Good Sensory Learning Blog

It is estimated that up to 10% of the general population struggles with dyslexia. While some studies call that a conservative estimate, many more people of all ages struggle to read and spell. Many parents with dyslexic students or even adults with dyslexia or other learning disabilities find themselves in this situation. They are armed with a label but no real solution and some may feel it means that those with reading and spelling difficulties will never come to love reading and written language. However, with the right help that is almost certainly not the case! There are Many Ways to...

I'm sure most of you have experienced the act of reading a book while your mind was wandering elsewhere. Consequently, you can probably appreciate how easy it is for youngsters to miss meaning while reading. Although teachers, reading specialists, and even parents spend an enormous amount of time instructing young learners how to decode the written word, they often neglect to fully teach the metacognitive skills required to comprehend text. What are the Common Causes of Reading Comprehension Problems? There are a number of indicators that can be used to flag students who will likely require explicit instruction in reading...

On Friday, December 10th, 2015, Barack Obama Signed the Every Student Succeeds Act. This new law now rewrites the No Child Left Behind Act and offers a number of changes that could have both positive and negative ramifications for students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. As with any new law, the true pros and cons will be revealed over time, but here is a list of considerations. The Pros and Cons of ESSA The true test of this law lies in the specifics that will soon be defined by each state. Clearly, it will be important for advocates to...

Getting the needed accommodations for struggling students can be a long and arduous process. Whether you pursue 504 or IEP accommodations, there are some things you can do to help assure that you will be pleased with the outcomes. In this blog post, I share a few tips and strategies. What Do I Know? Over the past 20 years, working as a learning specialist, educational therapist, and advocate, I have attended countless 504 and IEP meetings. Some meetings went amicably and resulted in the desired outcomes, while others became a toilsome battleground that left the participants egos scarred and scraped and the student pulled between...

I recently finished a publication, Mindful Visualization for Learning,  that reviews the history and research behind visualization and then provides teachers everything they need to assess and teach this complex skill. In celebration, I wanted to share one of my favorite games, Picture This and Draw. What is Visualization Visualization is an internal, cognitive tool that enables student to picture imagery in their mind's eye.  Like a dream, stories, past experiences, and even future events are imagined on an inner sketch pad.   How Visualization Improves Academics Visualization is important because it aids in memory encoding and retrieval. In addition, it is a...