Learning Disabilities, What Are The Different Types? - YouTube

Dyslexia and punctuation Jenga - YouTube

Determining Your Marketable Skills - Learning Difficulties

Many of your strengths and abilities are "marketable." This means that they are of value to employers. Your marketable skills can be applied to specific jobs.

Employers will want you to have both job-specific skills and the right disposition and interpersonal skills to adapt to the workplace.

Job-specific skills might include: carpentry, sewing, electrical wiring and bookkeeping.

General skills could include getting along with others, being a team player, managing time, respecting diversity, organizing work, and problem-solving.

Development Dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia is a condition or learning disability which causes difficulty with reading and writing.

Its standard definition is a difficulty in reading and writing in spite of normal development of intelligence, cognitive and sensory abilities.

People are often identified as dyslexic when their reading or writing problems cannot be explained by a lack of intellectual ability, inadequate instruction, or sensory problems such as poor eyesight.

Some disagreement exists as to whether dyslexia does indeed exist as a condition, or whether it simply reflects individual differences among different readers.

For more information about the topic Dyslexia, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:

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Are E-Readers The Answer To Dyslexia?

They seem made to order for the dyslexic, so it’s no wonder educators are turning to e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle, for instance, to give an assist to school kids with dyslexia. No one really knows how successful these tools are in providing help to those for whom reading is a chore. That’s because educators have only now begun testing these reading tools on students who struggle with reading disabilities.

Close Look

Researchers are taking a very close look at e-readers right now. No matter what they end up discovering, it’s clear that the new generation of children is acculturated to a digital landscape. Experts and educators need to change their approach to literacy.

A Selection of available E-Readers

E-Reading Comfort
The modern student has an intimate knowledge of technology and so may feel more comfortable reading with an e-reader rather than from a book. One recent survey discovered that one-third of 9-17 year-old students said they’d read more books for pleasure if they owned an e-reader. On the other hand, there’s not much research to support any claims that e-readers can ameliorate reading issues.

Available Research

There is one small Israeli study, performed by Bar Ilan University’s Ofra Korat, who heads up the university’s Early Childhood Program, which finds that kindergartners and first graders who use digital readers show better progress than those who read from printed texts when it comes to word comprehension and reading.

Intel's e-reader

Audio Files

Today, teachers who don’t make use of e-readers will scan texts for those students with reading issues or visual impairments and use this scanned text to create audio files with the help of special software. Then the students can just listen to the text.

Ben Foss, who created the Intel Reader comments that this process may be effective, but it’s awkward and takes a great deal of time on the part of the teacher. The Intel Reader, on the other hand, is a mobile e-reader that can capture a photo of text and then convert it to an audio file in just seconds. Foss is the director of Intel’s access technology department in Santa Clara, CA.

Reading Independence

Karen Ann Breslow who piloted the Intel Reader with two students last year says that this technology gave students reading independence from their parents and teachers. The reader allows them to read on their own without any need for help from adults. Breslow is sold, feeling that the Intel Reader is liberating for both student and teacher.

Font Size

Another educator, Robyn Rennick, a program coordinator for the Tallahassee, Fla, Dyslexia Research Institute, says that she is loving her Kindle, received as a gift for Christmas. Rennick says that just being able to change the font size may be of assistance for some troubled readers.

But Rennick does caution that many students with reading deficits are dependent on skimming textbook headings for orientation and context. No physical pages to flip through may be a drawback for many of those with reading disabilities.

The iPad as an e-reader

Dyslexia: Video - Maintaining Self Esteem

All credit to Teachers TV for this video

iPad apps selection: Montessori-based learning for kids

Help your kids to learn on their own with this selection of fun and educational Montessori-based learning apps.

Montessori Crosswords - Teach and Learn Spelling with Fun Puzzles for Children
Montessori Crosswords uses word-image-audio combinations to teach young children (from ages 3 to 8) how to spell.

The app uses phonics and fun interactive visual effects to encourage and develop kids' reading, writing and spelling skills.

Three different levels of difficulty make it easy to tailor the app to your child's abilities.
Price: $2.99
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/montessori-crosswords-teach/id384334005?mt=8

Tam & Tao in Numberland HD - Learn numbers with Montessori
This beautifully-designed app takes children on a number-learning adventure through ten animated "Numberland" worlds.

