You think it might be related to the fact that you told her that you suspect your daughter has ADHD.

I know this sounds a bit ‘nice’ when you must be fuming, but you always get more accomplished when you ‘sugar coat’ things as best you can.

If you do not get any assistance with them, you can contact your County Office of Ed or your state advocate. (Most states have them – give the Dept. of Ed a call to find out.) Sometimes just mentioning the name of the state advocate gets the ball rolling for you with a school.

Regarding the additional homework…

One thing you need to do to start with is to judge for yourself if the additional homework is beyond the typical amount of homework that a student in her grade should have. So, put the ADHD aspect aside for a moment to measure the amount of time that students should spend on homework. Students should on a normal basis not have more that 10 minutes per grade level of homework per night (3rd grade – 30 minutes). Then, realizing the complications that the ADHD adds to your daughter’s focus, add some additional time to that (30 to 60 minutes).

The National Education Association along with the national PTA suggests adding 10 minutes of homework per night incrementally with each grade level, as a general rule of thumb. Thus, a first-grader gets a total of 10 minutes, a second-grader 20 minutes, a third-grader 30 minutes, and so on, not to exceed two hours per night total in high school.

For high school Spanish teacher Michael Bolyog, homework is designed to reinforce what happens in the classroom, but should never be used to supplant class work. He sees the teacher’s role as similar to that of a sports coach: The player can go out and practice on his own for hour after hour, but the best learning occurs when the coach is right there with him, to immediately correct any flaws. Therefore, more than 30 minutes of homework per class may be an exercise in futility because the student can feel overwhelmed by the quantity of work, get distracted or bored, and end up giving it a halfhearted effort just to get it done.

Just a few more rambling thoughts…

You can share this info with the teacher, saying something to the effect that the National Education Association as well as the PTA supports this, so that is what your daughter will be doing from now on. You might also let the principal know that you have been having some issues with this, so you are going to do this from now on. You can have your daughter present when you talk with the teacher, so she knows what has been discussed and will feel stronger about not overdoing.

You might want to ask the principle or your school district office what the policy on homework is and what is the school policy about punishment is for the ADHD problems -then talk with the teacher.  (Get your information first – then approach the teacher) You can say something to the effect that: “I thought the school policy or school district policy was ___________. Am I wrong here? Or Correct me if I’m wrong, but _____________.”

Once a diagnosis is made, you need to see what kinds of adjustments need to be made in the classroom. You might request a student study team meeting or suggest a meeting to set up a 504 to see what can be done to help your daughter succeed in the classroom.

There are a number of easy accommodations that can be put into place to help your daughter throughout the day, making learning easier and less stressful for both her and her teacher.

Hope 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

We spoke with the principal at my son’s school this morning. The talk went well and he seemed very concerned about our son. But, the bottom line is, the school is reluctant to give my son 504 because it will stick with him for life (though they offered today if we really really want one). They are going to test him soon for gifted so that we can include additional accommodations in an IEP or 504 if necessary. What is my next step? Should I go ahead with a 504 Plan?

Candi

Having a 504 Plan in place is not a stigma, it is protection and accommodations for your son that will help him learn with greater ease. What is wrong with that? If the school needs to implement specific accommodations to help your son that is what needs to be done. The beauty of it is that it will carry him from one year to the next but can be changed and adjusted as your sons needs change. It will ensure that attention is brought to his learning needs. If at a later date – which may be a year or years down the line and he no longer needs them, fine, you don’t have to have him covered by a 504 at that point.

Here is an informal comprehensive learning difficulty/disability screening tool you can do as a parent and get a great picture of the underlying causes of your kids learning problems available. This tool actually helps you to understand why your child struggles, which may be accerbated by his ADHD. There is usually some underlying cause that may not be enough for the schools testing to show that there is a specific learning disability, but it is still actually interferring with their learning with ease.

For example, each of my own kids tested to be gifted, but they each had an area that made learning harder than it needed to be. Once we understood what that or those areas were, learning became easier for them.

Hope this helps,

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for the FREE teaching & homework tips!

Bonnie Terry

I have always told everyone that it was used at multiple ages, because it is, but I didn’t think of using the game for SAT prep until Patricia Lara stopped by my office a few weeks ago. She was telling me how useful the game was in her work with SAT prep with her juniors and seniors in high school.

