Tips for Parents:

Parent Teacher Conferences

 
Getting the most out of parent teacher conferences with Board Certified Educational Therapist Bonnie Terry. She talks about how parents should prepare for parent teacher conferences to get the most out of the conference. When you prepare as a parent for parent teacher conferences you help set your child up for a better school year. Taking the time to prepare lets your child’s teacher know that you are an aware parent that is caring and concerned about your child whether they are doing great and making all a’s or if they are struggling. There are some specific things you can do to create a partnership feeling with the teacher so that your child has a terrific school year.

Parents Checklist for Parent Teacher Conferences:

Here is the quick down and dirty list of what you need to let the teacher know during parent teacher conferences:
1. if your child has allergies or frequent ear infections
2. if you suspect any learning problems
3. how much time it has been taking your child to do their homework
4. If your child is under a 504 or an IEP, give the teacher a copy of the 504 or IEP
5. show the teacher samples of homework-
i) an assignment that was very hard
ii) an assignment the really enjoyed doing

Parent Teacher Conferences Tip 1

What are some things you want to tell your child’s teacher during your parent teacher conferences that will help your child learn easier?
If your child has allergies, has frequent ear infections or had them in the past, if you suspect there might be a learning problem, and how much time it is taking your child to do their homework – whether it is done very quickly or it takes a long time is important. If your child is completing their work correctly and quickly they may not be challenged enough. If they are taking a long time there may be a learning problem hindering there ability to complete the work in a reasonable amount of time. Again, parent teacher conferences give you the parent the opportunity to have these kinds of discussions with your child’s teacher.

Parent Teacher Conferences Tip 2

Why do you need to tell the teacher if your child has allergies or has had or has frequent ear infections during your parent teacher conferences?
When your child has allergies or ear infections their ears are often plugged up and then they aren’t hearing the instruction as clearly as they should, so teachers need to be aware of that – teachers can check to be sure they understood the instruction. Your child may need preferential seating to help out with this too. If your child had frequent ear infections when they were in the primary grades they may have missed out on some critical instruction regarding reading such as phonics. Their ability to speak clearly, spell, and sound out words may have been compromised by the plugged up ears. Sometimes children even need speech therapy as well as tubes in their ears to correct the loss of instruction they had during this time.

Parent Teacher Conference Tip 3

Why is it important to tell the teacher how much time your child is spending on homework – does that have anything to do with a possible learning problem?

The time element will help the teacher to gage how your child does their work independently. The time element also is an indicator of possible learning problems as is whether your child likes reading or math – you can do an informal assessment with our Learning Disability Screening Tool to see if there might be an actual learning problem happening.

Parent Teacher Conferences Tip 4

What is a 504 and an IEP? Doesn’t the teacher already have a copy of your child’s 504 or IEP?

They are both legal documents to help your child. The 504 is done for accommodations or modifications within the classroom. An IEP is an Individualized Education Plan when your child needs additional help through a resource class or a special day class. Your child’s teacher typically knows if your child is under a 504 or an IEP, but that doesn’t mean they have had a chance to read it to see what is in it. Remember, these are both legal documents that need to be complied with, so when you had the teacher a copy during your parent teacher conferences it lets them know you are aware and it gives them easy access to the document. you do not want to create an adversarial relationship with your child’s teacher but you do want to ensure cooperation and a partnership with them. Parent teacher conferences are a perfect opportunity for you to set that relationship up for the rest of the school year.

Parent Teacher Conferences Tip 5

Why should you bring in some of your child’s homework to show the teacher during your parent teacher conferences?
Obviously your child’s teacher has seen their work before, but they don’t have your feedback then and they don’t see how your child is doing the work when they are not in a classroom situation. So, you want to bring in an assignment your child really enjoyed or found interesting as well as one that was very difficult so the teacher can get an idea of how your child is learning at home – when they are independently doing the work. When the teacher knows this, he or she can and usually does adjust their teaching accordingly. If a lot of students struggled on a particular type of assignment, they can re-teach the concept in a different manner. If your child is the only one or one of just a few, the teacher can make some slight changes for your child or those few to be sure they understand the concept.

Remember, you want to have separate folders for each of your children that contains work samples and the checklist of items you want to discuss when you go to their parent teacher conferences.

