All posts by Amy Kessler

The Magic of Summer Learning

Australia, Instruction, Learning Centers, , ,

The Right Time

Many families are new to using summertime for learning—dreaming only of endless summer days with family and friends. We agree that students, especially those who struggle, do need a break from school. But for many students, three months away from academics can lead to measurable learning loss in skills like reading and maths—especially troublesome for students who have a weakness that makes school difficult.

 

While we all look forward to rest and relaxation, parents of struggling students have an opportunity to use summer to give their child a great next year. The chunks of time available in the summer months make it an optimal season to pursue intensive instruction. Four hours a day often results in extraordinary gains.  In just weeks, students develop skills that can make next year easier. So you will have plenty of time to balance family, fun, and learning.

 

The Right Program

Traditional reading and tutoring programs focus on content-area instruction, or practising decoding and spelling rules. Lindamood-Bell programs are unique. Our programs develop the imagery-language foundation necessary for reading, spelling, and maths. While “reading camps,” library book clubs, and other educational activities may have some benefit, they often do not address the cause of a learning weakness. Students may be practising what is hard for them without a chance to change and benefit from their efforts.  

 

The Right Instruction

Summer instruction at Lindamood-Bell is individualised to meet the needs of each student.  Each student only works on exactly what he/she personally needs to be a better learner. An accurate learning ability evaluation is the first step toward helping your child learn to their potential. We uncover the strengths and weaknesses that are affecting school, and in a thorough results consultation, we will discuss a learning plan to change learning in the shortest time possible. Recommendations are differentiated based on the unique learning needs of each student.

 

Some students come to us with a previous diagnosis such as dyslexia, autism spectrum disorder, or a general learning challenge—and we make a difference for each of them. Some students seek our help to enhance their skills or to just make learning easier—and we do.

 

Students who are currently struggling with reading, comprehension or maths can use a few weeks this summer to jump-start a new or ongoing intensive instruction plan. Young students can learn how to read for the first time. Some students use summer weeks to get ahead with an enrichment program in an area like writing, study skills, and test taking.  Alumni students might attend for help applying their skills to a new task like story problems or reading fluency.

 

The Right Environment

Parents can be surprised at how much their child (who does not love school) enjoys their Lindamood-Bell experience. How do we do it? Walk through our doors and you’ll begin to notice the difference between our centre and virtually every other learning environment your child has been to. Our welcoming, comfortable space sets the climate for student learning. We are committed to teaching all individuals to read and comprehend to their potential; our research-validated instruction is our foundation. Other unique features of the Lindamood-Bell Learning Centre experience also contribute to student success:

 

  • One-to-one instruction
  • Instructors who are skilled, compassionate, and fun
  • Program oversight by our Instructional Quality Team
  • By-design celebration of individual student success

Above all, our learning centre reflects our belief that every student can be taught to learn to their potential.

 

Discover the Magic of Summer Learning

Get a feel for what you can expect at our learning centre this summer!

 

 

Make an impact this summer!  It’s a great time to get ahead for next school year.  Get started today by contacting our learning centre to discuss how we can help make this summer everything your family has been waiting for!

 

Double Bay and Brisbane (02) 9328 7119 | Chatswood and Melbourne (02) 9410 1006

The First Step to Summer Learning | Special Savings!

Australia, Specials, , ,

Our success with students starts with our unique Learning Ability Evaluation. We identify strengths and weaknesses that may be affecting performance in reading, comprehension, and maths.

 

Learning Ability Evaluation

 

  • 10+ standardised measures of reading, comprehension, and maths
  • Identification of strengths and weaknesses
  • Online or at one of our locations
  • Consultation to explain findings

Learning Skills Measured

✔ Sounding Out Words

✔ Spelling

✔ Word Reading

✔ Vocabulary

✔ Reading Comprehension

✔ Following Directions

✔ Paragraph Reading

✔ Maths Computation

✔ Maths Story-Problem Solving

✔ Oral Language Comprehension

 

Special Rate

To get you started, we are pleased to offer our Learning Ability Evaluation at a special rate.

 

  • Australia $395 In Centre • $495 Online

Contact us to get started: Double Bay (02) 9328 7119 | Chatswood (02) 9410 1006

 

Lindamood-Bell co-founder Nanci Bell describes the Learning Ability Evaluation.

