Processing Disorders

The fast talker wins when it comes to reading

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canstockphoto11292272Rapid Automatic Naming—

Brandy is in the second grade and she has finally learned to read! This is good news to her family who worried because at first she had a very hard time sounding out words. The only area that she struggles in is that she still reads so slowly. Everyone says that if she just keeps reading, she will get faster, and her fluency will improve.

Research is proving that theory is not quite right.

Although good phonological processing or awareness skills are very important skills in reading well, there are other factors that influence speed and fluency. Good phonological processing means that a child understands that the symbol or letter on paper has a sound and when those letters go together, it makes a word. M-A-D when sounded out is a word. They also learn to manipulate words, ‘Mad’ changes by putting a ‘B’ at the beginning or a ‘T’ at the end. Brandy now has these good phonological processing skills.

The skill that affects the speed at which a person reads is relatively new in the field of reading research. This skill is often described as Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN), which is a person’s ability to translate visual information into a phonological code quickly and easily. What researchers found (Wolf and Bowers, 2000) was that, just as some children are taller than their peers or can run faster than their peers, some children are also much faster at identifying visual information than their peers.

They related the study to this: If you asked a group of children to run around the block, you would expect some children to finish faster than others. Likewise, if you were to ask a group of children to identify ten pictures of common objects as fast as they could, you would find that some children are able to identify those ten objects very quickly while others take a little more time. What was interesting was that those children who were a little slower to name pictures of objects, also tended to be slower in identifying letters of the alphabet or printed words from a list

Lovett, Steinbach, and Frijters, (2000) performed research that showed that in one second of reading, a fast skilled reader is able to recognize and process about five words in running text. That translates into about 300 words read per minute. However a slow reader who is still skilled at reading, may only read 230 words per minute — about 3/4ths of the speed of their faster peers.

We can ask ourselves if this matters.

It does as a child is trying to develop his reading skills. Children who naturally process visual information quickly and easily often have an easier time learning to read than their peers who tend to process visual information more slowly. And this only stands to reason that children who process visual information more rapidly tend to get more out of the time they spend reading than their slower processing peers. They like it because the words create pictures faster, the story moves along like a story should.
A decade ago The National Reading Panel established five areas of effective classroom reading instruction: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and comprehension. Because of this list, schools have focused on children who have difficulty processing phonological information and trouble with the phonemes in speech. Schools now teach children to develop phoneme awareness so they can develop proficient decoding skills. Unfortunately, less is known about Rapid Automatic Naming. It is not as easy to identify at a young age, and even when identified, improving RAN and visual processing speed is considerably more difficult than helping children develop phoneme awareness.

Slow Rapid Naming ability also can be seen in word retrieval situations. This affects academic word recall of new knowledge, creates a slower ability to think of answers, and causes problems not only in reading, but also in generating written assignments.

If you ask a ten year old to name as many animals as he can in twenty seconds, and he says, “Lion, cat, bear, ah, ah, lion”, that is a very poor word-finding ability. I find that children should be able to name one item every two seconds (faster than that is better, of course). So a ten year old should be able to call out the names of ten different animals, foods, or sports when asked. So often when we test our slow readers at our center, they also have very slow speeds at generating the names of category items or have problems with quickly naming colors or letters shown on a card.
What to do?

Practice this rapid naming skill using common objects, colors and letters and numbers. Write out the alphabet in random order, in inch high letters on a page, repeating the letters twice somewhere in the series. “A, F, K, T, M, A, …..” Have your child name the 52 letters as fast as they can and time them. If they make a mistake while naming, have them say it again before advancing to the next letter. Try to improve on the speed of naming for each trial. Have several random lists of single digit numbers, colored circles, and common pictures.
Practice this skill without pictures. Tell your child that within a minute’s time, you want them to name as many things that they can think of in a category. The categories can be: animals, animals in the ocean, things at the farm, wild animals, colors, foods, fruits, jobs, vehicles, things to do on vacation, things that taste good, places to eat, furniture, terrible jobs, jobs that require a uniform, things to clean with, (Although children never get many items in that category!), fun jobs, pets, or clothing.

When you increase your child’s rapid automatic naming ability, you increase his ability to see letters faster, to quickly process them as words, and you watch his reading fluency increase!

https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Flex-Rapid-Naming-Program/dp/0985905506/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1477423129&sr=1-1&keywords=brain+flex+rapid+naming+program%2C+5-8

Skills We Need Before We Read!

