WHAT & WHY

Teaching our children to listen and learn well through their ears alone is an important and under talked about life skill these days. Since the day of the TV dawned we have become more and more reliant on learning through our eyes. But it’s important to be able to learn through our ears – remembering names, asking for directions and taking instructions are all important tasks that are asked of us regularly.

A fun way, to practice auditory learning (learning through our ears) is to make up stories for your children to listen too.

I can hear you thinking “Whooaaaa?!?! Me make up a story… from scratch….on the spot??!? ‘a’int going to happen!”

Well, yes, it is. I’m going to give you an easy (peasy) technique that will make you look like a pro in no time at all.

 HOW

You will get your cue for this tonight, when you are reading bedtime stories to your child, and you hear the familiar “Pleeeeease! Just one more story! Say “Sure, let’s make one up together.” and ask these two simple questions:

• What is the name of the person this story is about? <Child inserts name here>
• Where is <name> going? <Child inserts place here>

Now you have a name and a destination, you can cobble some sort of story together. Don’t go for award winning perfection because what matters is that you try. Kids typically choose themselves for the character or a person very important to them. Because of this and the novelty factor, what ever you say, will likely be a hit.

WHAT’S NEXT

Give it a go for a few days, after the initial shock to your system you’ll find that your brain starts to relax and amazing, creative stories will start to come forth from inside you. It’s a great way to share some intimate, high quality time with your child all while your child learns to enjoy listening to learn.

Have fun!

Children want to spend time with their parents and as a parent you are the most important teacher in your child’s life. When families sit down to play Notch Hill Learning Systems, magic really happens. Children and parents alike are drawn into the process and soon look forward to it as a highlight of the day.

There are many studies showing the benefits of spending quality time with your children. The piece that is not talked about so much is that the importance lies in “quality” and not “quantity”. Studies show that a working Mom who spends 30 minutes at the end of the  day focused on her child will likely have done more good than a stay at home Mom who has been around her child but not interacted and involved the child.

In one study, called “Ask The Children” by the Families and Work Institute. 1000 children from grade 3-12 were asked what they thought about the time spent with their parents. Results showed that children were more likely to rate their parents positively if the time spent together was relaxed and focused.

If you are the kind of parent who sees value in spending quality time with your children each day, try one of our play-based Learning Systems with our zero risk trial. See the results in 30 days for yourself or receive a full refund. Click here to find out which Learning System works best for your child.

“Play is the work of childhood”

The famous Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget said this in the 70’s. His point was that play is the natural vehicle for learning in children. Children play whenever an opportunity arises. Nature intended them to be like this because as they play they learn social, motor and cognitive skills. A  famous study started in 1972 by the University of North Carolina’s Abecedarian Early Child Intervention Program randomly assigned preschoolers to either a play enriched preschool program or to a regular preschool program. The study found that the children in the play enriched program had significantly higher IQ’s at age five than the control group. Furthermore, over the years those children have maintained their lead. Thirty years later they have been more likely to go to college and have been less likely to be unemployed than their counterparts.

Play as a way to ‘unlock’ the brain:

Our bodies have a primitive mechanism for dealing with situations that make us nervous. Embedded deep in our brain is the hypothalamus. One of the earliest parts of the brain to evolve, the hypothalamus has protected mankind since the beginning. Imagine you are a cave man faced with a hungry bear. You have two choices – you can fight the bear or you can run away. Your hypothalamus knows this and immediately readies the body for either scenario sending blood flow away from your stomach and skin and into your muscles. Your hearing becomes irrelevant and your vision tunnel-like. The higher reasoning parts of your brain also shut down you become entirely in the moment, ready to run like stink at a milliseconds notice. This is a natural reflex called the “fight or flight reflex”.

Unfortunately, our hypothalamus can’t tell the difference between a big hungry bear and a scary spelling test. Anxiety sets off the fight or flight reflex to a greater or lesser extent and because the higher brain is the first to shut down, it is very hard to learn when you are stressed.

When children play, it takes the pressure off and any anxiety they have towards learning melts away. Once the anxiety is gone the brain can work as it should again and the learning can happen.