The app is based on Montessori principles and uses creative and fun elements to keep children interested in learning the numbers from one to ten.

While exploring through the worlds, children will learn to write, count and say the numbers. Once your child masters the numbers in English, switch the language to French for an extra challenge.
Price: $4.99
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tam-tao-in-numberland-hd-learn/id388154228?mt=8

Alpha Writer, by Montessorium
Alpha Writer uses elements of the Montessori Moveable Alphabet to teach children how to read, write and spell phonetically.

The app is divided into two sections: the Moveable Alphabet, in which your child learns to spell with phonics, and a storyboard, where your child constructs his or her own stories using a combination of images and words.
Price: $4.99
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alpha-writer-by-montessorium/id394038232?mt=8

Approach to Montessori - Numbers HD
While the user interface might not be as slick as some of the other Montessori apps in the App Store, this app provides a low-cost option for parents eager to see if the Montessori approach is right for their child.

The app offers six different Montessori games including number tracing, number rods, bead stairs and number blocks. After playing with this app your child should be able to recognize, comprehend and write numbers from zero to ten and have a basic grasp of math foundations.

There is also a "power setting" that enables you to adapt the settings to suit your child's learning level.
Price: $2.99
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/approach-to-montessori-numbers/id396628131?mt=8

A Montessori Approach to Math - Hundred Board
A Montessori Approach to Math - Hundred Board helps children learn to count from 1 to 100. The Hundred Board is an exact replica of that used in Montessori classrooms and provides additional lessons on counting with even or odd numbers only.

Children search for the correct number from the jumbled tiles to the right of the board, placing them in the correct ascending order in the shortest amount of time possible.
Price: $2.99
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/a-montessori-approach-to-math/id406327239?mt=8

Differentiated Instruction: What Is It?

Differentiated Instruction and Teaching Children with Learning Disabilities

By Janet W. Lerner and Frank Kline

Editors of Learning Disabilities: A Multidisciplinary Journal

The US. Department of Education (2008) reports that 87% of students  with learning disabilities receive instruction in general education  classes. This number includes both students whose educational placement  is in the general education classroom for most of the day (52%) and  students who are both in a resource room for part of the day and in a  general education classroom for the balance of the day (35%).

General education teachers are often stymied when instruction  designed for the general education student does not meet the needs of  students with learning disabilities. These students need a different  kind of instruction. Differentiated Instruction is recommended to  general education teachers as one method to teach students with learning  disabilities and other special learning needs in general education  classes (Tomlinson, Brimijoin and Narvaez, 2008; Tomlinson, 2001).

It is  interesting to note the many similarities between differentiated  instruction and the philosophy and strategies for teaching special  education students.

The term differentiated instruction reflects a philosophy of teaching  that enables teachers to reach the unique needs of each student,  capitalizing on the student’s strengths and weaknesses. Differentiated  instruction embodies some of the qualities of special education teaching  in the general education classroom.

Advocates of differentiated instruction note that one of the biggest  mistakes we make in teaching is to treat everyone equally when it comes  to learning. With the recognition that not all students are alike,  differentiated instruction applies an approach to teaching and learning  that gives students multiple options for taking in information and  making sense of ideas.

Differentiated instruction recognizes that a  one-size-fits-all curriculum simply will not work for all children.  Children process information differently; some form images, others form  words, and others form sentences.

Differentiated instruction takes their  individual needs into account with teaching that responds to their  personal talents, interests, varying background knowledge, and distinct  experiences. In differentiated instruction, the teacher seeks to find  the special methods that will be successful for an individual student to  help that student learn (Lerner & Johns, 2011; Tomlinson, Brimijoin  and Narvaez, 2008; Tomlinson, 2001).

Dyslexia eBook: Help your child to read

Click on the picture to be directed to the Reading Horizons website.

Empowering Learning: the simplest ideas are often the best

This month we should like to share with you some simple tips that will really assist you and your youngsters.

Whilst doing several lectures over the past few months Olive Hickmott says she was reminded how really simple ideas can make a huge difference to those who are challenged with various study skills.