 

Summer Reading Tips for Parents

Australia, Helpful Tips, , , , ,

During the school year, reading is built into a child’s day. They are reading from the board, assignment sheets and books throughout school and during homework time. Parents may feel challenged when trying to squeeze reading onto the summer schedule. No matter where your summer adventures take your family, it’s important to include regular reading along the way. We’ve rounded up some tips to get you started.

 

Find New Opportunities

For many families, summertime is an opportunity to spend more time together. Weaving in reading can be simple to do. Instead of evenings slugging through homework, you may be cooking together or playing games. Have your child be the one to find and read recipes. Your child may be ready to read the game instructions to the family. While on vacation, take turns reading about the next stop on your adventure.

 

Explore their Interests —  via Books!

Thanks to your local library and websites like Amazon and Scholastic, there are more books than ever available. Tap into your son or daughter’s interests when searching for new options. Animals, baseball, Star Wars, My Little Pony – make reading more fun by providing your child with a high-interest topic. Connect a field trip to the aquarium with a book about sharks or find a book about the Gold Coast before heading to Dreamworld.

 

Go Beyond the Book

With time on your side, you have freedom to help your child explore new media sources. Magazines are an excellent source of special-interest material. Why not explore the children’s section of the local bookstore for an afternoon or bring a stack on a family trip. Many local libraries have vast selections of graphic novels for children and teens. Check out the local comic bookstore for titles that may get them hooked on reading for years to come.

 

Create a Positive Environment

Establish a time for quiet reading in your household as something to look forward to and enjoy! If your summer reader sees you reading, he or she is less likely to see reading as a chore or something negative. Stepping away from TV time or iPad games as a family eliminates distractions and can allow your child to see reading as something enjoyable.

 

At home, it may be helpful to create some cozy spaces that are conducive to reading. If your family has hit the road for a summer trip, scheduled reading time in the evening can be a great wind-down activity for everyone.

 

Check in about the books they’re reading to monitor for understanding. Ask, “What did you picture for what happened in that story?”, “What do you think might happen next?”, or “How would you change the ending of the story?”

 

Special Tips for Young Readers

Start by reading aloud while guiding your child to follow along with their finger. Have your child start to sound out some of the words. Increase their share of the reading as skills grow. Choose a few common words from their reading to put on 3 x 5 cards for practice. It is important for a new reader to start to recognise sight words like “the” and “ball” rather than trying to sound out every time.

 

Spend reading time focusing on comprehension, too. Try reading a page without showing your child the pictures. Ask your child what they are imagining for a character or action.

 

Try Audiobooks and Read Alouds

Allow your child to be exposed to text in different ways: have a read aloud or listen to an audiobook. Hearing a fun, exciting story may motivate your child to seek out a book on their own. After you read or listen to a story, you can gauge your student’s comprehension by asking some imagery questions. Things like, “How did you see that happening?” or “What do you picture happening next?” can begin a fun discussion of the story and allow you to see what your child is getting out of it.

 

Help for Reluctant Readers

No matter how many fun books your child is exposed to, reading may continue to be a source of strife if your child has a weakness that affects their ability to read. Having to sound out the same word every time it appears, slow reading, and difficulty differentiating the letters and sounds within words are all signs of a reading weakness. These challenges may be tied to your child’s symbol imagery, which is the ability to create mental imagery for sounds and letters. Having symbol imagery that’s in-tact is essential for being able to decode new words, maintain sight words and become an independent, fluent reader. Learn more about reading difficulty and solutions here.

 

What’s more, being a fluent reader doesn’t guarantee strong reading comprehension. Your child has to “see movies” while they read, to allow comprehension to happen. Concept imagery is the ability to create an imagined gestalt — or whole — from language. Learn about the imagery-language connection for reading comprehension here.

 

Dedicate Time to Improving Reading

We hope you are ready to include reading in your summer plans! For many students, three months away from academics can lead to measurable learning loss in skills like reading and maths—which, of course, is not what any family wants to be faced with at the start of the upcoming school year.

 

Need more help? Your child can spend part of their summer at one of our learning centres to turn what could have been a learning loss into a learning gain. Some students come to us with a previous diagnosis or a learning challenge. Some need learning to be easier, while some use summer learning to get ahead for next year. We start by identifying strengths and weaknesses that may be affecting performance in reading, comprehension, and maths.  And, we make recommendations for individualised instruction plans that create learning gains. Students go back to school with more confidence.