At Notch Hill we have seen children blossom using the power of play time and time again. It doesn’t matter whether children are struggling in school or not. Learning through play is a natural and highly effective way to learn. If you see brilliance in your child and are wondering how to unlock it, try one of our play-based Learning Systems with our zero risk trial. Give it a go and see the results in 30 days for yourself or receive a full refund. Click here to find out which Learning System works best for your child.

Here is our list of ways to help your Grey Area child.

Roughly in order from the most affordable to quite expensive.If you are wondering what a ‘Grey Area child’ is click here.

Talk to your child’s teacher:

Your child’s teacher will have many suggestions to help you assist your child. Typically they will be in the form of extra practice to take home and do together.

Focus on your child :

Spending lots of quality time together and finding ways to include reading into your child’s hobbies is a gentle way of helping. Reading recipes can be involved in cooking. Fact finding on the internet can be fun as can asking your child to be part of planning a holiday or day trip.

Purchase a program :

Working at home together with a program like one of the Notch Hill Literacy Programs is both affordable and targeted. A good program should be fun, teach through different senses and teach many of the ‘hidden skills’ that are needed before reading will happen.

Be wary of computer programs:

Children are really smart, many computer based literacy programs are graphically astounding…but the graphics often give away the answer without the child actually having to do the reading. If you have a computer program you like, be sure to sit with your child as he or she completes it in order to make sure that it is being used as you are expecting. Sitting together also makes it a social activity which is a key way to help your child enjoy doing extra ‘homework’.

There are a couple of computer programs that are little different :

• For maths I love the Kahn Academy – it’s free, it’s online, it’s fantastic.
• For reading I’ve heard good things about Fast ForWord. Using a Neuroplasticity approach it teaches literacy through ‘brain games.’ Unfortunately licenses are typically bought by school districts. Ask your child’s teacher if access is available to you. Parents in the Lower Mainland can check out Reading and Learning Pathways.

Tutors:

Tutors can be wonderful, tutors can be a disaster. Click here to read more about picking a tutor. For Grey Area kids Multi-sensory programs are a must, tutors that follow Orton-Gillingham are typically good. In the Lower Mainland – check out Symbols.

Schools:

The Cadillac of options – you are looking at around $25k + a year to send your child to a private school that caters for children with learning challenges. For that price however, you will re-build your child’s education and self esteem. Schools in the Lower Mainland are Eaton Arrowsmith, Fraser Academy & Kenneth Gordon Maplewood School.

If you have a Grey Area child who is struggling in one or more areas at school, options for help are varied depending on your budget. Finding a tutor is a common solution, and can make a huge difference for your child. Tutors, like people, come in all varieties, from dismal to fantastic so here is my five top tips on picking a great tutor for your family.

• Class size:

Some tutors work, one-on-one with your child. Other tutoring companies put two or three children & teens of varying ages in the classroom together. For a child struggling in school, the smaller the better, ideally go for one-on-one coaching. Self esteem issues go hand in hand with struggling in school and children very quickly become adept at finding ways around the area they struggle in so he doesn’t look “stupid” in front of his friends. Working one-on-one with a tutor creates a safe space for a child to be honest about where he really is without comparing himself to his friends. Kids who are struggling in class require 100% of the attention of whoever they are working with because often the problem that is holding the child back is deeper than initially thought. Like a detective, a good tutor will pick up on small clues the child unknowingly gives to ferret out the real issues at hand.

• Teaching Style:

Einstein said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results. There are many thousands of tutors out there who apparently have never heard this before. If your child were struggling with long division, this type of tutor would bring a pile of long division exercises and sit with your child while she did them over and over again. If you were lucky, your child will have a moment of brilliance when she figured out a technique for completing long division herself. Generally, however you would end up with a frustrated child and tutor. A good teacher knows that it is the teacher’s fault when the learner doesn’t learn. It is up to the teacher to find a way to teach that person in a way that works for the learner. When looking for a tutor, you are looking for a person who can be creative in his or her teaching approach. Multi Sensory Learning programs are phenomenal in this perspective.

• Experience:

Teaching is something that is 10% learned and 90% experience. Many tutors are tutoring because they have just graduated and haven’t been able to get a teaching job yet. The gift that new tutors bring is an ability to connect with children and an energy that older tutors have lost. A new tutor working for a tutoring company with an excellent multi sensory program for the tutor to follow and experienced co-workers to learn from can work well but pales in comparison to experience. A good experienced tutor however, has a sixth sense. An ability to almost sniff out holes in a child’s learning and come at problems from different angles to fill the holes and build confidence.

