Good Sensory Learning Blog

About 20 years ago, when I first began offering students one-to-one Orton Gillingham based reading remediation, I was having to bribe my students to read long lists of words, word parts, and nonsense syllables. My enticements began with candy, moved to stickers, and finally morphed into a well-stocked prize box. This worked, but I found that I was getting my students hooked on external reinforcements, and that what I really wanted was for them to be internally motivated. I wanted to kindle a joy for learning. How Could I Bring the Fun Factor into my Lessons? I began to look...

This week, I would like to feature a guest blog by the American Dyslexia Association (ADA), a wonderful resource for teachers, parents and individuals with dyslexia. What is ADA and What Resources Do They Offer? ADA is a not for profit organization that provides help for individuals with dyslexia and dyscalculia by offering free online printable worksheets to help children improve their reading, writing, spelling and calculating difficulties. The worksheets, that are based on the Attention Function Symptom (AFS) Method, help children improve academic challenges. This scientifically proven method has been helping children with dyslexia worldwide for over 20 years....

While reading, one must visually track across the page from one line to the next. For many, this can be tricky when the text is small, but for countless students with dyslexia or weak reading skills, it can be a problem regardless of the font size. So why is this the case? Perhaps one of the problems is poor visual tracking skills. What Exactly is Tracking? Visual tracking is the ability to move one's eyes smoothly across the text from one line to another. Tracking difficulties happen when eyes jump backward and forward and struggle to stay on a single line of...

The brain is an extremely complex infrastructure of neural highways and byways, and each student has their own unique pattern of established pathways as well as cognitive based strengths and weaknesses. As a result, defining the best remedial techniques for spelling requires a mindful approach that evaluates the cognitive based causes of the spelling difficulty and then tailors a specific remedial approach.  So How Can I Meet the Individual Needs of Each Student for Optimal Learning? There is a four step process to meeting the needs of your struggling spellers. Rule out any vision or hearing problems by asking the...

Alphabetizing is an important skill to master. It helps develop organizational skills, executive functioning abilities and it even improves memory. Furthermore, if we sequence materials that we are encoding into our brains, it makes it easier to access at a later date.  In addition, when we apply these principles to everyday life, it can help us to access our personal materials quicker and more efficiently. Moreover, it is a skill that is needed in many employment positions. The problem is that most alphabetizing activities are dull and boring. Alphabet Roundup is my newest product, and it makes the process both...