All things change right...from having your little one on your lap to having a moody teenager that believes nothing you do is good or right. Well just as they change - the strategies we use to help them must also change. Unfortunately for many readers, especially struggling readers - the struggle to fly under the radar and just keep up in the classroom, came at the cost of actually developing strategies and supports that would help them really understand their reading.

Bed time stories can be such a treasured part of the family routine for young children. The ability to listen to stories and imagine and learn new words is truly magical. However, sometimes as parents, we may find ourselves going through the motions and missing out on some of the deeper level connections and meaning we could begin modeling for our children.

Here are a few strategies and things you can be thinking about as you are reading with your child. Keep in mind, you don't have to be presenting ALL of the strategies EVERY time you read. Pick and choose so it doesn't feel like it has become a school lesson :)

We know that comprehending what we read is the sole purpose of learning HOW to read. But surprisingly schools have placed a heavy emphasis on how quickly children read instead of how effectively they are comprehending the material they are reading. While your child may awe you with their oral language abilities (their ability to tell you about complex things going on in the world) you might be surprised to find that your child's reading comprehension skills are breaking down. :

Research is very clear that Phonological Awareness is a foundational strategy for students to obtain the necessary literacy skills to read and spell effectively and efficiently. However, teaching older students phonological awareness skills can be difficult because many of the resources out there are geared towards younger students and the images, worksheets, and resources can be insulting to older students.

We wanted to dive into some of the core components of literacy (reading and writing) in order to help you, as parents, continue to support your children in developing solid literacy foundations at home. We know there is a lot of jargon surrounding the field of education so we want to try and break that down for you.

If you are fighting over homework every night - it's time to figure out what is going on. Often well meaning parents and teachers attribute a student's difficulty finishing or completing work to laziness, but the reality is that is just rarely ever the case. It's important that parents don't lose out on a more positive relationship with their child and get to the bottom of the homework struggle as quickly as possible. Often this struggle is caused by an unidentified learning disability - by identifying the core cause of the difficulties and outlining a plan you could change the future for your child.

A hallmark of dyslexia is an inconsistency between a child’s reading level and oral language level. Often, dyslexic students are highly verbal; talkative, inquisitive, articulate, and have amazing vocabularies!

One of my all-time favorite students who happened to be dyslexic had the most amazing vocabulary as a young student, he still does today! He would hear a new word used in the context of a book or adult conversation and immediately add it to his repertoire.

A common theme that we hear from many of the parents we work with is, “everything was fine until third grade.”

Parents often wonder, what happened!? My child wasn’t struggling in class, the teacher didn’t express any concerns, their reading was on grade-level or close to it, and then suddenly in third grade everything fell apart. What happened!?

Students with dyslexia need to be taught in the way that their brains learn best. As teachers, it is our responsibility to learn how to meet the needs of this unique and special learning style. Research tells us that people with dyslexia often have average to above-average IQ’s. 

The reason that they struggle in the school setting is not that they lack the intelligence it’s because people with dyslexia learn differently.

I want you to take a second and think about your life.  What big challenges have you faced?  How did you overcome them?  What goal were you trying to reach?  

We all have our own struggles and challenges in life that we have to work through in order to reach the goals that we have set for ourselves.  The ability to stick with something, even when challenges arise and it is tough, is called perseverance.

Flexibility, in terms of Executive Functioning, means to be able to deal with changes and accommodate for problems that come up.  This is crucial.  Out of all ten of the EF skills, one could argue that this is the one that is the most necessary to get through life.  Things change, and if we cannot adapt to those changes, we cannot be successful. Here are some tips on dealing with change.

“Oh, she’ll catch up,” is what Jane recalled her daughter Susan’s teachers saying throughout first and second grades. Susan, now 12, was in the lowest reading group in her classroom but teachers assured Jane that Susan was very bright and would catch up shortly.

In truth, Susan wasn’t catching up. As peers began moving past her in reading, Jane became more anxious and worried.

Sustained attention is the ability to pay attention to something for a long period of time, even if it is a non-preferred task.   

While paying attention to something that isn’t interesting to you is hard for anybody, it is especially difficult for our kids with ADHD and other attention struggles. This can affect everything from school, to work, to their social life. Here are a few tips/ tricks to practice with your child to help them build their sustained attention skills.

Is your child in the gray area?

“She has trouble spelling and reading fluently, but she’s doing okay for the most part

“He’s about a year behind, but don’t worry, it will click soon…”

“She has a hard time with reading grade level text, but she is fine compared to other kids in her class who struggle so much more…”

“I understand he has a diagnosis of dyslexia, but he’s not that far behind…”

Talking to your child about dyslexia can be anxiety-provoking. On the one hand you want them to understand why learning has been so difficult but on the other hand - you don't want to worry them or have them think anything is wrong. Using these 8 tips you will be well on your way to empowering your child to understand more about dyslexia.

Self-control is the ability to regulate your thoughts, emotions and actions.  It is something we always expect kids to have, but never explicitly teach.  We may tell kids "use your inside voice" or "this is how you should sit on the carpet in the classroom" or "keep your hands to yourself,"  but what about in the instances where self-control is hard to practice?  

There is nothing more frustrating than putting a ton of effort into something, and not having it go well.  

I remember when I was in college I had a test coming up in a General Education Physics Class. I knew that Physics wasn’t something that came naturally to me, but I was confident in my ability to learn the material.

Working Memory refers to a part of our short-term memory.  When information enters this part of our memory, we only have about 5 seconds to interpret it.  This means that we have only seconds to process the information, and categorize it into Long-Term Memory in order to be able to remember it later. 

Have you ever sat down to work, and realized it took you a while to get started?  Or, have you ever asked your child to do something and came back 30 minutes later and nothing you had asked for has been done?  These are instances that have happened to all of us in one form or another and refer to the Executive Functioning skill, Task Initiation.

When we look at a child’s Time Management abilities, the first problem we often think of is procrastination.  While this can be a huge issue for many of our kids, being able to avoid procrastination is only a small piece of having good time management skills.