by Sarah Major, M.Ed
In the past few days, I have received a flurry of emails and phone calls from parents of kindergarten and first grade children. What these parents have in common is that they all have children who either are about to be screened for learning disabilities or who already have acquired that label. In each case, the parents either rattled off the disabilities their children have or tell me the behaviors and problems with learning their child has.
In each case, the parents communicated that their child is smart, but in the face of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they go along with the notion that their bright child is indeed learning disabled.
Here is an email from a mother:
“I have a six year old son who has been diagnosed with a reading disability and possibly many more...such as math, anxiety, attention etc. I have been trying to teach him number recognition as he struggles with the teens and fifties, thirties etc. He knows most, if not all, his consonant sounds. He struggles with the vowels, digraphs etc. He has processing issues, and his working memory is also a problem. He can decode, but sometimes forgets the initial sound etc. It is painful! He has some basic sight words like a, the, and, no, go etc...but it appears that these too can come and go in his memory.”
Another mother also recently called me to discuss her child. The child is also six, is slated for testing for disabilities (particularly ADHD and dyslexia), is beginning to have behaviors in school, can’t learn numbers, can’t remember words she has learned, can’t sound out words, and confuses sounds. Her mother said feebly, “She really is bright and creative, but she is starting to hate school.”
So what does this mean? There obviously is a disconnect between the children and the material they have to learn. Both children are six, which means that developmentally they are in a place where the right hemisphere of the brain is rapidly developing (the further development of the left hemisphere will begin after age 7). A large percentage of children remain predominantly right-brained processors throughout their lives. This stage of development directly impacts a child’s ability to handle the demands of learning when the material is presented in a predominantly left-brained fashion, which is the case for traditional curriculum.
I have written extensively about this, and yet I think that the best way to communicate these ideas in a meaningful way is to share the words of parents who have decided to try materials that are designed to be right-brain-friendly.
Here is what two parents have shared with us recently. This first email is from the parent who called to discuss her daughter’s needs:
“Thank you very much for your time yesterday. You made me feel more confident in helping my daughter. I will take all the suggestions and help that you gave me. I did show my daughter the [right-brained] math chart last night and she really liked it. We discussed the patterns and she could recognize numbers that she couldn’t recognize this past weekend. I sat there shocked! I then picked up the [visual sight word materials] that I printed out this past weekend (we looked at the cards Saturday night and discussed the pictures and I had not showed them to her for two days) I showed her the word side of the card and she just breezed through them. Again, I was shocked! I had to physically close my mouth with my hand…. Thank you for that email. Thank you for giving me hope and Thank you for taking the time!!”
And here is another email from a happy mother:
“I can't tell you how relieved, happy, and excited I am about [right-brained materials]. My son has been trudging along through K material, not liking school, and I felt he was working very hard with very little to show for it. Progress was being made, but at a snail pace. The first day we used the [right-brained alphabet materials] he started to gain momentum. Adding these [right-brained sight word materials], he's flying. He's excited and happy about working on reading. I can't explain the relief I feel to not have him struggle to learn. He feels smart, and he is. But he didn't know it until now.”
If any of this describes your situation with your child, please know there is hope. Children’s brains WANT to learn, and they are beautifully designed to do just that. If a child is struggling, please first check out some right-brained products. If your child responds to them, you will know it immediately. The lights will come on, the behaviors will depart, and the learning will be rapid and amazing. This is because a right-brained child is equipped to learn using their amazing brain camera which snaps mental images of information if the information is arranged so that this can happen. Your child can love learning!
Sarah Major, CEO of Child1st Publications, grew up on the mission field with her four siblings, all of whom her mother homeschooled. As an adult, Sarah homeschooled a small group of children in collaboration with their parents, and has taught from preschool age to adult. Sarah has been the Title 1 director and program developer for grades K-7, an ESOL teacher, and a classroom teacher. As an undergraduate student, Sarah attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill. and then received her M.Ed. from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. In 2006 Sarah resigned from fulltime teaching in order to devote more time to Child1st, publisher of the best-selling SnapWords™ stylized sight word cards. In her spare time Sarah enjoys gardening, cooking, pottery, quilting, and spending time with her family.
