by PRIDE Reading Program Admin | Feb 22, 2011 | A PRIDE Post, Auditory Processing Disorder, Autism
Many of our students at Pride Learning Center have been diagnosed with auditory processing difficulties due to CAPD, ADHD, dyslexia, autism, or a learning disability. Often parents will ask me the question, “what can I do at home to help?” I have composed a list of activities that strengthen and support auditory processing deficits that are simple, quick and easy to incorporate at home.
a
1. Listen for Sounds. Have your child sit at your desk, close their eyes and identify sounds that you make. You can drop a pencil, bounce a ball, tap on the window, tear a paper, use a stapler, cut with scissors, open the door, type on your computer, sip a cup of coffee or write with a marker. Trade roles and then let the child make different sounds that you have to identify.
2. Take a Nature Walk. Sit outside under a tree and listen for various sounds outside of the house. Sounds like birds chirping, airplanes flying overhead, cars driving by, voices of children playing are fun to identify. You can have a little notebook on hand and keep a list of all of the different sounds you came across.
3. Repeat a Pattern. Sit across from your child and clap your hands to a rhythmic pattern alternating between slow and fast tempos. Have your child repeat the pattern. You can also use various instruments, play a drum or bounce a ball to a variety of rhythms. Switch roles and let your child be the sound leader as well.
4. Hide and Seek. Hide a metronome or a ticking clock somewhere in your home. Have your child find it by locating the sound. Another variation of this game can be played outside. You can hide somewhere and blow a whistle. The child will then follow the sounds to find where you are hiding.
5. Sing Songs. Sing songs together that involve repeating previous verses, such as “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”, “Over in the River”, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and “The Green Grass Grows All Around.”
6. Read Rhyming Books Together. For beginning readers, repetitive and rhyming books help children listen carefully to the similar sounds of rhyming words. Some great rhyming books are “Hop on Pop”, “Fox in Socks”, “Goose on the Loose” and “Goodnight Moon.”
____________________________________________________________________________________
Karina Richland, M.A., E.T. is the Managing Director of Pride Learning Centers, located in Los Angeles and Orange County. A former teacher for Los Angeles Unified School District, Ms. Richland is a reading and learning disability specialist. Ms. Richland speaks frequently to parents, teachers, and professionals on learning differences, and writes for several journals and publications. You can reach her by email at karina@pridelearningcenter.com or visit the Pride Learning Center website at: www.pridelearningcenter.com
by PRIDE Reading Program Admin | Oct 5, 2010 | A PRIDE Post, Learning Disabilities
By Karina Richland, M.A., E.T.
The most effective teaching method for children with learning differences is a multisensory approach. Multisensory teaching utilizes all the senses to relay information to the students. The teacher accesses the auditory, visual, and kinesthetic pathways in order to enhance memory and learning. For example, when learning the vowel combination “oa” the student might first look at it and then have to trace the letters in the air while speaking out loud. This combination of listening, looking, and moving around creates a lasting impression for the student as things will connect to each other and become memorable.
Multisensory learning started back in the 1920s by Dr. Samuel Orton at the Mobile Mental Health Clinic in Iowa. Dr. Samuel Orton, one of the first to recognize dyslexia in students, suggested that teaching the “fundamentals of phonic association with letter forms, both visually and kinesthetically presented and reproduced in writing until the correct associations were built up,” would be the best learning approach for students of all ages. Dr. Orton had his patients trace, copy, and write letters while saying their corresponding sounds and associations. Today this method is known as multisensory learning.
Children with dyslexia often struggle with auditory and/or visual processing. They have trouble recalling words and how they are pronounced. This means that they do not comprehend the roles that sounds play in words. These children have difficulties rhyming words as well as blending sounds together to form words. Dyslexic children do not understand or acquire the alphabetic code or system expected of them in the primary grades. If a child with dyslexia is given a task that uses just hearing and vision, without drawing upon other senses, the student will be at a disadvantage. When taught with a multisensory approach, children will learn alphabetic patterns and words by utilizing all pathways – hearing (auditory), seeing (visual), touching (tactile) and moving (kinesthetic).
Dyslexic students do not need more of the same instruction in class but a different type of instruction. They need to learn basic language sounds and the letters that make them, starting from the very beginning and moving forward in a gradual step by step process. For all of this to “stick” they need to do this by using their eyes, ears, voices, and hands.
