How Beautiful

Less than a month ago, when our first foster baby was six and a half months old, he transitioned into his pre-adoptive family home.  It was a whirlwind week.  Timing is everything and of course the Lord knew our plans before we did and that was a huge blessing.  We had planned to go camping with two other families the first weekend of June and the foster baby had been introduced to his new family a week prior.  We all agreed that as many day visits and an over night visit leading up to our camping week would then terminate in his transition placement the morning we left for camping.  I was blessed with one week of preparation for goodbye and a great opportunity for a family distraction of camping.  

It helped, a bit.

Coming back to the baby toys in every room, dirty laundry to still wash and fold but not be worn, baby swing in the living room, and bouncer chair in the kitchen was hard.  Then, at the end of a long day, going into my bedroom and seeing the empty crib just hurt, badly.  The only thing stopping me from crawling into the crib to cry is all the baby things I piled in it from the rest of the house.

Our first meeting with the family did not go smoothly as the baby cried the entire time.  It was not his best side!  The SW suggested the new family take him for a stroller walk around our block.  What I loved and will cherish from that really painful day is the image of her kneeling in front of the stroller after the walk just watching him in stillness as he slept. 

It was all for that very moment.  A mother seeing a child as her very own.

As I am writing this, stopping to wipe the tears gushing from eyes yet again so I can see, I was reminded of my wedding song from sixteen years ago.  As I listened to it tonight, I cried for different reasons: 

"How Beautiful" by Twila Paris

And then as I was typing, this song came on my IHeart Radio:

"Temporary Home" by Carrie Underwood

How Beautiful are the hands and feet that serve... that offer sacrifice... willing to pay the price. How beautiful when humble hearts give... so that others may live... in this Temporary Home.  And he whispers "Don't cry for me, I'll see you all someday"...and says "I can see God's face"

"See You Again" by Carrie Underwood

This is not where it ends... I will carry you with me... Said goodbye, turned around and you were gone, gone, gone

Another Person's Treasure

I love online freebies.  My latest treasure came from Craigslist: Earobics 1 and 2.  This is an expensive gem that was mixed into the freebies of rusted trailer, free dirt, heavy 70's style armoir (bring extra people cause I won't help you move it), and free "misc items (all rained on) by the curb."  And don't forget the token "free couch" that is tattered, peed on, ripped and dumped curbside "great for someone's game room"...

Earobics is an electronic game excellent for Auditory Processing Disorders.  Some schools use the program.  On Amazon, I bought one used for around $60.  Here, I was given two!  I actually already own Step 1 but the package deal was well worth the 30 minute (one way) drive!

If you have been following my updates for Fast ForWord reviews, then you are familiar with the desired outcome of the games.  Earobics is what I purchased prior to doling out $$$$ (yup, that's right...) for FF.  It is FF without the extremely beneficial one on one consultant to help you over the plateaus.  

I was sooo excited about my (husband's) freebie find yet even more excited about a fellow parent of a child with learning issues.  Someone else has been down the same road of Auditory Processing Disorder tools that I felt like I needed to "give back" something in return as gratitude.

Regardless of how it could come across, I took with me a smile and a short, handwritten list of other helpful resources to pass along.  As a side note, "my personality" doesn't do this! Here's what I wrote down for this surprised and bemused stranger who I felt akin to (seeing as we both bought Earobics to help our kids with APD and the like):


#1 on my list, of course: Fast ForWord

• included a link to my blog for detailed info on the program
• scilearn.com  has a great video for more info

#2  Auditory Processing Disorders (2007) by Geffner and Ross-Swain

• it is the college manual for treatment of the disorder
• it includes a great list of "over the counter" games to play to improve skills
• amazon.com

#3 diannecraft.org  

• GREAT resource and free program details for APD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia
• a "totally different approach to auditory memory," which is by looking at the physical causes

• I purchased her Brain Integration Therapy manual for 3 of my kids.  also addresses and corrects midline therapy needs

