Good Sensory Learning Blog

Motivation is thought to be a common culprit that plagues students, however this couldn't be further from the truth.  As Rick Lavoie said, "It is not that students become unmotivated, because all human behavior is motivated." Instead, other factors such as anxiety, a poor self-esteem, learned helplessness, depression, and learning disabilities are just a few real causes that impact learning and appear to impact motivation. How Can We Help Students that Appear to be Unmotivated? First, we must try to understand the root causes of the unwanted behaviors. One can try to uncover these blockades through discussion, but it may...

I am truly honored and very excited to share an interview that I conducted with Renee Jain. Renee is an award-winning technology entrepreneur, speaker and certified life coach that specializes in cultivating mindful resilience skills for children and adults. Renee has transformed research-based concepts into fun and multisensory learning modules and workbooks that are ideal for teachers and students. My questions focused on her site, GoStrengths!, that offers metacognitive techniques through digital animation and activities. However, I soon learned, as will you, that she has a number of fabulous products and resources. Erica: Hi Renee. Thank you for making the time...

Text to speech software is a valuable tool that comes for free on all Mac computers, and now a number of free apps make this technology available at no cost for PC users too. Text to speech has been used as an accommodation for struggling readers, but did you know that it is also an advantageous device for writers too? In fact, I often teach my students how to use this technology to help them edit their written language. What is Text to Speech Software? Text to Speech software is a form of speech synthesis that converts text to a...

Finding excellent educational materials when you are homeschooling your children can be a challenge, but when you have a child with a learning disability, such as dyslexia, it is extremely important to utilize fun and engaging multisensory materials as well as cognitive remedial tools that make the learning process both enjoyable and memorable. What is Dyslexia? Dyslexia, a common condition that effects 5 to 10 percent of all people, is a learning disability that impacts decoding and comprehension of text as well as spelling and written language. Common causes of these difficulties are visual and/or auditory processing weaknesses that make it...

I love to use foam blocks for all sorts of language arts fun. Most recently, I created a game that my students adore. I call it letter cubes.  Here are the steps, so you can create it too. You can purchase colorful foam cubes on Amazon for a very reasonable price. I included a link at the bottom of the post. Select 12 cubes. I line the cubes up in a row and write all the vowels in capital letters (including "y") on each cube two times making sure not to place the same vowel on a single cube more...