CHINESE PROVERB
Tell me, and I will forget.
Show me, and I may remember.
Involve me, and I will understand.
________________________________________________________________________________
Karina Richland, M.A., E.T. is the Managing Director of Pride Learning Centers, located in Los Angeles and Orange County. A former teacher for Los Angeles Unified School District, Ms. Richland is a reading and learning disability specialist. Ms. Richland speaks frequently to parents, teachers, and professionals on learning differences, and writes for several journals and publications. You can reach her by email at: info@pridelearningcenter.com or visit the Pride Learning Center website at:
www.pridelearningcenter.com
by PRIDE Reading Program Admin | Aug 29, 2010 | A PRIDE Post, ADHD
By: Melanie R. Silverman MS, RD, IBCLC
Pediatric Registered Dietitian●Lactation Consultant
Feeding Philosophies www.feedingphilosophies.com
Raising kids is an emotional experience, both exhilarating and exhausting. Watching your child learn to walk, talk or swim can be the exhilarating part. Those middle-of-the-night feedings, temper tantrums and childhood illnesses are exhausting. Another emotionally charged part of raising kids can be their nutrition; what they eat and what they won’t eat. Talk about frustrating. You can spend 90 minutes on dinner grilling that salmon, steaming kale, and boiling quinoa for dinner, but the kicker is getting your kid to eat it. What makes it more worrisome for parents is that now, more than ever, we know how important early nutrition is in childhood development and learning. Getting your kid to eat can be challenging, but it can be done.
When parents see me they think I have these magic meals or super savvy snack ideas that are jammed packed with nutrition that kids are going to love. I wish I did, but I don’t and I don’t know anyone that works in this field that does. Getting your child to expand his or her repertoire of food is a process and I divide it into two parts when working with parents; the first is WHAT to feed and the second is HOW to feed.
The “WHAT”: The best “brain food” , and you may have guessed it, is going to be vegetables and fruits, lean proteins, nuts, beans, seeds, lower fat dairy products and whole grains. Planning menus with these foods is ideal.
The “HOW”: This is the larger issue that many parents do not understand and underestimate its power. Ask yourself where, when and how are you feeding your child? Structured meals and snacks are imperative for all children, no matter the issue. And frequent snacking is going to guarantee that expanding your child’s repertoire of healthy “brain food” is going to be a challenge. Furthermore, there is a psychology behind raising a nutritionally healthy child and it is going to mean taking an insightful look at the way you, as the parent, were raised nutritionally and how you eat now.
I have tissue boxes all over my office because parents cry out of frustration when describing to me the picky eating habits their children have. Once parents have the education on what to feed and implement the right way to feed their children, kids are eating and parents are smiling. Changing how you feed your child takes time and patience, but it’s worth it for your peace of mind as the parent and for your child’s physical and emotional health.
Join me at Pride Learning Center Newport Beach on Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 7:00pm to learn more specifically about the “Brain Foods” and how we can get our children to eat them. Get your questions answered and get your child eating!
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Melanie R. Silverman MS, RD, IBCLC is a pediatric registered dietitian and board certified lactation consultant. She is the owner of Feeding Philosophies (www.feedingphilosophies.), a private pediatric nutrition counseling business where she treats a variety of issues: ADD/ADHD, picky eating, underweight, overweight, food allergic, vegetarian/vegan, g-tube fed and Prader-Willi Syndrome. If you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment for your child, please contact Melanie at 949.271.9125 or Melanie@feedingphilosophies.com. Phone and Skype appointments available. Follow Melanie on Facebook (Feeding Philosophies) or Twitter (FeedPhilosophy) and learn more about what and how to feed your kids.
by PRIDE Reading Program Admin | Aug 17, 2010 | A PRIDE Post, ADHD
By Karina Richland, M.A., E.T.
I just finished the book, Inside the Teenage Brain: Parenting a Work in Progress, by Sheryl Feinstein. It is an easy read and I was able to finish the entire book in a few days. It is a fabulous parenting guide and will really help parents and teachers understand the complexity of the teenage brain and give them some valuable insight into their teenager’s mind.
I was particularly interested in the chapters on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as well as Learning Disabilities and how we as parents and teachers can understand the abnormalities in many parts of the brain in our teenagers. I did learn, that according to the research, there is clear evidence that there is a biological difference between the brains of ADHD individuals and others.