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Unfortunately children don’t begin reading by instantly decoding sounds and acquiring sight vocabulary. They move through predictable phases of recognizing letters, recalling their sounds, and then understanding that when the sounds are blended together, these are words. Words carry meaning and when combined into sentences, a story is built.

There are other areas that silently play into being a good reader – visual processing skills that we take for granted because they just seem to happen for most of us. There are many visual processing skills that affect more than just reading.

 

Visual discrimination uses the sense of sight to notice and compare the features of different items to distinguish one item from another. While reading, we do this with letters and then words in a sentence. Children with poor visual discrimination have a hard time seeing the difference between two similar letters, shapes or objects. This affects the speed to learn new words and spelling skills.

Visual processing speed is the ability to recognize numbers, letters and words quickly, an important factor in good reading fluency. Research shows that children with good visual processing speeds are faster readers that children with slow processing speeds.

Visual sequential memory is the ability to determine or remember the order of symbols, words, or objects. This skill is particularly important for spelling. A child who struggles with visual sequencing may leave out, add or switch around letters within words. Recognizing and remembering patterns may also prove difficult.

Visual memory means that students must be able to look at a word, form an image of that word in their minds, and be able to recall the appearance of the word later. Once the word is erased or out of sight, students with good visual memory will recognize that same word later in their readers or other texts and will be able to recall the appearance of the word to spell it.

Reading Comprehension

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Reading comprehension is a complex task that seems to be taken for granted by skilled readers. When we take a close look at comprehension, we find that it involves many important skills, so when someone says, “Jimmy is really struggling with reading comprehension,” that’s like saying “my car is having engine trouble.” Knowing which part of the ‘engine’ is crucial to improvement.

Good reading comprehension is the phrase used when many skills are working together to form a big picture of the passage. The skills of inferring, predicting, vocabulary, comparing, problem solving, summarizing, and sequencing, fall underneath the big umbrella of comprehension. For example, I had a recent experience with one of our students while reading a story about a birthday party for a young girl. She had invited many of her friends over and they were just about to sing and eat cake. There had been no mention of her age in the story thus far, then the writer included the important detail. The story reads, “Jamie closed her eyes and made a wish, then blew out all 8 candles on her cake at one!” At the conclusion of the story, I asked the student how old the birthday girl was, but he couldn’t tell me. Then I asked the student how many candles were on the cake, and he supplied me with the correct answer, but could not connect the candles with the young girl’s age. This points to the skill of inferring, which is very important for readers beyond the 2nd grade. Note that the student’s memory and attention to detail was strong, but the skill of inferring was weak, and therefore caused poor comprehension skills. After practicing this skill, the student was able to improve and increase his comprehension skills.

Thankfully, proper assessments and testing can reveal which skill or skills need extra help, and with good tutoring and frequent practice, any child can improve their comprehension skills. Let’s start building those big pictures!

Proof that U CAN LEARN provides results!

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One of our favorite things to do is measure student’s progress, although it makes us a bit uncomfortable. Our pre- and post-academic (standardized) testing is ready to showcase for the students who are attending our learning center, some for as little as four months. What we have learned is that consistent attendance of two times a week, combined with a good attitude, can change a student’s life.

Your student’s school can only do so much, the teacher’s attention is split thirty ways. Studies show that a child gets an equivalent of 3 hours of school day instruction in just one hour of one-on-one tutoring. Now wonder we can make a difference.

Social Skills – Part 2

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canstockphoto7074855Social Skills 101: Helping your child with more complex situations

In my last article I outlined the most basic skills needed to communicate effectively, which were ‘picking up’ on non-verbal cues like noticing others facial expressions, feelings and make eye contact. Although these skills are important whenever communicating, they aren’t enough to help the child who can’t make or keep friends.

Children learn at an early age that in order to get someone to like you or play with you, they should do a few things. A child can show interest in what another child is doing or he/she could share a positive thought about the activity. Asking questions gets the potential friend talking and the child can demonstrate that he/she is fund and interesting. Most children without good social approaches find other ways to engage. They get bossy or pushy, demand time from the potential friend and are either uninterested in the new child’s hobby or overly intent and too personal.

Most of us never think about the layers of communication and meaning in the conversations or interactions. Children with Asperger’s syndrome or who struggle socially have a great disadvantage due to the multitasking that is necessary in creating relationships that go deeper and last longer. This article will cover a dozen objectives or goals that your child should master in order to make friends and be efficient in more complex situations.