#4  How Your Child Learns Best (2008) by Judy Willis

• Judy Willis' website

#5  Liberty Consultants, Canton, CT

• liberty4kids.com
• she specializes in reorganizing the "disorganized brain" and reteaching skills in order to rearrange the brain for function

Building The Reading Brain

Patricia Wolf and Pamela Nevills wrote a great book with this title for the PreK-3 grades.  

check out the book's online Table of Contents preview

Is this a book parents will find useful? It is geared more for teachers.  However, what you as a parent do at home for your children even before they go to school is very important and the authors provide more than enough data supporting the importance of early intervention/education.  For a parent, this book outlines some great at home starter practices!  As a homeschool parent, this book is my starting point for pre-reading practices.

The authors also take time to provide help for pre-reading and reading comprehension issues along the way.  In fact, this book is one of the places where I was introduced to the Fast ForWard program (see my blog page for our FF journey).  It is highly recommended as an early intervention for children who have deficits in the brain's auditory processing areas! (Has your child had lots of ear infections? Understands the gist of what is said but not many details? I'll do a post on this next :)

Two important pre-reading skills that are essential in the home environment are the knowledge of books and the alphabetical principle that letters equal the sounds that form words.  This early stimulation with books and the written word will help make brain connections easier for them later when they put the "sound picture" with the "written symbol/picture."  As I mentioned in another post about eye tracking, the left to right movement of your finger under the words and sentences starts to wire the brain correctly (for English readers).  

I cannot stress enough the benefits of observing of the movement through text as opposed to casual observance or active play on computers or Apps.

Remember all those little nursery rhymes?  Amazingly, these little songs learned at a young age are wiring the brain for hearing the patterns in sounds.  

Research has found that early knowledge of nursery rhymes greatly develops processing skills and reading ability.  

 In the brain, the repetition of sounds set to a rhythm (a common memory strategy) helps develop word processing skills.  As a parent, further this development with interaction by commenting on the similar sounds, encouraging predictions of sounds and word patterns, and by finding your own rhymes.  These activities build the awareness that individual sounds exist, can be manipulated, and stored in long term memory for ordered recall.

Having fun with print and singing nursery rhymes are a great way to "build the reading brain!"

Visual tracking and the emerging reader

I came across this intriguing article on how our eyes move around on a web page or an app in comparison to how we read text on a page.  I can't find it again in order to share it ;) but, I did some more research on online eye tracking habits.

Sixrevisions.com, which is a web developer's resource, explained how a study on eye tracking helps web traffic: 

Now, my interest in this is in how this eye tracking patterning affects kids learning to read an actual written text. 

My two oldest boys are 11 and 9.  I taught them both to read using the same curriculum, which was before
"apps" or even computer games were targeted to 4 and 5 year olds.  

In fact, my boys had no interest in the computer since they knew there was nothing on it for them!  Snuggled up together, we read books aloud, made up stories using the pictures and all that other creative stuff.  Neither of them had any issues with how to move across the page; this book is laid out well and teaches left to right tracking from the beginning:

(check out mamaofletters.com review  here)

My youngest son who is 5, however, has "grown up" with apps and watching his older brothers play computer games online.  He jumps all over this page when reading! His eyes scan the whole page and he then picks a sound or word to read based on his preferred visual familiarization.

We have a whole new generation of emerging readers who are visually biased and stimulated to page layout and random scanning.  In order to correctly learn to read, then, these students are needing to be retrained in left to right eye tracking on a page.  Unfortunately, studies have shown that reteaching a skill is far more difficult because you have to overcome bad habits and retrain the brain's neural pathways (read How The Brain Learns by David Sousa)   

The method for teaching reading is still effective but the day to day interaction with information has greatly influenced how readers seek information.  Sad to say that the impact of scanning written text will continue to cause reading difficulties.  Eye tracking during reading is a complex and necessary process and the interruption, or competition, of scanning is not building the correct neural pathways for successful reading skills.

Fast ForWord® for Us!

