All posts by Erin Bell

Parent Teacher Conferences

Helpful Tips

Stressed about parent-teacher conferences?  We can help.

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From kindergarten through high school, effective communication with your child’s teachers can contribute to school success. A shared view of your child’s talents and needs, appropriate goals for progress, and a workable plan can foster the right conditions for a great school year.

Yet, the anticipation of a parent-teacher conference can make some parents apprehensive. You may wonder how your child compares to classmates, or that you aren’t asking the right questions, or that the teacher doesn’t share your concerns, or that she is very concerned, or all of the above!

We have found that working out a plan for such an important meeting will not only allay your worries, but will help facilitate a more effective meeting.

Let’s make your next parent-teacher conference a touchstone for a great year of communication—and learning.

Top 3 Ways to Prepare for a Parent-Teacher Conference:

Gather

Identify the topics you want to discuss. Don’t do it alone. Ask your child his/her easiest and hardest subjects. Find out if there is anything he/she would like you to speak to the teacher about. Topics might include: academics, social concerns, and homework.

Engage

Compose specific questions to flesh out the topics and ensure the meeting is productive. For example, if you want to talk about reading skills, you might want to know: “Is he making progress?” “Do you notice her struggling in class while reading out loud?” Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you need clarification regarding something the teacher says. Also, be on time. There are other conferences scheduled for that day.  If you’re late, you may miss your conference altogether.

Plan

Create a plan of action that involves you, the teacher, your child, and other key people, like tutors or therapists. The plan should include specific suggestions of ways you can help at home. Talk to your child after the conference and tell him what was discussed. Make sure you talk about the positive points, but be direct about problems. If you and the teacher created an action plan, explain it to your child. Make sure your child understands that you and the teacher created this plan to help him find success. Set the action plan in motion. Check progress reports on your child’s behavior and schoolwork on a regular basis. After a few weeks, review the plan with the teacher. It’s important to also talk to your child about what is happening in the classroom. If something isn’t working, he may be able to provide some insights to you and the teacher.

Extra help recommended?

We are here to help with a Winter Break Instruction Special. Learn More

Is Reading a Challenge? This Can Really Help.

Decoding

Some students can understand easily when someone else is reading or while listening to books on tape. But when they read themselves, they complain that it’s boring, or that it takes too long, often leading to high levels of frustration and angst for both parents and students.

Students who have a hard time with reading often have a weakness in their ability to hold on to patterns of letters in their mind’s eye. For example, they may read “answer” as “an-swer” instead of “anser” or “knife” as “k-nife” instead of “nife.” This can occur when a student has weakness in symbol imagery – the ability to visually image the letters in words. Here’s an excerpt from Nanci Bell’s book, Seeing Stars, to help you further understand symbol imagery’s role in the reading process:

Sitting in the living room in front of the fire, school work piled around me. I heard my mother coming into the hall, then heading for the stairs. Now was a good time to ask her; then I wouldn’t have to look it up in the dictionary. She can spell anything.

“Mom, how do you spell “tomorrow?”

Her footsteps never missed a beat, she rattled off some sort of rapid, foreign speech, “TEEOHEMOHDOUBLEAUROHDOUBLEYOU.”

Eyes blinking and searching the universe for some sense, I said, “WHAT?”

As she crested the top of the stairs, Martian speech came at me again, “TEEOHEMOHDOUBLEAUROHDOUBLEYOU.”

Panicking, I yelled, “Wait Mom, I can’t get that. What did you say? T what?”

Footsteps came to a stop. I could picture her red hair and pretty-but-determined face as she turned toward me. “Listen Nanci. Pay attention.”

Why did I have to ask? Then in somewhat slower speech, I heard a careful, slightly impatient, “TEE-OH-EM-OH-DOUBLEAUR-OH-DOUBLEYOU.”

The haze starting to clear, images started to form, the Martian speech suddenly converted to my language. Oh, she meant T-O-M-O, but what was that letter coming after O? What is a DOUBLEAUR? Is it like a W? Then, I got it. Perception occurred. The haze was gone. Lucidity at last! She was saying a double R! Two R’s! Then an O. Then a W. T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W. I saw it.

Quickly I wrote it down before I lost it. Regaining my intellectual status with my mother suddenly became very important. “T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W. Thanks Mom, I have it.”

Unfortunately her footsteps didn’t become fainter, instead they started coming back down stairs. Uh-oh. In the hall, now the living room. Head down, Nanci. Keep your head down.

She was standing over me. “Nanci, how are you doing in spelling?”

Quick response, Nanci. Be confident. Fourth grade is easy. Show no fear or the lecture will start again. Why did I have to ask her for help? What was I thinking? “Fine Mom. I get A’s all the time. Hundreds. Every test. It’s easy for me.”