  1. Learning to show interest in others. Explain why we all like to have others notice us and want to know more about us. Talk about why it’s fun to have a friend and come up with ideas of things to talk about. Practice good approaches, like, “Do you want to play with one of my yo-yo’s?” versus a bad opening, like “Hey, do you know I have forty yo-yo’s and I’m better than you at them?” Often, struggling children will try to be the expert on a subject and will bore others away from them. Demonstrate to your child by making him/her sit through a one-sided discussion from you on a topic he/she has no interest in, then ask him/her how they felt or how interesting you seemed to them.
  2. Becoming more interesting to others. Children often persevere on their one good talent they’ve been told they have when in fact they have many other interesting things they can do. Make a list of these and practice talking about them. Practice talking about yourself in a short, one minute introduction and have your child try it. Help your child understand what most children like to discuss; things like pets, favorite TV shows or trips and that astral-physics and dinosaur anatomy really leaves a lot of people out of a conversation.
  3. Trying out new hobbies and interests. To become more interesting, your child may have to expand their current activities. One way to have more friends is to be involved in groups that have a cause or interest. Talk about different hobbies such as collecting items or taking some new classes. Your child can ask other children what they are interested in, then explore the subject by attending a similar program or researching the topic at the library. Sports is not always the answer to getting your child involved since they might be motor-delayed or clumsy. Ask adults what they were interested in as children or visit a craft and hobby store in your area to get ideas.
  4. Learning to encourage and compliment others. Children need to understand what discouragement or rude comments feel like first, so discuss time when you know your child has been discouraged or someone has been rude to him. Talk about what would have been nice to hear someone say during that time. Make a list of encouraging statements and practice them at home and in public. Watch movies and decide if the people are using encouraging or discouraging statements. Talk about people in your child’s environment and list the nice compliments that could be said to each of them.
  5. Understanding fairness and letting others choose sometimes. Some children feel that if someone is their friend, the own them or can dictate everything they do together. Give example around the house that show fairness. Role-play situations where choices need to be made and practice letting someone else make a choice without being angry or bossy. Talk about how to work out disagreements by discussing who gets to choose first, asking what else they can think to do or putting off personal choices until the next time.
  6. Sharing friends. Often a child will get on best friend and then have a very hard time when that best friend plays with others. Talk about family dynamics and that parents don’t have just one favorite child. Help your child recognize that getting to know another person makes two friends to play with. What can you do with three people that you can’t do with two? Explain that begging a friend to not play with others makes you seem needy and not fun to be around. Practice saying statements that are sincere, like, “I hope you had a good time” or “What did you do together?”
  7. Keeping promises. Children share secrets all of the time and promise not to tell. They promise to take turns and to share things. But if your child makes bold statements such as, “I’m going to bring you an expensive present” or invites someone to come to an expensive outing, you can see how they will not be able to keep those promises. Discuss that your child doesn’t have to promise things that are spectacular and that just little promises are the most important idea in keeping a friend.
  8. Don’t badmouth or gossip. Discuss what these both mean. Badmouthing is criticizing and gossiping is spreading around a bad story about someone. Think of times your child has had both of these done to him/her or when he/she has done the same thing and talk about the feelings they cause. Talk about how saying bad things about people won’t change them or their irritating habits. Practice saying something nice about a person when gossip starts to fly. Help your child understand that gossiping is the wrong way to fit into a group and can only come back to hurt him/her or get him/her in trouble.
  9. Having clear expectations. Discuss how it makes us feel relaxed to know that is expected of us and what is “being prepared”. Talk about how to be prepared for different activities. Would we feel embarrassed if we were the only one to wear a costume to school or if we went to a birthday party and didn’t bring a present? Practice asking the correct questions in order to know enough information. Role-play being prepared for different situations like visiting a relative versus going to a sleep over. Going to the circus versus playing a soccer game. Most embarrassing situations can be avoided by understanding the expectations.
  10. Learning to say ‘no’ without being rude. Children who struggle socially can be brusque or rude when they feel pressured or don’t want to do something. Discuss why it’s important to be able to say ‘no’ but also how to do that politely. List rude comments like, “you’re crazy, forget it, go away, or no way” and come up with positive statements like, “Sorry, but I can’t”, “I won’t be able to do that but thanks anyway”, or “no thank you, but maybe we can do something else later.” Discuss that by being rude, your child may not get invited again.
  11. Don’t say ‘yes’ when you mean ‘no’. Children who have limited friends often agree to do things even when they don’t want to just to keep the interactions going. Point out some instances in your family where that has happened and discuss the negative results of saying what you don’t mean. Tie this into the earlier goal of always trying to be honest and keeping promises. Mentions that you could get into trouble or hurt by agreeing to do things you know are wrong. Talk about what some of these are.
  12. Not hurting others feelings and apologizing. These are hard rules for everyone but for socially struggling children, they are even harder. These kids usually make statements without realizing that they are hurtful and when it comes to apologizing, they get angry because what they said was true. “You have a long nose” or “You’re too fat for my team.” Talk about all of the different feelings someone can have when they are hurt: sad, mad, shocked, crying, pouting. Practice seeing what those faces look like. Talk about what you should say if you see someone has this look on their face. Practice ‘sorry’ statements. Talk about why saying sorry makes you more grown-up, a better friend and shows you are responsible enough to take the blame for doing something wrong.