Back to School Tips with


Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Bonnie Terry, America’s Leading Learning Specialist, shares some of her favorite back to school tips on FOX News Morning Show.

Watch here for 3 of Bonnie Terry’s Back to School Tips:

1. Backpack Organization
2. Time Management
3. Secret Tools to Help with Homework: the dreaded word problems and writing assignments

(More tips under the video!)

Don’t forget to sign up for additional step-by-step homework tips to your right.

Back to School Tip 1:

The school year is about to start or has just started. Be sure to let your child know how excited you are about their new school year and that you know they will have a good experience with their new teacher. You may want to meet their new teacher either a few days before school starts or during the second week of school – just to introduce yourself. That effort will let the teacher know that you are an interested committed parent.

Back to School Tip 2:

If last year was a difficult year, your child had a hard time, let them know that you remember how rough it was, but that this is a new year and you want to help them to have a really great experience this year. Ask your child for their suggestions for what they think you might do to help them have a great year.

Back to School Tip 3:

Look at the newspaper ads together, plan what kinds of supplies they may need this year. Take a trip together to get school supplies – notebooks, book covers, pens, pencils, backpack, assignment book, etc. Think ahead of time about the different subjects your child has so you get different colored notebooks, book covers, and folders – one color per subject so that all of their math books & folders are one color, English books another etc. This will help your child keep track of their work and make finding the correct folder easier.

Back to School Tip 4:

Help your child organize their backpack by using color-coded folders and book covers – and you may want to check it the first few weeks to help them keep it organized.

Back to School Tip 5:

Help your child organize their study or homework area so they have the supplies they need in one place. Keep a container filled with the supplies they need. You also want an area that is free of clutter and distractions for them to work in. It can be a desk in their room, in the family room, or even at the kitchen table. You may also want to help them organize their desk (after school) if they have trouble with it on their own.


Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills includes planning calendars and school supply lists for different grade levels. The Writer’s Easy Reference Guide is the ultimate cheat sheet for any writing assignment and the BT Easy Math Guide is the ultimate cheat sheet for any math assignment whether it’s addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, word problems, fractions, decimals, or percents.
My last back to school tip is to remember to enjoy learning, learning should be engaging, interesting, and a bit challenging. For more homework tips, don’t forget to sign up for our 10 free homework tips at the top on the right (above my photo) and start your back to school time with a bang.

Youngest in class get ADHD label

Parents often wonder if they should enter their child into kindergarten when they are very close to the age cutoff for entering school. Should you have them start kindergarten or wait another year?

A recent study from Michigan State University shows that kids who are the youngest in their grades are 60% more likely to exhibit Attention Deficit types of behaviors and actually be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder than the oldest children in the class.

Nearly 1 million children diagnosed with ADHD

By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
Nearly 1 million children may have been misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,  not because they have real behavior problems, but because they’re the youngest kids in their kindergarten class, researchers say.

Kids who are the youngest in their grades are 60% more likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder than the oldest children, according to a study out today from Michigan State University, given exclusively to USA TODAY. A second study, by researchers at North Carolina State University and elsewhere, came to similar conclusions. Both are scheduled for publication in the Journal of Health Economics.

TEENS: 1/3 with ADHD drop out or delay graduation

About 4.5 million children have been diagnosed with ADHD, according to the studies.

Misdiagnosing children can have long-lasting effects, says assistant professor of economics Todd Elder, author of the Michigan State study. In fifth and eighth grade, the youngest kids in a class were more than twice as likely to use Ritalin, a stimulant commonly prescribed for ADHD, compared with the oldest students, his study says.
Read More

For more articles if you suspect ADHD

Improve Reading Skills Part 4 – Writing

As a parent you have a large responsibility. You need to not only care for your child, you also need to watch over their education and be sure they learn with ease. Reading, writing, and spelling can be difficult for many kids. But as a parent, you do have the power and ability to help your kids improve reading, writing, and spelling skills. Now what I mean here is that you as a parent can help your child improve reading skills whether they have an identified learning disability, dyslexia, ADHD, are falling through the cracks or are gifted.

4 Easy to Implement Activities to Improve Reading Skills

Their are 4 easy to implement activities that each take just a few minutes a day to improve reading.