 

Contact us to learn more and get started: Double Bay (02) 9328 7119 | Chatswood (02) 9410 1006

What May be Missing When Your Reader Struggles?

Australia, Learning Centers, Reading, , , , , ,

 

When a student struggles with reading, extra help typically focuses on sounding out words and spelling rules. Unfortunately, after months of hard work and frustration, many students continue to struggle with year-level text.

 

Perhaps they can sound out words, but it is slow and laboured. They may take so long to sound out the word that they miss the meaning of the text altogether. Or, they may substitute words when reading a paragraph. For example, they may read ‘production’ instead of ‘perfection.’

 

For many individuals, even those who have received extensive reading instruction, recognising common words remains difficult. They may attempt to use phonics strategies for most words—such as reading  /pee/ /oh/ /plee/ for the word ‘people.’ When they finally conquer a word, they might not recognise that same word when they encounter it in the next paragraph.

 

What is the missing connection for these students?

An important aspect of reading and spelling is symbol imagery, which is the foundation of  oral (phonological) and written (orthographic) language processing. Symbol imagery is the ability to create mental representations (imagery) for the sounds and letters (symbols) within the words. This connection of imagery and language is necessary for sounding out new words, as well as quickly recognising letters and common words.

 

Students who read fluently, and are able to self-correct their errors, have strong symbol imagery.

 

Traditional literacy instruction focuses on how to sound out words, as well as reading and spelling rules. While these activities have value, they do not create the imagery-language connection. They do not change how a student is processing language. This is why reading may still be difficult for your child.

 

At Lindamood-Bell, we believe that symbol imagery is the first and most important sensory input for literacy. During instruction, our teachers use language that brings imagery to consciousness for our students. Rather than asking, “How do you spell ‘top’?”, we ask, “What letters do you see for ‘top’?” This simple but carefully phrased question directly and explicitly simulates imagery.

 

Improved symbol imagery changes how a student reads and spells, regardless of their age or struggle with literacy—including those with a previous diagnosis of dyslexia.

 

If you have concerns about your child’s reading, get in touch with our learning centre to get started: Double Bay (02) 9328 7119 | Chatswood (02) 9410 1006

Thank-a-Thon Event | November 8, 2018

Events, Learning Centers

On Thursday, November 8, our staff, students, and their families will take part in our annual Thank-a-Thon event.

 

Together, we will create thousands of colorful warm wishes showing appreciation for America’s military men and women. Community members are welcome to drop by and create a card or two with us. We’ll have plenty of craft supplies on hand.

 

By partnering with Operation Gratitude, our messages will be delivered directly to troops serving overseas.

 

All US locations will host a Thank-a-Thon event. Find your Learning Center.

The Summer Learning Plan for When the Teacher Suggests Reading Help

Australia, Instruction, , , ,

Teachers always encourage students to read as much as they can over summer break. But if your last parent-teacher conference came with a specific suggestion—to get reading support during the summer months—you are likely considering one of the following:

 

1. Reading more with your child, teaching him/her to read yourself

2. Having a “reading specialist” tutor your child 1-2 times per week

3. Joining a library reading challenge for extra practice

4. Signing your child up for a reading camp

5. Doing nothing—perhaps reading has not yet “clicked” for your child

 

Although any of these options can seem like a good idea, they may not be the right solution for improving your child’s reading. Rest assured that many parents of primary year students share the same dilemma. With the precious summer months and hopes for a better school year at stake, it’s important to make the right plan for summer learning.

 

What your child needs for success

Reading is an integration of processing skills: word attack, sight word recognition, contextual fluency, oral vocabulary, and comprehension. For many students, a cause of reading difficulties is weak symbol imagery—the ability to visualise letters in your mind’s eye. This connection of imagery and language is necessary for sounding out new words, as well as quickly recognising letters and common words. This difficulty can prevent students from accessing school curriculum as quickly and accurately as their peers do. Students who read fluently, and are able to self-correct their errors, have strong symbol imagery. Learn more about symbol imagery and solutions for reading difficulties here.

 

Traditional reading camps and tutoring programs focus on content-area instruction, spelling and reading rules, or may touch on a variety of reading strategies. While these activities have value, they will not address and improve the underlying cause of a reading difficulty—stretching the issue out into the next school year.