Too late, here it came. “Well, if they’d go back to teaching phonics in school, and doing spelling bees, kids wouldn’t have problems learning to read and spell. When I was in school, we had to learn the sounds for the letters, and that helped us sound out words, but we also did spelling bees. That’s why I can spell so well. Kids didn’t have problems learning to read and spell like they do now. Why don’t you have to do spelling bees anymore?”

“Uh, I don’t know Mom.” Head down. Keep your head down.

Undaunted, she continued in her usual passionate way. “Listen to me Nanci, we have to do spelling bees. We learned to sound out words and we also learned to see the words in our head. I just can’t understand why they don’t do that anymore.”

Vowing never, ever, to ask her to spell a word for me again, I muttered, “I don’t know Mom. I’ll never ask her again. I swear I’ll look it up. I swear.

I could feel her waiting for more, looking up at her, seeing her intensity, I sputtered, “We just don’t do that, Mom. But, I can sound out words.” (I had taught myself “phonics” by noting that certain letters in certain words seems to make certain sounds.) Please let this be over.

Sighing, she stayed for a few more seconds, then gave up and headed for the stairs to resume her mom-mission.

Never. I would never ask her again. Anyhow, I can never really understand her. Just yesterday I asked her how to spell the word necessary. Her response was a rapid N-E-C-E-double-S-A-R-Y. How does she get those letters out of her mouth that fast? And why can’t I get them in my head at the same rate that she says them? And, for heaven’s sake, why can’t I get that double thing she does? What a mystery.

Oh well, I’ll think about this tomorrow.

And she really did think about this again and again and again! It has become a passion of Nanci’s to educate people about the imperative need for and the use of symbol imagery in the reading process!

Click the link below to learnScreen Shot 2015-09-23 at 4.27.48 PM more about symbol imagery.

https://lindamoodbell.com/program/seeing-stars-program

Learning is Always in Style:

Homeschool,

Learning is Always in Style:
Reading and Comprehension Help for Your Unique Child!

in-2Like every back-to-school season, many educators have contacted us recently in search of strategies for one or more of their students who is already struggling with schoolwork.

Families who homeschool are no different in this regard. In fact, many have chosen to homeschool because of a learning or attention issue. The homeschool environment provides a safe place to learn and a differentiated curriculum, free from distraction.

Unfortunately, these benefits can be overshadowed when a student’s reading and comprehension skills prevent them from accessing curriculum.

Since 1986, Lindamood-Bell has taught over 30,000 students in both school and clinical settings.

Check out our results with students, including those who have been previously identified as gifted or diagnosed with a learning difficulty. Our experience and results have taught us the following:

While individuals have differences, the processes needed for reading are not different. The weaknesses that are affecting school can be identified and strengthened.

We believe that all individuals can learn to read and comprehend to their potential.

Learn more about how we can help with your homeschool instruction here.

“This is BORING!”: The #1 reason kids say this (It’s not what you think!)

Comprehension, Homeschool

“This is BORING!”: The #1 reason kids say this (It’s not what you think!)

MomSonIf you are looking for ideas for “engaging topics” you may want to stop reading. Really. This article is for the homeschool teachers who have excellent materials and ideas but are still experiencing frustration over kids who “hate reading,” and seem to not put in the effort, kids who always say,  “This is BORING!”

If this is a challenge in your homeschool classroom, you may relate to the story of first-year homeschool mom, Anna, and her 7th grader, Jason:

Anna had planned a unit around Jason’s favorite place: the local skate park. Skate Park Week would be differentiated (one-on-one!), hands-on and engaging. The physics experiments, social studies projects and language arts assignments she planned would address academics naturally—the opposite of the desk work Jason struggled with last year.

Tony Hawk: The Autobiography, should have been the perfect pick. The reading level was definitely not an issue. Starting in kindergarten, Jason was considered a gifted reader, well past his peers. Unfortunately, he had become less enthusiastic about reading over the years. Everything was “boring,” and he struggled to stay on task. Teachers often noted his ability to pay attention during activities that captured his interest. In a homeschool setting, individualized material was now possible.

Anna had Jason read from the first chapter:

“Skating also taught me the meaning of focus and perseverance. One time at Del Mar when I was trying to learn a new trick, I set it up with an easy trick called a 50-50. It was simple; I just needed to grind both my trucks on the edge of the concrete bowl. I had done it thousands of times before. I could do it in my sleep. This time, though, I got stuck on the edge and started to fall. I put my hands in front of my face to protect it, but unfortunately, it was too late. My face bounced off the concrete. My mouth was full of blood.”

Before Anna could start the writing lesson, she was stopped in her tracks with: “This is BORING!”  

What?!

Jason could decode and define “perseverance.” And as an aside, he could execute a 50-50 himself. What could be the problem?

Most reading experts agree on one thing: In order to comprehend what they read, students must have strong decoding skills and adequate oral vocabulary. In other words, a child must be able accurately decode every word on the page, and know what all of the words mean.

Unfortunately, many students who can decode well and understand words still have weak comprehension. What is the missing piece for these students?