My daughter is dyslexic and also struggles with hearing sounds.  The combination of the two issues have created much heartache and learning complications for both my daughter and myself.   For the past two and a half years, I have been using various reading intervention programs, auditory programs, spelling programs, and implementing researched strategies.

At this point, she is at a pivotal point in her education: we can continue with these strategies and fall slowly behind or we can jump forward using a proven brain training program that goes behind the scenes where I cannot go easily.  I have chosen to dish out the cash now (it is not cheap) instead of a slow and steady stream throughout her education in remediation curriculum.

I have not come to this decision lightly as it costs more than one month of my mortgage!  However, four months of intense training will have huge payoffs immediately.  Part of the responsibility of homeschooling is in making decisions like these.  In conversation some have said to me that if she were in public school, there would be no cost.  On the contrary, there would be no progress.

Last year I took her in to the public school to be tested for various learning issues.  The results from three days of testing clearly show all of the "symptoms" of dyslexia and poor working memory, however, the Board's decision was that she is within normal learning levels.  I'm sure it would be different once she was enrolled in the school since school funding is greatly increased per labeled child.  She is seven and can not read, can not hear the sounds of short e, short i, b, d, and only hears parts of conversations while relying on context and visual cues.  Lessons in reading, spelling, and math take excessive repetition to acquire a skill base.  When talking with parents with children on the Spectrum, they instinctively recognize traits of their own children's struggles in her.

After much research, I had narrowed down my options to two programs: Earobics and FastForward.  Due to financial constraints, I chose Earobics and have witnessed slow but steady results for my daughter.  Sadly, she is still falling behind because during this time period, a "normal" child develops quite rapidly and she just cannot keep up.  Since that time, I have used Earobics with two other children and seen great results with the oldest one and slight improvement with the middle aged one.  All three are receiving intensive reading and phonics tutoring, which verifies the impact that developmental stages can have on mastery learning.

I have come across documented case studies and statistics on the program Fast ForWord® in multiple research texts and online over the past three years.  While online reviews indicated a lack of success, these reviewers also admitted an a la carte approach to the program where individuals were not fully following the program due to time demands.  These reviews were all done on school usage.   Despite this, a small posted comment by a mother of three restored my hope.  She very simply stated that if the reviewer had actually completed the program correctly, it would match her son's results.  She said that she would pay even more money for this program it was that beneficial.  

The Customer Service department is very personable and provide plenty of support.  I found it weird to be talking to someone who understood Auditory Processing Disorders and the like and had a personal testimony about a child like mine. She was not pushy, just knowledgeable.  The FastForward online program we are using is called BrainPro and before you start, you must choose an available Consultant who will work with you throughout the program.  They even match your time zones for phone calls!  All of the Consultants bios were extremely impressive and thorough.

Even before I paid my dues upfront, the BrainPro Representative walked me through all of the screens I would be using online, gave me details on the starting games for my daughter, and logged me in.  

First Use:

My daughter eagerly sat with her headphones on and intently watched the screen.  I later read that I should have a dual headphone jack so I could listen in also; This is needed!  I kept distracting my daughter by yelling loudly so she could hear me ask "DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE DIRECTIONS?" She would nod.  I would ask again because it looked like she was doing nothing.  Finally, she said, without glancing away, "Mom, this is hard! I'm trying to listen!"  She gets it ;)

Several times during the three games, which took 30 minutes, she asked if she could stop.  I'd encourage her and she would resume.  After it was all done, she then asked if she could do it all over again!  (I knew my daughter would ask me this and so I had previously asked the Representative if that was possible.  She said she'd have to ask the Consultant I chose!)

Day One: Success!

On Brain Overload

When you find yourself "zoning out" in the middle of a...........it is usually from mental fatigue!

For many people, the zoning out is just a symptom of something else in overload in our lives.  Once the trigger is identified, you can learn to prevent it.  Others of us are not as fortunate in being able to control the overload and can happen in quite a few areas of our daily lives. 