 

And, unfortunately, practice does not “make perfect” for students who struggle with reading. While reading with your child and going to the library are excellent activities for all families, neither will improve reading if there is an unaddressed weakness.

 

Enough help to make a difference

Even great learning programs can be ineffective if they are not conducted with enough intensity to actually change learning. If a child is behind peers in reading skills, intervention has to decrease the learning gap by increasing the rate of learning. To increase the rate of learning, students need the right diagnosis and the right instruction, in the right environment. At our learning centres, our daily, intensive intervention commonly results in years of gain in just a few weeks of instruction.

 

Learn more about intensive instruction, including a video featuring a parent’s perspective, here.

 

Beware of the “summer slide”

Questioning the teacher’s advice about summer help altogether? You’re not alone. Parents may wonder if their child’s reading is truly unsatisfactory as compared to peers. Or they may wonder if it would be better take a total break from schoolwork.  

 

When a teacher has indicated a child could benefit from reading help, she has likely considered these factors, and more. For many students, three months away from academics can lead to measurable learning loss in skills—which, of course, is not what any family wants to be faced with at the start of the upcoming school year. The summer slide effect hits struggling readers harder than their peers; so if your teacher has identified an issue, your child may be at risk of starting school even further behind.

 

The first step of a great plan

If you or your child’s teacher are seeing signs of a possible reading difficulty, or you are concerned that reading hasn’t “kicked in,” you need to find out why and that there is help. A learning ability evaluation uncovers the strengths and weaknesses that affect learning. At our learning centres, we identify the strengths and weaknesses that may be affecting school and make recommendations for an individualised instruction plan.

 

A few weeks at our learning centre can make reading a strength before next year. Your child can be a better reader in time for school and have plenty of time for a great summer break. Go here for a list of our locations, including our seasonal, summer-time learning clinics. We look forward to helping you plan for summer learning that will make a difference for your child.

 

Contact us:

 

Double Bay (02) 9328 7119 | Chatswood (02) 9410 1006

Students with Dyslexia Thrive at Lindamood-Bell Academy!

Academy, Dyslexia, , , ,

The Challenge

Students with dyslexia are often susceptible to falling behind their peers in academic skills. And it’s no wonder. It’s hard to keep up and get excited about learning when reading is labored and slow.

 

Extra help at school doesn’t always get to the root of reading issues. For example, students might get tutoring in reading and spelling rules and learn techniques for sounding out words. While these activities have value, they do not address the cause of a student’s problem.  Despite having extensive phonics instruction, dyslexic students often struggle to become fluent readers.

 

Students who struggle with reading may have weak symbol imagery—the ability to visualize letters in words. This difficulty is not only frustrating for a student, but prevents them from accessing school curriculum alongside peers. We believe that struggling readers, including those with dyslexia, can be making progress in their ability to read while they are in school.

 

Research-validated

At Lindamood-Bell, we develop the imagery-language foundation for language and literacy skills. The imagery foundation is especially important for those students who come to the Lindamood-Bell Academy with a profile of dyslexia.

 

Recent research with the University of Washington confirms the critical role of symbol imagery—the process of visualizing letters in words—in language processing for success in reading, especially for those individuals identified as dyslexic.

 

Diffusion MRI data collected on dyslexic students that underwent an eight-week period of intensive symbol imagery instruction showed significant reading improvement and large-scale changes in white matter in the brain. Read more and access the full article here.

 

The Right School for Every Student

We provide individualized school curriculum and our research-validated instruction that addresses the cause of poor reading. Lindamood-Bell Academy is an ideal setting for students previously diagnosed with dyslexia, ADHD and other learning challenges.

 

Our low teacher-student ratio allows us to provide a school that is highly customized to rates of learning, and each student’s curriculum is tailored specifically to their learning needs. If a student needs to spend more time on a subject, that’s OK!  Student days are infused with celebrations of their individual success and is non-competitive.  The individualized curriculum allows a student to make progress with content in various academic areas while simultaneously receiving remediation in the mechanics of reading if necessary. In sum, our Academy combines Lindamood-Bell expertise with curriculum. The learning needs of each child are addressed so they are ready to learn. And then they do.

 

Is Lindamood-Bell Academy right for your child? Call us to learn more, discuss your child’s needs, or to schedule an interview, 800-300-1818.