In Chapter 1, the book covers basic information on the teenage brain, how it differs from the adult brain and why adults find the teenager’s actions so challenging and confusing. I especially enjoyed learning about the overproduction of dendrites and synaptic connections and how valuable education and learning is during these teenage years. Adolescents are acquiring knowledge at an unprecedented rate during the teenage years. The more the student is engaged in an activity, the more dendrites grow and build synaptic connections. The teenager is given a second chance in life to really build up that brain! The more time that is dedicated to reading, writing, math, music, and sports – the better the brain is formed for the future. Not only is the brain producing dendrites like crazy, but it is also going through a pruning process – use it or lose it!
Chapters 2 – 11 go into detail discussing social, emotional, physical, educational and technological issues that both parents and teenagers face daily. Each chapter provides strategies for parents or teachers that work and also don’t work.
The entire book is written in a very parent-friendly manner. The sections on neurology and neuroscience are easily understood and absolutely not intimidating. I highly recommend this book to all parents and teachers. The more parents read, research and learn about the inner workings of their teenager’s brain, the better parents and teachers we all will be.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Karina Richland, M.A., E.T. is the Managing Director of Pride Learning Centers, located in Los Angeles and Orange County. A former teacher for Los Angeles Unified School District, Ms. Richland is a Reading and Learning Disability Specialist. Ms. Richland speaks frequently to parents, teachers, and professionals on learning differences, and writes for several journals and publications. You can reach her by email at: info@pridelearningcenter.com or visit the Pride Learning Center website at:
www.pridelearningcenter.com
by PRIDE Reading Program Admin | Jun 27, 2010 | Summer Programs
School is finally out and now is the time for splashing in the pool, running in the yard, playing at the park and relaxing with friends. Summer is also the time to catch up and get ahead in crucial reading skills that might be lacking during the school year. Children who read during the summer months gain reading skills, while those who do not often experience learning losses.
Research has shown that the few months of loss in reading skills over the summer months compounds over the years; by the time children reach middle school, those who haven’t read during the summers may have lost as much as two years worth of achievement.
Trying to balance the busy, physical activities that the warm summer weather brings with quiet reading time daily is not an easy task for most parents. Some children welcome the idea of reading books during the summer months, while others, particularly weak or reluctant readers, will find this a tedious chore.
The good news is that if children read just six books over summer vacation, they will likely avoid summer reading loss! Try some of these tips to make sure your child’s summer reading goes smoothly:
- Set aside a consistent time each day for reading. Summer camps, play dates, and videos are all fun things kids like to do during the summer. However, by the end of the day, children may be too tired to pick up a book and read. When planning summer time activities for your child, remember to leave some time in their schedules for reading. Find a convenient time each day – before bedtime or over breakfast.
- Help your child select books at a comfortable level. If you are having trouble judging, consult your local librarian who is likely to be an expert in matching books to reading levels. Another great source is the Lexile Framework for Reading. This website will give you a Lexile Measure from a reading test. You can then look up books according to your child’s lexile measure. The website is: www.lexile.com. If your child makes 5 or more errors in reading a page of around 50 words – the book is too challenging.
- Become a reader yourself and lead by example! Read the newspaper at breakfast, pick up a magazine at the doctor’s office, and take a book to the beach or on your family picnics. If kids see adults around them reading often, they will understand that reading can be a fun and important part of their summer days.
- Read about your vacation destination before you go. Have your child read about your travel spots ahead of time and help plan the trip for you. If you go camping, explore the wildlife and scenery on-line.
- Read a book that is now a movie, and then take them to see the movie!
- Make sure to bring books on vacation, outings and errands to keep your children occupied and entertained with great stories. Pack books in your beach bag and picnic baskets instead of electronic game devices.
- Connect books with activities! Read a story that mentions something yummy to eat and then try out a recipe at home. Try some exotic foods from stories from other countries.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Karina Richland, M.A., E.T. is the Managing Director of Pride Learning Centers, located in Los Angeles and Orange County. A Reading and Learning Disability Specialist, Ms. Richland speaks frequently to parents, teachers, and professionals on learning differences, and writes for several journals and publications. You can reach her by email at: info@pridelearningcenter.com or visit the Pride Learning Center website at:
www.pridelearningcenter.com