Putting It All Together

 For any child to have success, they must be able to put together all the above objectives and develop their own style by practicing. The work of connecting non-verbal and verbal communication is central to healthy social skills development. You can talk about them being cool. In essence, ‘cool’ is knowing and using correct connections of word choice, tone, and politeness. Developing these good communication skills makes you ‘cool’.
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Social Skills 101 – Part 1

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canstockphoto0520321Helping the Child Who Struggles with Social Skills

Social and communication skills seem to come naturally for most, and because of that we never stop to wonder how we learned those skills. There isn’t a preschool class specific to manners and communication, yet when growing up, most toddlers easily make friends, answer questions appropriately and understand that having a conversation is a “give and take” deal. So when we encounter someone who struggles in these areas, we’re not sure how to start teaching the skills.

Teaching the Basics

Start at the most basic level of the communication process: recognizing a good conversation and what the roles are when people communicate.

Notice others and what they are NOT saying

The language of non-verbal communication is based on a language of the eyes and carries a great deal of information about the conversation you’re having. Here is a list of the non-verbal cues children need to learn to notice:

  • Mood or feelings
  • Expressions
  • Posture
  • Spatial relationship to others
  • Tone of voice
  • Speed of speech
  • Word choice

Only mentioning what these are will not be enough. All of these cues need to be modeled and practiced in order to become ingrained and automatic on a daily basis. Model the behavior for your child. For example, show how your posture or expression can signal different feelings and talk about why that’s important to know. Try asking the child to explain what you just did, then ask him/her to model or demonstrate what you just did and then develop a way to add the behavior to the child’s through practice.

Beyond the Basics

Once your child is able to ‘read’ another person’s non-verbal expressions, tone and meaning, then you can begin to build a foundation of good social skills. When developing a foundation of social skills, assess your child’s social deficits and strengths first. Here are some important skills:

  • Making eye contact and using and noticing facial expressions, posture and physical proximity
  • Speaking clearly while using intonation and appropriate volume
  • Choosing topics of conversation that are appropriate to the setting and audience
  • Maintaining a topic in conversation as well as being flexible in changing topics
  • Taking turns while conversing and waiting to be acknowledged or called on before speaking
  • Using appropriate conversational small talk
  • Introducing oneself and others
  • Asking for help when needed
  • Keeping others in mind while conversing – a conversation isn’t a monologue

Addressing the above skills should be done with appropriate modeling from siblings, peers or a professional. Ensure it’s someone who will be encouraging and instructive.

Activities to increase these skills:

  1. Videotape your child making a series of facial expressions: happy, sad, angry, worried, scared, bored and so on. Have the child watch the video and discuss what they observe.
  2. Turn off the sound on the TV during a video or movie and work with the child to decipher what is happening. This will require that the child correctly ‘reads’ the facial, posture and gestural cues.
  3. Read a story and ask, “What do you think would happen next?” Discuss cues and how important it is to have some theory of action; some way to predict what is likely to happen next.
  4. Teaching your child to listen to another’s ideas can be accomplished by having the child repeat back or respond to the opinions of family members on certain topics. “Dad likes golf because….” “Mom doesn’t like it because….”. Your child can be a reporter and pretend they are recording the speaker’s comments to show on the news later. Show what happens when you don’t listen to them. Talk about how they feel when you didn’t hear what was said.
  5. Take your child with you to places where people are doing a trade. Model for your child how to show interest in another person’s work by asking questions and using appropriate answers that imply that you are listening. Have your child prepare to ask a few, pre-practiced questions themselves ans to remember what the person told them. Remind your child this is not the time for them to begin talking about their own interests.
  6. Use dolls or puppets to act out how to make a friend and how to engage that new friend in a conversation.
  7. Help your child come up with ways to spend time with friends by discussing places to go and things to do with friends. Talk about possible disagreements and the ‘give and take’ of friendships.
  8. To teach an understanding of how other people feel, discuss situations with your child about times they were scared, elated or very angry. Find a book or magazine and identify what people in the pictures might be feeling. Go to a mall and people-watch. Identify people who are happy, hurried and depressed.