• Copying down from the board - look at the board and write onto paper without looking at the paper. You don't need to look at the paper and you will be pleasantly surprised at how well you can write. This is much faster and more accurate than looking up at the board and then down to the paper, for every letter.
  
• Improving your handwriting - copy down, as above, some good handwriting, pinned to the wall. This is the most effective way to improve handwriting and proves to you that there is nothing wrong with your hand, arm, brain etc. With just a little practice your handwriting will improve dramatically.
• Keep looking up out of negative emotions - when you are working on a desk sit back, look up and just imagine what you are going to write, looking up at words from your visual memory whenever you need. Don't collapse on the desk, even write on paper on the wall, if you need to - anything to keep you out of looking down and accessing negative emotions.

All of these and many more we cover in our Empowering Learning training programmes. They are so simple to do and will dramatically help with school work or your career. Try them out for yourself, teach them to your children and watch the results. You are always very welcome to contact me for more details than I can cover here.

The 1st research project from us is the International Association for Health and Learning

There is also a special FREE teleclass for learning difficulties on Thursday 20th January, 7:30 when Olive will be talking about how grounding affects learning difficulties.

Just email olive@empoweringlearning.co.uk to book your place. They have more research planned for 2011, so this is your opportunity to make a real difference, whether you are a parent, teachers or practitioner - we can all contribute.

Suggested Blog Reading: Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs

I was recently contacted by DDuck and they suggested I check out the Typ-O TTS Word Prediction Text App. I have done so and find it very encouraging but I will need feedback from my readers before I could say that I have comprehensively reviewed it.

Will you help? Send me your feedback on this app and tell me what you like and don't like.

In the meantime here is an extract from DDuck's blog, and vey interesting it is too:

I am trying out a new iPad App called Typ-o HD It is a word prediction App for those with dyslexia As a dyslexic I have found spelling on the iDevices to be the most frustrating thing I can think of. The automatic word replacement nearly always does not use the word I meant. It is crazy making to have a text you worked hard on read like a Mad Lib. Additionally I often times touch a misspelled word only to have the pop up show that there is no word that is close enough to what I spelled for it to make suggestions.

The best spelling correction program I have ever used is that which is built into the web browser Firefox. It works for me because it underlines misspelled words and then gives me a list of possible words when I right click on the underlined word; infrequently I have spelled something so incorrectly that this method doesn't work for me, but then I can usually get pretty close to what I meant with a few attempts at sounding out the word (phonetic encoding).

I have used word prediction programs in the past, usually Write:Outloud by Don Johnston, but I often times do not find word prediction to be that useful. Luckily I can usually pick the word I want from a list of potential words. So I am capable of using word prediction. Typeo is nice because you can click the "play" icon next to any word and hear it said to be able to find out if it is the word you meant Thus far typeo seems to be working OK for me except it is hard to get used to looking at the word prediction for words I might misspell.

Check out the full article at Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs

New Disney Channel star to tackle dyslexia and Learning difficulties

Bella Thorne is making a splash on the Disney Channel’s new “Shake It Up!” – in fact, the network is banking on the fetching 13-year-old becoming a breakout star as Miley Cyrus moves on into adulthood.

Thorne tells us that, along with the high jinks of the comedy, in which she plays a teen backup dancer on a fictional TV program called and “Shake It Up Chicago,” there’ll be a few serious moments ahead on the show. “We deal with teen issues like having friends, and dealing with my dyslexia and other learning disabilities.” Her character, CeCe Jones, says, “is dyslexic, like me.

“She tries her best to stay in school, to stay on the show. Sometimes it’s really challenging. Sometimes she handles it kind of rough.”

How does Bella handle it? Does she have someone read lines with her?

“I do that with my brother sometimes. I do it with my mother. She will say a line, read a word, and say
‘That’s how it’s supposed to be pronounced.”

To read more go to BeckSmithHollywood.com.

Dealing with Adult Dyslexia

One of the first things you should do if you think you might have adult dyslexia is to go for professional testing and diagnosis. This will allow you to work on accurate strategies to help you address and overcome your issues.

Many people with adult dyslexia try to hide their daily struggles, which can only make things worse, because neither you nor the people around you will know what’s really going on. You will only spend a lot of time and effort on developing coping strategies instead of getting to the root of the problem.

