Good Sensory Learning Blog

How can we accommodate the needs of struggling readers, so they can quickly master this critical skill?  Pedagogy, an educational method that assumes the learner to be a "blank slate" and dependent on the teacher for guidance, evaluation, and the acquisition of knowledge, is a common approach when assisting struggling readers. However, it is often forgotten that these students do have a wealth of prior knowledge that can be utilized. In addition, many of them have specific learning deficits that have left their learning capacity riddled with booby traps that ambush the encoding of information and sabotages confidence. So how...

Writing can be a wonderful and creative activity for students, however, if learners hate the process it can be difficult to teach them this needed skill.  So what can be done to motivate struggling writers? Why Do Kids Hate Writing? There are a number of reasons a student may hate to write. Hand writing is difficult, labored and even painful.  Many of these learners are much more intelligent than their handwriting would indicate, so many will do whatever they can to avoid writing. Multitasking with the many skills needed to write is overwhelming and taxing.  Students can not truly multitask...

Have you ever wondered if you can turn an image or a PDF or into an editable document? What was once a costly and buggy turnaround, is now free and quick with Google Drive. This can be an invaluable trick that can save students time, resources, and most of all, energy! Let me show you the steps.  What are the Steps? 1) On your computer, go to drive.google.com or select the icons shown in the image below. 2) Drag the desired file into your Google Drive as illustrated below. You can convert JPEG, PNG, GIF, or PDF (multipage documents) files. 3) Select...

Learning to follow both aural and written directions is a crucial skill for students to master. It is the foundation of learning and difficulties in this area can impact a student’s ability to focus, follow a sequence of steps, take notes, answer questions as well as show their knowledge on written assignments and even tests. What Causes Difficulties in Following Directions? Even if a student appears to be listening, it doesn’t mean that they will actually follow directions. Once a student hears the information, the brain needs to make sense of the sounds, and weaknesses in attention, auditory processing, visual processing,...

After a long day of school, many kids are cognitively spent and they have little patience and energy to pull out their assignment pad and slog through more academic work.  Often, what should take little time, drags out into hours and hours and families are often desperate for manageable solutions. What Can We Do to Make Homework a Manageable Task? Stop calling it homework!  Just the name can trigger pouty moods and cantankerous behaviors.  Find another word to use such as assignments or activities.  Use a timer to help some students stay on track.  I usually set the timer for...