Here is an living example:  A mid thirties man has a job in a fast paced working environment.  There are job duties that require flexibility and others that depend on set procedures for quality. He is known as "Minute Max" by all the staff.  Some use descriptors such as "flighty, out there, unreliable, or inconsistent."  For a management team that requires great higher order thinking skills and consistency, this great guy is a nightmare to work with.  

Or, take a cheerful young learner who has difficulty learning to read.  By the time she has sounded out all of the five to seven short words in the sentence, she has forgotten the first few words.  Getting flustered, she starts all over again by sounding out all of the words until she gets so disoriented and embarrassed that she just gives up.  Teachers may say she is inconsistent with her abilities and just needs to try harder.

When this "zoning out" seems to become like a label for a lack of ability, the mental fatigue is the symptom of working memory overload.

By adopting the following strategies, it is possible to improve working memory!  Start by reducing the load on your working memory. 

1. Reduce the amount of material to be remembered by:

• finding patterns
• learn material in a variety of ways (hands on, auditory, visual presentations)
• rely on what is already stored in long term memory
• chunk, or group, information as it goes in using patterns and link it to previous knowledge in your long term memory
• prompt recall by rehearsing it and using memory aids

2. Increase the meaningfulness and familiarity of the material

• let automaticity take over for what it knows so your working memory is free to explore and become familiar with the specific content goal.
• use existing knowledge and structure 
• "KISS":  Keep It Simple, Stupid

3. Simplify mental processing

• Support the new with repetition, scaffolding, and memory aids
• modify information for comprehension

4. Restructure complex tasks

• Define simple steps in procedures
• Identify the familiar first
• monitor comprehension

Want to learn more about working memory?  These notes were expounded on from the book Working Memory and Learning by Susan E. Gathercole and Tracy Packiam Alloway published in 2008.

amazon.com

Here's a link to a free online publication by the authors:

Working memory and classroom learning

Some other great links:

Lumosity.com

Timing Is (Almost) Everything in Presentation

As the old saying goes, “Timing is everything.”  As an Instructor, this aspect of teaching is more than crucial to greatly aid in the retention of your learning objective.  If you have taken the time to transfer your information to another person, then take the time to present it in a way that they will easily remember it. 

It’s not just how you say it, but when.

International Educational Consultant David A. Sousa wrote a great book called How The Brain Learns (2006).  In the section on Memory, Retention, and Learning he discusses the outcome of studies done on when new information should be presented, when the best time to mentally manipulate the information for better understanding, and even when to have fun!

1. Present new information first

Ö        Give a brief overview of the big picture.

Ö        Follow with all of your multi-sensory, multiple learning approaches with the new information to relay the details. 

Ö        The more “tags” you put on the information, the more “tags” your brain has to pull it back into working memory when needed.

Ö        Timing: use almost half of your time for the new information.  40 minutes total time?  Then spend just shy of 20 minutes with the presentation.

2. Practice time in the middle

Ö        “Practice makes permanent” so provide guided practice and rehearsal in order to organize the information correctly

Ö        Actively engage them in the process!

Ö        Review how the new fits in with the old learning experiences and knowledge.  Create links, associations and patterns to what they already know. 

Ö        Timing:  only 25% of the total time.  For a 40 minute lesson, practice is only the middle 10 minutes

3. “Ah Ha!” closure at the end

Ö        The second most powerful learning time!

Ö        All the previous practice gives way to understanding how to apply it.

Ö        Take a brain break before starting another learning session for better focus

Ö        Timing: the last 10 minutes of a 40 minute session

This has changed my presentation of information drastically, even in writing.  Previously, I explored by questioning what they already knew so that I could link it to the new information.  Unfortunately, that was giving way to inaccurate answers being recalled.  By providing the big picture first, I am accurately providing the framework and patterns for the new information.  It is in the guided practice downtime that I am providing quick feedback so that they practice the new learning correctly.  I am helping them to manipulate and link it to what they know during this time so that when we go back to closure, how to apply it is fresh on their mind.

In regard to practicing the presented information over a longer period of time, Dr. Sousa states that initially, new learning periods should be grouped close together and then distributed over time as review to increase recall. 

amazon.com