Try to manage your time better
Many adults diagnosed with dyslexia have time management issues and one way of overcoming this is to maintain a daily planner, in which they write absolutely everything down, within reason.

Remember your mother's diary, the old yuppie filofax, well we now have a startling number of low and high tech devices to help us take notes and keep track of our time.

Pick something that you find simple and convenient to use, something that fits with your life style, a planning touchstone to refer back to, as frequently as you need to, to check on what, how and when things are due.

Gadgets can help
Around the house you can use a simple wind up cooker timer to keep track of activities but when you are out and about you can use some of the newer electronic gadgets on the market today. Something with alarms you can set to remind you in advance that you have an appointment to keep or a presentation to make, etc,.

Other, more expensive gadgets can take a snapshot of a sign, document or other text and read it back to you through an earpiece or out loud, depending on what you prefer.

These capabilities are now built into or loaded on to mobile devices and smartphones, which can travel with you when you travel and are particularly helpful if you are going to a strange city. These devices are discussed at length in other postings on this blog.

Lack of short-term auditory memory
One of the characteristics of dyslexia is a lack of, or deterioration of short-term auditory memory. By repeating instructions or directions back to someone after hearing them, and writing them down or even recording those directions in your diary, is a simple method to help overcome this particular obstacle.

You should also try to focus on key words and perhaps try to visualise these words in a series of mental pictures.

Improve your reading and writing
One way to work on improving your reading and writing skills is to break words into their basic sound components i.e. blends, graphs, diphthongs. etc, and then learn to rearrange the sounds to produce different words.

This technique has been shown to help adult dyslexics develop better reading fluency while producing fewer errors in their writing.

Summary
If you have been diagnosed with dyslexia, you shouldn’t despair. It may take some time to rebuild your self-esteem and confidence, especially if you’ve been trying to manage this disorder without external or additional support.

You should keep in mind that being dyslexic does not mean you’re unintelligent or unable to learn; it just means your brain is wired differently.

If you have any questions or comments on this post please let us know at dyslexiauntied@gmail.com

No Gender Differences in Learning

The notion that "boys and girls learn differently"—now sadly an article of faith among many educators—is largely lacking in empirical support. Neither psychologists nor neuroscientists have identified any meaningful differences between boys' and girls' mental or neural processing as they learn how to speak, read, or memorise their times tables.

Boys and girls obviously differ in their interests, but as extensive meta-analyses have shown, their differences in cognitive and emotional abilities—ranging from verbal and mathematical skill to attention span, memory, empathy, and even activity level—are far smaller than the range of such abilities among girls or boys alone.

In this light, teachers must carefully consider statements "boys are much more likely than girls to be graphic thinkers and kinesthetic learners." Indeed, this highlights a classroom in which the majority of girls opted for a visual-spatial over a written project, counter to the claim that boys' brains are more “graphically-oriented.”


The truth is that all people learn kinesthetically, including medical students, both male and female, and who need to get their hands on real human brain specimens to consolidate their understanding of neuroanatomy. Children, both male and female, are even more kinesthetic than adults, as Piaget and Montessori first taught us.

Gender differences in academic performance are an important issue, but they are not going to be resolved through the propagation of pseudoscience. It's time teachers appreciate the true, nuanced science of sex difference—that boys and girls are not from separate planets, and must be treated, first and foremost, as individuals, rather than gender stereotypes.

Lise Eliot, PhD, Chicago Medical School, Rosalind Franklin University, North Chicago, IL.

Dyslexia - Get Ready to Read!

Get Ready to Read! is a 10 minute, 20 question, screening tool to help identify if your 4 year old children need help with the foundational language skills required to become good readers.

Children who are vulnerable can receive small group preventative instruction in letter recognition, letter-sound correspondences, rhyming, and segmenting and blending sounds.

Even brief daily interventions by volunteers with minimal training appear to result in substantial growth in language skills.

Speech and language therapists can be very adept at helping to remediate language delays in one to one or small group sessions.

The tool is designed to screen a child twice during the year before kindergarten. Use the tool first in the Fall or Autumn, one year before the child enters kindergarten, and again the next year or Fall, just before kindergarten begins, to measure the child's progress.

Don't use the tool more than three times in a year. It's not designed to measure small changes, and children develop new skills gradually.