Olive Hickmott: Empowering Learning New Year message

Let me first wish you, my valued reader, a very prosperous and highly successful New Year in 2013.

I am sure you have spent some time in the last week reflecting on your life and family in 2012 and are planning a whole set of new adventures for 2013.

This week I received a message from my original guide and mentor, Olive Hickmott, from Empowering Learning, which may me reflect on how we got started on this path.

I would like to share this message with you and to let you know that Olive has Dyslexia herself but with great fortitude and determination, pursued a very successful career in engineering, before her retirement.

She is herself an example of a talented person with dyslexia developing into a self-determining, success story but not content with her own success she has spent the last 7 years coaching and mentoring dyslexic children.

Her aim; to help children break through their barriers to education and overcome their low self esteem; use the talents they have to learn in their own way, one that makes perfect sense to them; set them on a life-changing path of self discovery and development.

I invite you to read Olive's message. It says a lot of the progress being made in overcoming Dyslexia and other cognitive processing disorders and, I hope it will give you some more cause for optimism in 2013. It may even spark some new ideas and paths for you to follow.

"It is a very different world than when I (Olive) started work back in 2005 on literacy challenges. 

People are much more open to seeing different perspectives, identifying the exceptional talents of learning differently and overcoming the challenges. 

In 2013 we want all our exceptionally talented children and adults, who learn in a different way, to think about how they are being taught, to excel in their chosen areas, that are often very creative.

As our contribution to this, we are looking:

• to reach as many children and adult across the world as possible, so they can learn how to simply improve their literacy, numeracy, concentration and so much more, even when they have a diagnosis of Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, ADHD, Asperger's or Autism. - These new skills will further develop their exceptional (mainly visual) skills and eradicate many of the negative symptoms associated with these challenges.
• to assist families and Practitioners to be as successful as they can be in their communities.

To achieve this we are building a larger and stronger international community of people with the skills to teach people who learn differently. 

The level 1 Practitioner programme is now available as a single day in Hertfordshire, UK, as a set of live weekly tele-seminars and as a home study programme that you can access whenever is convenient for you, plus on-line coaching to answer any questions. 

Recently, we have trained Practitioners and parents on-line in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe, USA, throughout the UK and in January we will be adding a Dyslexia school in Kenya plus our first practitioner in New Zealand. 

These are exciting times to join the team, you don't need previous qualifcations, just an enthusiasm to make a difference to others.

In 2013 we will see the results of the Practitioners' research projects in Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Ireland plus my literacy and numeracy research through the International Association for Health and Learning for a community of nursing undergraduates in England.

I also hope to have several practitioners replicating my work in different Universities across the UK. 

In addition we expect to get the level 1 programme its first international accreditation.

When you become a Practitioner, you will have all the tools you need to succeed:

• Free monthly Continuous Professional Calls
• Workbooks for literacy, numeracy and more in development
• An accreditation process and product discount
• Commission for referrals
• Free Youtube video introductions for your clients
• Access to an on-line training platform
• Low cost upgrade training for those trained before September 2011.

This is a readymade business that can give you immense personal satisfaction and make a real difference to peoples' lives."

I hope that was of interest and you can read more about Olive's work with Empowering Learning here.

Dyslexia: Let Me Learn - Educational games & teaching resources

The creator of this site is a teacher and private tutor who is passionate about helping children improve literacy skills and maths skills.

She believes that time and time again the best way for any child to learn effectively is when they're having fun.

"Education is essential for a fulfilled life and the process of gaining that education must be fun and enjoyable because that is the best and easiest way for anyone to learn."

Let Me Learn sources children's educational games and educational resources for teachers from all over the UK for their ability to help children learn through fun and games.

The shop has been created with their customers' needs in mind. All the products are tested before they are put in the shop to ensure that they will be fun for your children.

The company claims they provide first hand detailed descriptions that you're unlikely to find elsewhere, to help you make an informed choice.

They also offer you a free newsletter where you can download free worksheets (many of which are tailored towards dyslexic children) and provide discount codes.

They have a special feature product called the Nessy Learning Programme with Nessy GamesPlayer because it incorporates much of their learning philosophy.

The company exalts that watching a child with Dyslexia and ADHD go from depression and tears to laughter and giggles whilst writing words and sentences with the Nessy Games Player, is an empowering experience for the child.

Their main objective is to ensure the customer's experience at this website is as enjoyable and informative as it can be and above all, that children are happy with the products you buy.

You can contact them directly if you have any questions.

Empowering Learning: New Book "Bridges to success"

Contact Olive at www.empoweringlearning.co.uk

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.

Empowering Learning - Pass Literacy on campaign

Empowering Learning - Pass Literacy on campaign

Many of our children are becoming really confused by the written english language, whilst becoming quite fluent in expressing themselves verbally. It is not helped by the fact that the sounds and spelling in english do not always match. And how would you know whether to write "to", "too" or "two", without knowing what the words look like?

Every parent and teacher would like to see their children flourish and many are actually seeing their youngsters becoming more and more confused. In our multinational society with innumerable accents no wonder some children really struggle being completely reliant on how words sound. They need visual memory too. Languages such as Spanish have perfect phonetics, and there is no need for spelling lessons as "what you hear is exactly what you write".

At the same time our children are very visual, probably more able to manipulate their visual pictures than their parents. To pass literacy on all we need to do is to teach children to visualise words at a young age, the skills that everyone who is good at reading and spelling in English already uses. This will stop all the confusion, misery and exhaustion that children go through, growing up feeling they are stupid.