In addition to helping them with the grammar portion of the exam, she told me how it really ‘broke up’ the prep sessions. Her students were able to get a break from the intensity of preparing for the exam but still learn at the same time. So, I asked her to show me how she was using the game. I think you’ll enjoy this additional use. Watch and see for yourself how easy it is to learn with The Sentence Zone. It is a great test prep tool for tutors, families, homeschoolers, and teachers. 

Hope this has been helpful. Don’t forget to sign up for the FREE Teaching and Homework Tips! And, PLEASE, Pass this post along to others!

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

Hope you enjoy…
The ABCs of ADHD
December 27, 2009 by 5kidswdisabilities

The ABCs of ADHD/ADD

I’ve read the articles and books on ADHD.  I know the discipline methods, rewards and time outs, the methods of Ross Green (from The Explosive Child) and the medications that work best.  But I also know the realities of ADHD, having 2 children with ADHD and 2 with ADD.  In real life terms, the ABCs of ADHD/ADD are:

Attention! Always on alert for dangerous situations due to impulsive behaviors, such as running across streets without looking, grabbing a butcher knife to cut the end off a banana, running up the down escalator, and grabbing the dog or any other animal roughly and the dog (or other animal) retaliating by biting (or scratching.)

“Be careful!  Be careful!  Be careful” is the parent mantra.

Climbing climbing climbing:  out of the crib at age 15 months, out of the bedroom window when a teenager, on rock walls and curbstones and couches.

Don’t touch that!  Don’t do that! Don’t hit her!  Don’t pull that!  Don’t eat that! Don’t hurt it!  Don’t break it!

Exhausted parents trying their best to keep up.

Friendships are difficult.

Go!  Go!  Go! They’re always on the go!

Helpless parents, unable to control their child’s behavior, especially embarrassing in the grocery store under the staring eyes of others, judging them.

If only he’d…    If only she’d….  Parents dream for a different lifestyle.

Jumping Bean:  he goes here and there from friend to friend to friend, never staying long enough to establish a real friendship.

Kitchen walls are written on, bathroom doors have holes kicked in, curtains are ripped, bedrooms are messy.

LOVE.  Parents give unconditional love, but the behavior doesn’t change because the  ADHD remains…

MEDICATION!  MEDICATION!  MEDICATION! Alleluia when it works!!!!

Not paying attention in school so schoolwork suffers: not paying attention for homework, so it’s a nightly fight: not paying attention to other’s feelings, so no friendships are formed.

Overload happens easily and tantrums result. Keep it quiet.  Keep it simple.  Keep it under stimulated for peace.

Psychiatrists are our best friends!

Questions!  Questions from them all the time! Especially hard to escape when you are stuck riding in the car together.

Rewards for good behaviors; stickers, ice cream, Playstation, tv.

Self-esteem is low, parent  and teacher patience is limited so he’s always the troublemaker and never measures up.

Time-outs in the seat till we’re blue in the face.  All the time spent in time-outs would add up to a year in the life.

Understanding is needed from parents, family, friends and teachers; understanding is often in short supply.

Very draining on all, child and adults.

Whining, whining, whining until their parent’s ears hurt.

X-rays, CAT Scans and emergency room visits:  active behavior results in injuries.

YIKES! What has he done NOW?!?!

Zest for life would be a polite way of putting it…

|………………….

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

The term dyslexia means reading difficulty. Many children have reading difficulties. The key is to understand what the underlying causes of the reading or writing difficulties are. Some children have difficulties with one or two of the areas of auditory processing that affect learning. Some children have problems with one or two of the areas of visual processing that affect learning. Some children have a combination of auditory and visual processing areas that aren’t working as efficiently as they should be.

There are several things you need to know as a parent to help your child in addition to the type of program that is best suited to help your child.

1. You can help your child when you know what the underlying causes are
2. You can help your child have greater access to learning
3. You can give your child a 2 – 4 year advantage in reading, writing, and math in just minutes a day

Find out what you need to know to help your child in minutes a day at http://dyslexiahelpnow.com.

Hope this is helpful.

Bonnie Terry, M.Ed., BCET