1. Improve reading fluency in 5 minutes a day
2. Improve spelling and learn the 8 ways we put letters together to make words
3. Improve reading comprehension by playing a reading comprehension game
4. Improve writing skills using specially designed graphic organizers

I’ve already talked about how you can help your child improve their reading fluency in just minutes a day. I’ve already talked about how you can help your child improve their spelling skills in just minutes a day. And, I’ve talked about how you can help your child improve their reading comprehension by playing a game with them. so, today I’m going to talk about the fourth activity which is helping your children improve their reading – and that is by helping them with their writing skills.

The 4th Activity to Improve Reading Skills

The fourth activity to help your kids improve reading skills is to help your kids learn how to take notes with the graphic organizers found in Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills. These fill-in-the-blank graphic organizers make note-taking, paragraph writing, and essay writing easy. As a parent, I hated watching my son struggle with a writing assignment. I’m sure you feel the same way.

One of the best things I found to do to make this note-taking and paragraph writing or even essay writing easier was to create graphic organizers that were easy for him to fill in. Then he wasn’t staring at a blank sheet of paper anymore. It was so much easier for him to fill in the blanks and within about 10 minutes he’d have his notes done. His life became easier and my life became easier too. We didn’t have the ‘homework wars’ going on anymore.

You know, I’ve had students bring me their notes over the years that they had done in class when they needed help writing their paper from them. The sad thing was, they couldn’t make heads or tails out of their notes even though they used a ‘webbing’ system when they did them.

The notes were just too hard for them to follow. That is why I created the graphic organizers the way I did, so students whether they had perception problems or not would be able to utilize the notes they took. It isn’t enough to take the notes. You need to be able to utilize them after you’ve taken them.

Donna Walker Tileston, author of What Every Teacher Should Know About the Brain states, “Approximately 87% of learners either need to see the learning or do something with it. Using visuals with the learning will help students take in the information more efficiently, but even more important, it helps them to develop their own methods for organizing content.”

Using pictographs, charts and graphs, graphic organizers, and note-taking models is the way to do this. So, give the graphic organizers from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills a try. I created them in such a way that once he filled them out he’d actually be able to use them for study guides or for help in turning notes into paragraphs or rough drafts into final copies.

4 Activities to Improve Reading Skills

(Part 3 – Reading Comprehension)

As a parent you do have the power and ability to help your kids improve their reading skills. Now what I mean here is that you as a parent can help your child whether they have an identified learning disability, dyslexia, ADHD, or are gifted. There are 4 easy to implement activities that each take just a few minutes a day to improve reading.

1. Improve reading fluency in 5 minutes a day
2. Improve spelling and learn the 8 ways we put letters together to make words
3. Improve reading comprehension by playing a reading comprehension game
4. Improve writing skills using specially designed graphic organizers

Improve Reading Skills Activities

The first activity you can do to help your child improve reading skills  just takes 5 minutes a day - reading fluency. The second activity which is helping your children improve reading skills is by helping your children improve their spelling skills (about 12 minutes). The third activity is to play games with your children. The key here is to play games that are specifically designed to improve reading comprehension.

So, the third activity is playing a reading comprehension game. That’s right, game playing! Playing The Comprehension Zone, a reading comprehension game, teaches your kids how to read for the main idea and details or sequence what they read does the trick.

So many children struggle with reading comprehension, specifically finding the main idea of what they are reading or finding details that support the main idea or for sequential order. This can be daunting for some students, and not just those students with LD, dyslexia, or ADHD. You don’t have to have a learning disability to have difficulty with reading comprehension! Even gifted children sometimes struggle with reading comprehension.

Think about how difficult note-taking is when you don’t have a clue about the main idea of what you read. Typically you either stare at blank sheets of paper or you copy everything down, not knowing how to pick out the important information.

Play Reading Game to Improve Reading Skills

To be able to play a game and learn, practice, and reinforce the skill of pulling out the main idea and the details or putting information into sequential order at the same time is quite something. Additionally, this  reading game can be played for both reading comprehension or listening comprehension.

One of the beauties of playing games that improve reading skills, teach, and reinforce skills is that you are in a relaxed state when you are playing. Leaning is retained more efficiently when your body is not in a tense fight or flight state. Using games to learn skills is a way to learn in a non-threatening way.