 

 

For a student with dyslexia, it can be hard to keep up with curriculum while making progress in reading. A specialist recommended that Brooklyn’s family check out Lindamood-Bell Academy. It turned out to be a great fit for meeting her learning needs, while nurturing her endless curiosity!

 

Get This Summer Started! | Special $100 Savings

Australia, Specials, , , ,

If school is not always easy for your child, you may have mixed feelings about using summertime for learning. While we all look forward to rest and relaxation, parents of struggling students have an opportunity to use summer to give their child the ultimate gift of learning — to ensure a great next year.

 

Summer instruction at Lindamood-Bell is individualised to meet the needs of each student. Students who are currently struggling with reading, comprehension or maths can use a few weeks this summer to jump-start a new or ongoing intensive instruction plan.

 

Some may benefit from an enrichment program to advance in areas like writing, study skills, and test taking. Alumni students might attend for help applying their skills to a new task like story problems or reading fluency.

 

New to Lindamood-Bell?

If school is hard for your child, you need to know why and that there is help. Identifying strengths and weaknesses is the first step toward helping your child learn to their potential. A learning evaluation will uncover the strengths and weaknesses that are affecting school. In a thorough results consultation, we will discuss an individualised learning plan to make school easier.

 

Some students come to us with a previous diagnosis such as dyslexia, autism spectrum disorder, or a general learning challenge—and we make a difference for each of them.

 

Some students seek our help to enhance their skills or to just make learning easier—and we do.

 

Let’s Get This Summer Started

Lee and Michelle knew their children needed reading help and in their words, they “didn’t want to see just a little bit of gain.”

 

 

In just a few weeks, our learning center can help make your child feel more confident and prepared for school. Because the gift of learning is one of the greatest things you can give your child, we have a special to help you get started.

 

Enrol for summer sessions by 9 November 2018 and receive our Summer Instruction Savings:

 

$100 off the first week of instruction.

 

Savings apply at all Learning Centres in Australia. Find the location near you.

Report Cards: A-Z

Australia, Learning Centers, Reading, ,

You may find your child’s report card crumpled up in the bottom of her backpack or hidden in the back of her dresser drawers. She may not even understand what the letters or numbers stand for — she just knows she’s seen a lot of angry red marks on her test papers.

 

Or maybe she insists that the school’s website is down or her teacher hasn’t uploaded grades yet … anything to delay the inevitable discussion of grades and report cards.

 

Afraid of disappointing you — or worse, getting into trouble — she hides her report card.

 

For some students, the phrase “report card” comes with a sense of dread. As a parent, it can be hard to gauge how things are really going at school if your student is tight-lipped about her day and her report card feels like a jumble of letters or percentages.

 

What’s Happening at School?

After getting straight A’s last year, is your student in year three suddenly having to labor over her reading assignments?

 

Does a C in Geometry mean your teenage daughter is spending too much time texting her friends instead of doing her homework? Or is she really struggling to comprehend proofs and theorems?

 

Is your son frustrated with having to study non-stop and embarrassed by needing to have tests read to him?

 

More Than Meets the Eye

Teachers may report that your student just needs to “try harder,” but there could be an underlying weakness in language processing that accounts for his low or inconsistent grades.

 

Difficulty with reading comprehension, following directions, and understanding jokes can be indicators of a weakness in language processing. Trouble with sounding out unfamiliar words or remembering even frequently seen words can also be indicators.

 

Being able to remediate these weaknesses is often the key to unlocking a love of reading.

 

“It’s 1:12am and after traveling 7 1/2 hours, all he wants to do is read. Before Lindamood-Bell, he wouldn’t want to touch a book.”

 

The Right Evaluation

A learning ability evaluation can provide you with specific information on your student’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s important to know your child’s potential in order to gauge their performance in the classroom.  Could that B in History be an A?

 

It’s important to know what your child is capable of when it comes to their grades so you can correctly evaluate their report cards. While he/she might be counting down the days till summer, there’s still plenty of time to help him reach his potential this year.

 

Learn more about the Lindamood-Bell evaluation process here.

 

Because pinpointing your child’s strengths and weaknesses is one of the greatest gifts you can give them, we’re offering our Learning Ability Evaluation at a special rate of $395 (regularly$875) for in-centre and $495 (regularly $975) online.

 

To schedule, call your local learning centre.

 

Double Bay (02) 9328 7119 | Chatswood (02) 9410 1006