Those of us who love books are visualizing the story. We make “movies” when we read. The words turn into pictures and we remember those images.  However, there are individual differences in student’s abilities to visualize concepts when they read.

So Jason, though reading accurately, is processing the words, or parts, rather than the whole. He is not “seeing” the story. So of course: “This is BORING!”

The good news is that the imagery-language connection can be developed. Asking a student “what did those words make you picture?” is a great start, directly stimulating this vital skill.

Learn more about Concept Imagery

A New Study About Mental Images

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For more than thirty years, Lindamood-Bell co-founder Nanci Bell has been working to educate parents, education professionals, and researchers about what she identified as concept imagery ability.

Published in 1986, her book Visualizing and Verbalizing for Language Comprehension and Thinking discusses concept imagery ability, and concept imagery weakness, a condition that scientists are recently terming aphantasia.

Visualizing and Verbalizing details how to recognize symptoms of concept imagery weakness, and describes how to teach people who have the condition how to make mental images.

Researchers from the University of Exeter in England studied the condition. Click below to watch the BBC report.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34039054

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Back to School Tips

* News, , 
“Next Year is Going to be Different!”

Top 4 areas to tackle before school starts.

Like most families, yours may have been thankful for summer break—a reprieve from the school year’s relentless schedule of project deadlines, events, and class obligations. By the end of the year, you may have even identified a few habits and patterns that were working against your family’s success. Perhaps you decided,  “Next year is going to be different!”

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Hold a brief family meeting to kick start your effort. Work together to identify last year’s “pain points.” Your family’s list might include items like:  “too much homework on Sunday nights”, “always late for first period”, or, “arguments about screen time.” Notice that parents and children often agree on what’s not working.  Recognizing we share the same goals can make a difference for keeping it positive.

Once you’ve chosen the areas to improve, make your plan for how you’ll all get there. Let’s say you are working on changing “always late for first period.” To create your improvement plan, you’ll identify what is slowing down your family (long showers? getting out of bed too late? too much time fussing about clothes? too groggy in the morning? completing homework in the morning?) To improve your family’s habits, you’ll likely be addressing one or more of the following areas: health, study skills, extra-curricular activities, and chores.

Enjoy this common-sense list for families to consider for a calmer, less chaotic household:

Healthy Habits

  • depoEnsure nourishing meals, perhaps by having your child help with a weekly menu.
  • Add physical activity to the week if extra curricular activities don’t already suffice.
  • Plan for downtime activities which could include recreational reading, listening to music, communicating with friends, or watching a TV show.
  • The recommended screen time for your child’s age group will help establish healthy limits. You and your child can research this data, calculate the appropriate amount of time for his/her age. Have him/her suggest a time of day it could fit in a daily schedule.

Study Skills

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  • Establish a fresh backpack and binder organization plan.
  • Use a calendar system for remembering deadlines and scheduling homework.
  • Create a distraction-free homework zone.
  • Plan for support (e.g. who will be monitoring homework during the week?)

Extra-Curricular Activities

  • Identify interests and passions and make them a priority.
  • Plan for schedule and transportation needs.

Chores

  • rightabEstablish age-appropriate responsibilities.
  • Develop a daily and weekly chore schedule. Allowing your child to choose among a few tasks ahead of time can be effective.

Have fun matching up your target areas for change with the solutions that will work for your family.  Solutions might be simple, such as going to sleep earlier. Or, an issue may require a bigger change, like creating a functional, age-appropriate calendar system for homework and project planning. Tackle one issue at a time, together, and next year really can be different!

 

UAB Study: Improved Reading and Brain Activity Following Visualizing and Verbalizing Instruction

* News, * Press Releases, Research, ,

Lindamood-Bell Press Release

Study Cites Improved Reading and Brain Activity in Children with Autism Following Visualizing and Verbalizing® Instruction

A new study released by the University of Alabama aprograms-img-1t Birmingham (UAB), in which a group of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) received 10 weeks of intensive instruction utilizing the Visualizing and Verbalizing for Language Comprehension and Thinking® program, found that the instruction “was enough to strengthen the activity of loosely connected areas of their brains that work together to comprehend reading.” The children’s reading comprehension also improved.

Three groups of children with ASD were studied: 1) the experimental group of children with ASD, 2) a wait-list control group of children with ASD, and 3) a control group of typically developing children. The study revealed, through Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), widespread changes in functional connectivity of the brain’s reading network as a result of intervention in children with ASD. These findings add new evidence of the ability to alter function of young brains in children with ASD. In addition, the findings support the use of specialized sensory-cognitive intervention to boost the memory and comprehension of children with ASD.

The children received intensive instruction 4 hours per day, 5 days per week, for 10 weeks, of the Visualizing and Verbalizing program, authored by Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes co-founder Nanci Bell. The program develops concept imagery—the ability to create an imaged whole from language—as a basis for comprehension, critical thinking, and memory. The intensive intervention was administered at the Lindamood-Bell Learning Center nearest each of the children.