Games even help and encourage learners to stay interested and they often work happier and longer without even realizing it.

Lee Su Kim states:
‘There is a common perception that all learning should be serious and solemn in nature, and that if one is having fun and there is hilarity and laughter, then it is not really learning. This is a misconception. It is possible to learn a language as well as enjoy oneself at the same time. One of the best ways of doing this is through games.’

‘There are many advantages of using games to improve reading skills in the classroom:

1. Games are a welcome break from the usual routine of the language class.
2. They are motivating and challenging.
3. Learning a language requires a great deal of effort. Games help students to make and sustain the effort of learning.
4. Games provide language practice in the various skills- speaking, writing, listening and reading.
5. They encourage students to interact and communicate.
6. They create a meaningful context for language use.’
Creative Games for the Language Class ‘Forum’ Vol. 33 No 1, January – March 1995, Page 35

So, be sure to include games like The Comprehension Zone in your family’s activities. Your children will benefit from them. And, you will be spending quality time with your children and be helping them improve their reading comprehension skills at the same time.

Mid Summer Training – What You Can Do to Prepare Your Kids for School

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

Can you do your own summer learning program?

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

I just read this by Lindsey Petersen of 5kidswdisabilities and thought you would all appreciate it. It rings true for so many parents, not just those of ADHD kids.

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

A great game to play during summer vacation to keep up you math skills is the Math Zone. Kids happily do more math with the game than if you give them a workbook to work in. I played The Math Zone with one of my students just the other day and we shot a video of it so you’d know what it is like.

Here is what Heather Jackowitz, Staff Writer, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine had to say about it.

“I really love games that reinforce my children’s lessons. I checked out a math game from Bonnie Terry Learning, The Math Zone. In The Math Zone, the object is to make the most points within a set amount of turns. There are three decks of cards: an operations deck (add, subtract, multiply, or divide), a deck of low numbers for younger children, and a deck of higher numbers for older children. Number cards have two numbers on them. Players choose an operation card and a number card and perform the given task. The answer for each operation is given on the back of the number cards, and players check their own work after calculating the answer. If the answer is correct, the player scores that amount of points. If the answer is incorrect, no points are scored. Bonus operation cards mean you double your total, and Sorry operation cards mean you half your answer. About the hardest problem to solve in the low number deck would be 35 x 7. Children would also need to know their basic division facts, and how to add and subtract with regrouping. In the higher number deck, children would need to be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers like 2457 and 63. I played the game with my third grader, and she beat me a couple of times, because she kept drawing multiplication cards, and I kept getting subtraction! I also noticed that she checked her work more thoroughly than she does with her math lessons! This would be a great game for keeping up skills during summer vacation or whenever you take a break from regular math lessons.”
– Product Review by: Heather Jackowitz, Staff Writer, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

Get The Math Zone here. Hope this is helpful. Have fun playing games!

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Now that it’s summer…here’s a few puppet making activities you might want to have your kids do to get their creative juices flowing.

1. Make paper-bag puppets & put on a puppet show
Make them characters from your favorite nursery rhyme or book  
Use lunch-size bags, crayons, markers, buttons, yarn, & glue

2.  Make grocery sack ‘puppet’ heads you can wear & put on a play or a 
    skit with them – cut holes for eyes & slits for arm holes. 

 e.g.: You can make a cute ladybug costume from a large paper grocery bag.
 You can also make antennae  by wrapping two pipe cleaners onto a plastic headband.

 Supplies needed:

* 1 large paper grocery bag

* Scissors

* Red tempera paint

* Black marker or black tempera paint

 A. Cut a large paper grocery bag open along the seam (this will be the back of the costume).
  Then cut a neck hole in what was the bottom of the bag. 
 B. Cut an arm hole on each side of the bag.
 C. Paint a large red circle (using red tempera paint) on the front on the bag. Let the paint dry.
 D. Draw or paint a black line down the center of the circle and draw black spots on both sides. 
 E. To make cute antennae, wrap two pipe cleaners on a plastic headband. Make loops at the top.

3. Make sock puppets, use old socks, felt pieces for tongue, buttons for eyes,
 cut the plastic rings that hold soda cans together for ‘glasses’, cotton balls,
 etc. Put together a skit or play with several puppets.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET