Daily Literacy Activities

Learning happens in many ways, especially in our day-to-day activities.  Tasks such as cooking, doing laundry, running errands and surfing the Internet all provide learning opportunities that your family can embrace.

Here are 10 fun and easy ways to make literacy part of your family's daily life.

When making your grocery list, have your child write out the items you need to buy.
At the store, ask your child to count out the money to make the purchase.
Make it a habit to always read a story together at bedtime.
When cooking dinner, involve your children in measuring the ingredients.  This helps them understand fractions and measurements.
Driving is the perfect opportunity to practice literacy.  Read signs, billboards, and licence plates together, and show your children the proper way to read a map.
While on the Internet, make time to research something new that your family is interested in.  Researching skills are important and help with reading and comprehension.
In the car, sing along to songs on the radio.  Singing encourages learning patterns of words, rhymes and rhythms, and is strongly connected to language skills.
When playing a board game, read the instructions aloud to each other or count how many spaces to travel around the board.
Involve your kids when you pay bills.  This will teach them strong financial skills early on in life.
Children follow by example, so ensure reading is part of your daily life too!

For more family literacy tips, activity ideas and information please visit  http://www.familyliteracyday.ca/

January 27th is Family Literacy Day.  Celebrate it!!

Parent Teacher Relationship

Top Ten Things Teachers Wish Parents Would Do

Participate in their children's education.  Parent involvement helps students learn, improves schools and makes teacher's job easier.

Provide resources at home for reading and learning.  Supply books and magazines for children and read with them each day.

Set a good example.  Show your children that you believe reading is enjoyable and useful.

Encourage children to do their best in school.  Help them set obtainable goals and monitor involvement in other activities.

Concern themselves first with academic progress, next with students' preparation to assume adult responsibilities, (work, etc.), then finally, involvement in athletics and activities.

Support school rules, discipline policies, and achievement goals.

Call teachers as soon as a problem becomes apparent so that prompt action can be taken.

Teach basic self-discipline, good manners and other social skills that children need throughout their lives.

Understand that alcohol, tobacco and excessive partying are problems as serious as drug abuse.  All these can cause both a student's health and classroom performance to suffer.

Remember that teachers are people, too.  Many are parents, and share your parent challenges.  Teachers want your students to succeed:  Help Them!

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel.  It is like this....

When you are gong to have a baby, it is like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy.  You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans.  The Coliseum.  The Michelangelo David.  The Gondolas in Venice.  You may learn some handy phrases in Italian.  It is all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.  You pack your bags and off you go.  Several hours later, the plane lands.  The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say.  "What do you mean Holland??  I signed up for Italy!  I am supposed to be in Italy.  All my life I have dreamed of going to Italy."

But there has been a change in the flight plan.  They have landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease.  It is just a different place than you planned.

So you must go out and buy new guide books.  And you must learn a whole new language.  You will meet a whole new group of wonderful people that you would have never met otherwise.

It is just a different place.  It is slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy.  But after you have been there a while you catch your breath, you look around.....and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips.  Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy....and they are all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there.  And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes that is where I was supposed to go.  That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away....because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But.....if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things.....about Holland!!

By:  Emily Perl Kigsley

Habits of Effective Students

1. BE PROACTIVE - You always have the freedom to choose!  Rather than reacting automatically to a situation, take a moment to decide how you want to respond.  Realizing what you're in control of and focusing on those things can empower you.

2.  PUT YOUR BIG ROCK FIRST - It is okay to say no sometimes in order to focus on your highest priorities.  What matters most to you?  Tackle those things first.  You'll manage your time better and feel more fulfilled at the end of the day.

3.  BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND - Start each day, task, or project with a clear vision of the end result.  You might realize that what you're striving for is a it unrealistic or maybe too easy to accomplish.  Setting SMART goals can help guide you in this process.

4.  BECOME A GROUPIE - Get more involved in groups.  Everyone stands to benefit when people bring different experiences and expertise to the table.  If a group is hard to find, a partner will do just fine.  This applies not only to academics, but also to organizations and extra-curricular activities.

5.  FIND A BALANCE - To stay happy and healthy, it's important to balance various areas of your life.  Whether it's joining an intramural soccer team, seeing a concert with friends, or making a biology study group, all students have their own ways of getting physical, social, spiritual, and mental fulfillment.  Finding an equilibrium among all your interests can be hard, but it will keep you from burning out.

Math Test Tips

Here are a few tips to help with your math exams

Glance over the entire test before you begin.  If you don't have extended time, this will help you estimate how quickly you will need to proceed.
Answer questions out of order.  Begin with the questions you know how to do.  Tackling the easy questions first will build your confidence.  Check the problems off as you go along, so you don't miss any.
If you get stuck on a problem, move on to the next one.  You can always go back later.
If a problem has more than one part and you can't do the first part, proceed with the second.  Often, partial marks are awarded for what you do.
Read the questions carefully, and make sure that you don't omit any parts to the problem.  You don't want to miss the opportunity to receive full credit.
Verify that the final answer makes sense.  You may catch a lost decimal point.
Take extra time to check your basic calculations.
Before the test, avoid hanging out with classmates who tend to make you worry or cause your stress levels to rise.

Musical aptitude relates to reading ability

http://www.psypost.org/2011/10/musical-aptitude-relates-to-reading-ability-7588

Great write up.  Check it out

National Learning Disabilities Awareness Dy

Today is National Learning Disabilities Awareness Day across our country. 

- 1 in 10 people have a learning disability
- Having a learning disability doesn't mean that the person is lazy or dumb
- People with learning disabilities have average to high average IQ's
- More children in Canada have a learning disability than all other types of disabilities combined.
- All people have wonderful qualities if we take the time to see them.
- Respect and treat all students with dignity.
- Celebrate every success!
- Knowledge and understanding are the most important aspects of addressing learning disabilities and ADHD.
- People with learning disabilities are as unique from one another as are people without learning disabilities

Learning Disabilities Association of Saskatchewan runs many programs to help those with learning disabilities achieve their dreams and goals.  Please contact us for support at 306-652-4114

October is Learning Disabilities Awareness Month

October is Learning Disabilities Awareness month.

Interesting material on LD:

What do these people have in common:  http://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-learning-disabilities-2011-5?op=1

LD experience: http://www.ldexperience.ca/

What Unions have to say:  http://specialneedsproject.ca/en/about-us/news/latest-news/91-october-is-ld-awareness-month.html

Canadian Supreme Court Case on behalf of Jeffery Moore:  http://www.ldac-acta.ca/en/component/content/article/85.html

 LD Awareness month poster:  http://www.ldao.ca/

Please forward this information to all of your contacts.  Together we can make a difference.

CogMed Offered at LDAS

Learning Disabilities Association of Saskatchewan is now offering the CogMed Program.

Cogmed Working Memory Training is an evidence-based program for helping children, adolescents and adults sustainably improve attention by training their working memory.

The program is based on strong scientific research, is delivered under the supervision of a qualified Cogmed Coach, and can be done either in the convenience of the client's home or at a designated healthcare facility.

The complete program includes:

• Initial interview
• Start-up session
• Five weeks of training with weekly coach calls
• Wrap-up meeting
• Six month follow-up interview
• Access to the Cogmed Training Web
• Cogmed Extension Training (12 months)

Provided by a national network of attention specialists, all qualified by Cogmed.

Computer-based training, using a PC at home or at a designated healthcare facility.

Software adjusts complexity level for each exercise, in real time, for maximized training effect.

25 training sessions of 30 - 40 minutes each, done over 5 weeks.

Supported by a Cogmed Coach who leads the training, tracks results, and gives support and motivation.

User/family sets the training schedule with the Cogmed Coach, with plenty of flexibility.

Cogmed Training Web gives all users online access to their own training results and progress status.

Cogmed Extension Training allows the user to further sharpen the acquired capacity and to verify how the results hold over time.

Please contact us for further information at (306) 652-4114 ext 4

A Day in the Life

Try this game with your Grades 3 - 5 children

Photographer Rick Smolan has published a series of books called A Day in the Life....showing 24 hours in the life of an astronaut, a country, a state.  Now it's your child's turn to create a similar book.  Buy your child a disposable camera.  Show her/him one of the Smolan books and explain the concept.  Then talk about documenting one day in your child's life (or her pet's or sister's or friend's or whomever he/she wants).  Start the day by photographing your child asleep just before you wake him/her.  Then let him/her take a photo every hour of the entire day.  (Mom, a timer set to an hour will help you remember).  Finish by taking a last shot of him/her asleep.  When the photos come back from the developer, paste each one on construction paper.  Help your child write the details that explain each picture - why he/she picked the subject, why it is important of his/her day, and who was nearby buy not shown.  Make a title page by writing "A Day in the life of [your child]," with the date she photographed.  Punch three holes in the left margin and tie the pages together with yarn or dental floss.  Keep the book forever, and show it to everyone.  Talking about your child's ideas is a crucial part of writing.  It helps your reluctant writer capture those elusive details that sometimes scramble in his/her bran.

Rights and Responsibilities for Academic Accommodations

http://youth2youth.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=189&Itemid=234&lang=en

Please click on the link above to read all about your Rights and Responsibilities for Academic Accommodations.

Chores

Chores are also a part of every one's life. A child needs to know that she is a part of a whole and that everyone in the family has certain expectations. Make sure you are realistic with time, ability and age appropriateness. By doing this, a child sees that her contributions are valued and necessary. It also teaches her responsibility, a big academic success tool.

Keeping communication open between you and your child is essential to your child's academic success. This needs to be updated daily sometimes, as your child's life evolves and grows with each academic year. During dinner or before bed, ask every member of your household, one at a time, "What is the best thing that happened today?" "Nothing" is not an acceptable answer. You will be surprised at what you hear and what you learn from that one simple question. Parents participate as well!

Whatever the makeup of your family, mom, dad, child, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or cousin, academic success depends on everyone in our daily lives. Academic success isn't just tied to our child's classroom. While that should be a main focus during the academic year, it is also what our child learns outside the classroom, in their everyday life, that helps them to succeed.

Lead by example. Care. Be involved.

By: Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes (2011)

Activities

By:  Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes (2011)

While it is essential that your child focus on something else besides school work, it is just as important that he is not over-scheduled.  Discuss with him, at the beginning of the school year, what it is he would like to do after school for fun.  Let him pick one or two activities per semester.  Make sure he is doing it because he wants to, not because you want him to!

Do make sure that you can fit the chosen activities into your schedule, and if not, make other arrangements.  Activities might include drama, music, sports, art or volunteering at a local non-profit.  Having something else to focus on and include in his day helps to teach him time management, working with others, and leadership; all life-skills that spill over into academic success.

School/Homework

It is your child's "job" to go to school.  It is your job, as a parent, to work both inside and outside the home environment.  As with every job, there are certain expectations, and if they are not met, there are consequences.  Let your child know from the beginning what is expected of her.  Plan study times with a schedule and make sure you look ahead to see what is coming up.

Help organize your child's backpack the night before so that it is ready to go in the morning.  If you start with this simple task when she is young, by the time she is in the upper grades, she will be doing this on her own.  If your child takes a lunch to school everyday, perhaps making it the night before is easier than rushing in the morning to make it.

Make sure the space for homework has good lighting, is clutter free and comfortable.  Distractions should be avoided during this time, including loud music, television, telephones, text messaging, and electronic games.  Supervise her schoolwork.  Don't just take her word for it that it is done.  Look at it.  Give her positive feedback.

Finally, keep communication open with your child's teacher.  Encourage your child to talk to her teacher.  If your child needs help on how to ask something, rehearse it with her.  Enabling your child can be a powerful thing.  If this proves unsuccessful, make an appointment to talk to your child's teacher yourself.  Problem solve with your child.  This is a life-long skill that can be "taught" at a very young age.  Practice with your child.  All of these suggestions can be applied to every stage in a child's academic career.  They help her to become independent and self-confident.

Health

The importance of sleep, diet, exercise, and down-time cannot be stressed enough.  As a parent, it is our job to make sure our family stays well.  Put a bedtime routine in place and stick to it.  As your child gets older, this can be a bit more flexible.  Make sure your child has access to healthy snacks and well balanced meals.

Of course, we all know the importance of daily exercise.  Make sure everyone in the family participates in this.  It can be as simple as taking the family pet for a walk everyday.  Finally, it is important to make sure your child has some down-time everyday.  This can include recreational reading, talking on the phone to friends, watching television, playing with friends, running errands with a family member, playing a board game, or going to a movie.  The focus should be on having fun and relaxing.

By:  Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes (2011)

Preparing Your Child for a Successful Academic Year

It is time to sit down with your family and talk about the coming school year.  Coming off the last lazy days of summer, it is the discussions you have now as a family that will help to define a successful transition back into the realm of academia and less flexible schedules.  By clearly defining, from the beginning, your expectations for each of your children, hopefully there will be less frustration and more joy for everyone.

A Child needs to know what is expected of him and why.  It helps him to understand that he is a part of a family and that everyone has jobs to do, both outside and inside the home.  By including him in the planning, he knows that he has an important role in the family unit.  As parents, we need to be able to communicate to him, in an age appropriate manner, just what his individual roles are to be.  That is not to say, that roles cannot be modified as time and circumstances change.

It is essential that children are re-evaluated as the academic year progresses and that changes are made where needed.  the best laid plans all have an element of flexibility built into them.  That is life.  Begin preparing your child for it now.

Some areas that should be discussed are health, family, school, activities and chores.

We will be talking a look at all these areas over the next few days.

By:  Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes (2011)

Try This Game with Grades 3-5

Fortunately/Unfortunately

The writer Remy Charlip wrote a classic children's book called "Fortunately", in which one good even happens, followed by its unfortunate opposite.  The book opens with, "Fortunately one day, Ned got a letter that said, 'Please Come to a Surprise Party,' But unfortunately the party was in Florida and he was in New York."  You do not need the book to play this game, but it's more fun if you first read it together.  Each person playing the game receive one sheet of paper.  Write in large letters at the top of a sheet of paper "Fortunately."  On the reverse side, write "Unfortunately."  Talk with your child about a trip he or she has always wanted to take like Disney World, across Canada by bicycle, to the moon, etc.  Help your child think of a first sentence about the trip, starting with something like, "Fortunately, we won the lottery.  Our whole family decided to buy bicycles and ride across Canada.  Mom quit her job."  Write the "Fortunately" sentences.  The pass each paper to the other player.  Turn it over and write the "Unfortunately" part.  For example, "Unfortunately, it rained every day, and our bicycles rusted."  If your child wants to play more, you can either make new Fortunately/Unfortunately sheets or you can draw a line under the first part and continue the story.  Number each part on the front and back, so you can read the finished stories out loud more easily.  Remember, this is not the time to fuss about spelling.  If it's easier for your child with LD, let her/him dictate to you.  Your role is to help your reluctant writer communicate his/her ideas to the world.

Try These Games for Grades K - 2

Eat Your Words

The reluctant writer of any age often needs to return to the word level.  Make it fun by baking dinner rolls or cookies in the shape of words that mean something to your child.  For example, if he/she loves comic books, bend purchased dough into "Pow!" or "Shazam!"  If it's his/her birthday, bake his/her wish, like "Gameboy II."  (And if all this is too messy, use Play Dough or craft clay for words - but don't eat it.)

Survival

Pretend you are stranded on an island somewhere in your apartment, house, garage, or local park.  You need to write "Help!" so you will be rescued by planes that are searching for you.  You don't have a pencil or paper (and if you did, the writing would be too tiny to be read from the air).  Tie towels around your head and take water (it's hot on the island).  You and your child must survey your surroundings and invent non-pencil ways to write HELP!  If you're in the bathroom, you might make giant letters out of toilet paper (and hope there's no wind).  If you're in the garage, you might find paint and brushes.  If you're in the park, you can always write with your toe in the sand.  Suggest as little as possible, unless your child needs prompting.  This game allows the child who balks at writing to experience the power of a single word when it is used for a reason.  And if your child's imagination is fertile, don't stop at the first idea.  Find as many ways as possible in each room or location.

Flying Messages

You'll need a ball or Frisbee, some tape and paper cut into six 1-1/2 - 2" - wide strips the long way.  Both you and your child should write three commands, one on each strip of paper, that tell the other person to do something physical.  For example, you might write, "Hop on your left foot six times" or "Squeak like a mouse."  Try not to see each other's commands.  Go outside and stand as far apart as your child can toss the ball or Frisbee.  You start the game by taping your first strip to the ball or Frisbee.  Toss it to your child.  He reads the message and follows the instructions.  Then he tapes his first strip to the ball or Frisbee and returns a flying message.  If you don't have a place to play outside or the weather won't cooperate, you can stuff the message in a sock, ball it up, and toss it inside.  (Hint:  Don't play this game on a day when you're pooped.)  In school, a child with learning problems may not connect why ideas in his head need to land on paper and be read.  But when messages fly through the air, affect the other person's behaviour (and especially make him/her look silly), writing makes sense to the child.

Help Your Reluctant Writer at Home

Your struggling writer needs practice at home, but you don't want to make it seem like another school chore.  The answer is to sneak writing into play - and vice versa.

As Joseph Pearce says in The Magical Child, "The child can never learn to play without the parent playing with the child.  Play.....is a huge creative potential build within the child, which never develops unless it is stimulated by the adult model, the parent."

Remember that your role as a home writing coach is to have fun and to honour your child's imagination.  You don't have to be the drill sergeant in charge of spelling.  In fact, research shows us that in the long run, it's far more important to encourage the communication of ideas than to hamper a child's style for the sake of correct spelling.

The root of the word "communication" is "to commune" - in other words, to coax the ideas in your child's brain down through the paper and up into your brain.  You can help by:

• Saying, "Let's play a game."  There's no need to mention "writing game" if your child is a reluctant writer.
• Choosing subjects your child loves, like brontosauruses or monster movies or soccer or shoes.
• Talking through ideas, asking questions, and listening carefully to answers.
• Making drawings, notes, and story maps together, if your child can't remember ideas.
• Taking dictation or having your child use a computer.
• Praising honestly and liberally.
• Keeping games short.
• Posting written work on the wall or refrigerator, or sending it to family members and friends.  Writing is meant to be shared.
• Quitting if it isn't fun for your child or for you.

Make Writing a Game, Not a Chore 

• Writing has many stages before it reaches paper - generating ideas, noticing likenesses, deciding on one main idea, eliminating others, choosing appropriate words, and putting them in an order that readers can follow - not to mention problems with the physical act of writing.
• Your child with learning disabilities may struggle anywhere along the path.  Bur if he or she writes for reason and an audience, half the battle is won.  Incorporate writing naturally into play and it need not be a chore for your child or for you.  Let those ideas flow into print and sparkle.

Great Ways to Encourage Kids' Writing

Spark your child's interest in writing at home with engaging, fun activities.

It's natural for your children to bubble over with ideas, schemes, and jokes.  Unfortunately, capturing those ideas on paper is not so natural for many kids with learning disabilities.  They may freeze up, forget their ideas, or fight the pencil. 



Summer Reading & Fluency: Tips for Parents from Reading Rockets

You've got the reading lists.  You've got the books.  But what else can you do to make your children better readers this Summer?

Help them read more quickly and accurately.  Schools call this reading fluency.  Fluent readers understand what they're reading.  When they read aloud easily and with expression this makes reading a lot more enjoyable.  When their attention is focused on sounding our each word their comprehension and motivation can suffer.

Here are four things parents can do to help their child continue to develop reading fluency:

1.  Choose the right books

Help your child choose books that she/he can comfortably read.  The "five-finger test" is a useful guideline for beginning readers.  As your child reads, count the number of words he cannot read per page.  In general, there should be five words or fewer that give him trouble on each page.  If a book contains several pages on which you count more than five words that he can't read, consider reading that book to your child until he develops more reading skills.

2.  Listen every day

Once you've found a collection of books that your child can read, listen to your child read every day.  Be patient - new readers often read slowly!  Offer help when your child gets stuck, and always give lots of praise and encouragement.

3.  Read it again, Sam

Encourage your child to reread favourite books, and make it fun!  Repeated readings improve children's fluency and comprehension.  They also provide opportunities to practice reading with expression.  Children will enjoy giving the wolf a scary growl or using a squeaky little voice for a mouse.

4.  Read to your kids every day

Model your own fluent reading as you read and reread books with your child.  Even though your child may be able to read on her/his own, continue to find time each day to read books to her/him that are just beyond her/his reading level.  She/He will enjoy listening to more advanced stories, and she/he will hear a great example of fluent reading.  Cool summer reading is the perfect antidote for those hot summer days!  Enjoy.