Good Sensory Learning Blog

This blog shares my most recent video podcast featuring Winston Chen, the author of my favorite app for readers with dyslexia. This is the first of many free video podcasts for Go Dyslexia! Winston founded Voice Dream while on sabbatical on an island north of the Arctic Circle and his flagship product Voice Dream Reader is an amazing technology device that offers text-to-voice for audiobooks, PDFs, and more. This top-selling iOS app has a recent, free, comprehensive update with some new extraordinary features. Come learn about this creation and view a demonstration of this amazing tool that is changing the...

Challenges with spelling disrupt the flow of thoughts, distract the writer, and often result in poor word choice. Even though the author may have an excellent speaking vocabulary, their writing may suffer due to the avoidance of words that are difficult to spell. What's more, many poor spellers skirt writing altogether because navigating spelling potholes can be time-consuming, and they fear that others will question their intellect. What Can Be Done to Help Poor Spellers? The technology age offers a number of excellent tools for struggling spellers. Speech-to-Text Software: Speech-to-text is a type of software that transcribes the spoken word...

A strong working memory is now reported to be the cornerstone to academic success. It is a mental notepad where we post both visual and auditory information until we need to use it in short-term memory.  Strengthening one's working memory can have a profound effect on a students' learning capacity, and there are activities that can help exercise this core cognitive skill. How Can I Learn to Strengthen Working Memory? Providing fun and engaging activities that require working memory such as Red Light, Green Light can help. However, ready-made activities that were designed specifically to exercise working memory can save time...

I think we all agree that no two people have the same strengths and weaknesses. But because we cannot observe the inner workings of the brain, it’s easy to assume that what helps us learn, will help everyone. In fact, some teachers and parents may insist on certain approaches. So should parents and teachers step out of their own preferred ways of learning and accommodate the unique needs of others?  How can this possibly be done? What are the 12 Ways of Processing? I have been working with children and adults as an educational therapist for over twenty years, and...

Bringing creativity and crafts into reading and spelling lessons can make learning more engaging and fun!  Research now suggests that playful learning methods increase learning and joy in the process. What are sight words? Sight words are commonly used words that students memorize so that they can automatically recognize them in print.  Learning all the sight words in the English language can be a challenging task for beginning readers, and finding fun and engaging activities to help them master these phonetically unconventional words can be a chore. One of my students recently came to a session with a charming bracelet that...