Child1st Publications, LLC
www.child-1st.com
704-879-4047
3302 S New Hope Rd
Suite 300B
Gastonia, NC 28056
In the past few days, I have received a flurry of emails and phone calls from parents of kindergarten and first grade children. What these parents have in common is that they all have children who either are about to be screened for learning disabilities or who already have acquired that label. In each case, the parents either rattled off the disabilities their children have or tell me the behaviors and problems with learning their child has.
In each case, the parents communicated that their child is smart, but in the face of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they go along with the notion that their bright child is indeed learning disabled.
Here is an email from a mother:
“I have a six year old son who has been diagnosed with a reading disability and possibly many more...such as math, anxiety, attention etc. I have been trying to teach him number recognition as he struggles with the teens and fifties, thirties etc. He knows most, if not all, his consonant sounds. He struggles with the vowels, digraphs etc. He has processing issues, and his working memory is also a problem. He can decode, but sometimes forgets the initial sound etc. It is painful! He has some basic sight words like a, the, and, no, go etc...but it appears that these too can come and go in his memory.”
Another mother also recently called me to discuss her child. The child is also six, is slated for testing for disabilities (particularly ADHD and dyslexia), is beginning to have behaviors in school, can’t learn numbers, can’t remember words she has learned, can’t sound out words, and confuses sounds. Her mother said feebly, “She really is bright and creative, but she is starting to hate school.”
So what does this mean? There obviously is a disconnect between the children and the material they have to learn. Both children are six, which means that developmentally they are in a place where the right hemisphere of the brain is rapidly developing (the further development of the left hemisphere will begin after age 7). A large percentage of children remain predominantly right-brained processors throughout their lives. This stage of development directly impacts a child’s ability to handle the demands of learning when the material is presented in a predominantly left-brained fashion, which is the case for traditional curriculum.
I have written extensively about this, and yet I think that the best way to communicate these ideas in a meaningful way is to share the words of parents who have decided to try materials that are designed to be right-brain-friendly.
Here is what two parents have shared with us recently. This first email is from the parent who called to discuss her daughter’s needs:
“Thank you very much for your time yesterday. You made me feel more confident in helping my daughter. I will take all the suggestions and help that you gave me. I did show my daughter the [right-brained] math chart last night and she really liked it. We discussed the patterns and she could recognize numbers that she couldn’t recognize this past weekend. I sat there shocked! I then picked up the [visual sight word materials] that I printed out this past weekend (we looked at the cards Saturday night and discussed the pictures and I had not showed them to her for two days) I showed her the word side of the card and she just breezed through them. Again, I was shocked! I had to physically close my mouth with my hand…. Thank you for that email. Thank you for giving me hope and Thank you for taking the time!!”
And here is another email from a happy mother:
“I can't tell you how relieved, happy, and excited I am about [right-brained materials]. My son has been trudging along through K material, not liking school, and I felt he was working very hard with very little to show for it. Progress was being made, but at a snail pace. The first day we used the [right-brained alphabet materials] he started to gain momentum. Adding these [right-brained sight word materials], he's flying. He's excited and happy about working on reading. I can't explain the relief I feel to not have him struggle to learn. He feels smart, and he is. But he didn't know it until now.”
If any of this describes your situation with your child, please know there is hope. Children’s brains WANT to learn, and they are beautifully designed to do just that. If a child is struggling, please first check out some right-brained products. If your child responds to them, you will know it immediately. The lights will come on, the behaviors will depart, and the learning will be rapid and amazing. This is because a right-brained child is equipped to learn using their amazing brain camera which snaps mental images of information if the information is arranged so that this can happen. Your child can love learning!
Sarah Major, CEO of Child1st Publications, grew up on the mission field with her four siblings, all of whom her mother homeschooled. As an adult, Sarah homeschooled a small group of children in collaboration with their parents, and has taught from preschool age to adult. Sarah has been the Title 1 director and program developer for grades K-7, an ESOL teacher, and a classroom teacher. As an undergraduate student, Sarah attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill. and then received her M.Ed. from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. In 2006 Sarah resigned from fulltime teaching in order to devote more time to Child1st, publisher of the best-selling SnapWords™ stylized sight word cards. In her spare time Sarah enjoys gardening, cooking, pottery, quilting, and spending time with her family.
Child1st Publications, LLC
www.child-1st.com
704-879-4047
3302 S New Hope Rd
Suite 300B
Gastonia, NC 28056