• Independent or Corporate:

Tutoring is big business these days. The reality is that tutoring is mostly about the person. You can find a great independent tutor on craigslist as well as a great tutor in a company. Go with the person not the glossy brochures.

• Personality:

Sometimes personalities don’t match. Your child may just not connect with the fabulous tutor you have found. The best way to avoid this is to involve your child in the selection process.

Finding an excellent tutor can be a game changer for a child struggling in school. If it works, don’t expect it to be a short solution. The extra help gives children confidence that they can succeed, you will need to be sensitive it may be a while before your child feels that he or she can survive in school without the extra help. If you are looking for other options for your Grey Area child click here. Speaking as someone who has both had a tutor and been a tutor it’s always been a fun experience for me, I hope you have the same experiences.

If you took a cross section through every classroom in Canada each class would look similar. There are the kids who breeze through the academic challenges put to them with ease. There are the average kids who are doing “just fine”, there are the kids with challenges who receive extra assistance and then there are the ‘grey area kids’. This illusive group is rarely talked about but are part of every classroom. These are the kids who are not keeping up with the class, but they haven’t been diagnosed with anything so the only extra help they receive is from their already extremely time strapped teacher.

Grey area kids can remain in this limbo for several years until they are diagnosed with a learning disorder or are so far behind that they qualify for extra help. Unfortunately by this time, these children typically have massive self esteem issues.

While studies have shown time and time again, that the sooner a child is given intervention the better. Teacher’s hands are tied. With limited resources at their disposal, grey area kids continue to struggle in classrooms across the country.

Is your kid a Grey Area kid?

If you are concerned that your child falls into this category, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does your child enjoy school?
• Does your child typically find homework manageable?
• Would you say that your child is keeping up with the rest of the class?

If you answered “no” to these questions, don’t panic. Schedule a meeting with your child’s teacher and have a candid conversation about how your child is doing.

What is next?
If your child’s teacher highlights some areas that your child is struggling in, let the teacher know that you are willing to be part of the solution. While teachers typically understand that it’s better to help a child than to wait, because of limited resources many will advise parents to watch the child and wait to see if he/she catches up on his/her own. Depending on the issues at hand ways to help are varied and can go from the very simple – teacher sending special homework home for your child. To custom designed curriculums.

Ways to help Grey Area Kids

How to pick a great Tutor

“Nicola, you have to try really hard to focus” my Mum would tell me at home when she was looking at my school book. I tried.

Atrocious spelling became a reoccurring theme for me. I had a simpler solution to the mysteries of punctuation. I avoided it entirely. No matter how many times it was explained to me, it seemed to be an impenetrable code that was just far more effort than it was worth. I didn’t use a single capital letter or period until I was about 10 years old.

I developed a similar technique with math, which, was also completely impossible. Instead of spending hours agonising over a page of addition or subtraction, I simply filled the answer boxes with whatever numbers came to mind. Simple, painless and my teacher could see that I had completed the page so I was allowed to go on to an activity far more enjoyable.

This was a short lived solution, unfortunately, because getting 0% correct day after day was a red flag for both my teacher and mother and so math homework became a reoccurring theme in my life also.

My Mother was a Special Education tutor. Through the eyes of a child this was a problem. I was quite happy to sit at the back of the classroom and quietly fail. It was much easier and once you let go of the whole “enjoyment of getting things right” mentality, school was quite palatable.

My Mother on the other hand wasn’t happy with this situation and started teaching me at home. She taught me through games so I would forget that I was doing something I hated and found hard and just enjoy the fun of the game.

Slowly over many years my long suffering Mom won the battle. In doing so she taught me much about fighting for what I want and work ethic. Today, I have a university degree, a good career and if you met me, you wouldn’t know that I have both Dyslexia and Dyscalculia.

My brain is wired slightly differently to yours, this gives me tremendous benefits. I wouldn’t change my learning disabilities and years of hard work for a more traditional life.

On March 8^th, 2012 I will be sharing my experiences and providing a resource workshop for parents who are starting to wonder if their children are on track in school. Join the conversation yourself at Hillcrest Community Centre 7 – 8:30 “Wondering about skool?”

Anon