When your child practices and masters these very early skills, their self-esteem and confidence will increase and their anxiety in social situations will decrease. They will be ready to learn the more complex social skills, like letting go of an argument or dealing with humor or sarcasm.

© Can Stock Photo Inc. / MaszaS

What is your child’s learning style?

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boy on booksIdentifying how your child learns best

Everyone has his or her own unique learning style. Some people learn best by seeing or reading, others by listening, and still others by doing something with their hands. You can help you child by identifying his or her primary learning style: Is your child a visual learner, an auditory learner, or a kinesthetic (hands-on) learner?

A quick look at identifying you child’s main learning style

Read the lists below and put check marks by the items that fit you child the best.

Visual Learners: Auditory Learners: Kinesthetic Learners:
Learn by seeing or reading Learn by listening Learn by doing or moving
Do well when material is presented and tested visually, not verbally Do well in lecture based learning environments and oral reports and tests Do well when they can explore and create in order to learn
Benefit from written notes and directions, diagrams, charts, maps, and pictures Benefit from classroom discussions, spoken directions, study groups Benefit from hands-on activities, lab classes, props, skits, and field trips
Often love to draw, read, and write; are good spellers and organizers Often love music, languages, and being on stage Often love sports, drama, dance, martial arts, and arts and crafts

What you will find is that although your child may have attributes in each column, there should be a predominant style that has more check marks than the others. (As a not, none of these learning styles is better or worse than the other.) However, knowing your child’s learning style helps him/her understand how he/she will learn the fastest, and can reduce frustration and anxiety if your child is being forced to perform in a learning modality he/she is not comfortable in.

Learning tips for visual learners:

  • Use books, videos, computers, visual aids, and flashcards. Anything to SHOW the material to your child, versus using lectures and auditory teaching.
  • Teach them to take detailed notes. Use highlighters and colored pencils to underline different areas or to organize material into categories. For example, red is for verbs, yellow for articles and blue is for nouns when learning the parts of grammar.
  • Learn to make outlines, diagrams, and lists. Create a pre-typed document that allows for this type of listing skill so your child just needs to fill in the high points he/she hears.
  • Use drawings and illustrations, preferably in color and the more detailed the better.
  • Take a tape recorder to listen to lectures again later.

Learning tips for auditory learners:

  • Teach a child to read his/her notes or to study the materials aloud.
  • Memorize using word associations and verbal repetition.
  • Study with other students, talk things through, have him teach a brother or a sister the material to ensure he has learned it.
  • Provide oral testing as an option.
  • Listen to books on tape or other audio recordings.
  • Use a tape recorder to listen to lectures again later.

Learning tips for hands-on learners:

  • Teach by doing experiments, looking things up on the internet, doing activities that teach the same material but where the child can interact with it by doing something.
  • Take field trips, collect items, explore similar topics to help show the correlation with the new material.
  • Use activity-based study tools, like role-playing or building models, designing.
  • Study in small groups and take frequent breaks.
  • Use memory games, computer activities and materials that can be held and manipulated or used in a shared experience.
  • Study with music on in the background or allow TV with a familiar program playing as random backdrop noise.

Other Considerations:

  • Children can be shown their strengths, weaknesses and special talents which will help with their self-confidence in knowing that they are not “dumb” just because they learn a bit differently than others in the classroom. Appearing dumb is a child’s number one fear in school!
  • Talk with your child about problem solving and how they will accomplish this once they recognize their learning style. Should they make lists to help with decisions or talk out the possible resolutions with you or a teacher?
  • The ability to set realistic goals is important. Being flexible in adjusting the goals is also important. Help your child identify a few short- or long-term goals and write down steps and a timeline to achieve the goals. Check in periodically to talk about progress or to mark off the list.

Understanding how we learn best is very important in school as well as in social situations. Discovering a child’s learning style will open up the discussion of ways to learn ideas faster and better, without the anxiety that something is wrong with the child.