Do You Have a Struggling Learner?

In lieu of my normal Week in Review, I am going to share some of what I learned this weekend at our homeschool convention.  I am so very excited to have learned this information and I can’t stop telling people about it, so dear readers, you get to be a part of it, too!

I went to a workshop by Dianne Craft whose specialty is Special Needs and she also has become a nutritionist.  Her website is here at diannecraft.com.

Dianne was an excellent speaker, doing an incredible job sharing the knowledge she has learned in the last 35+  years helping children who have learning difficulties.  She was also quite humorous, keeping us laughing as we learned a great deal.  I highly recommend going to hear her if you ever have an opportunity.

The first three classes I went to were:

“Identifying and Correcting Blocked Learning Gates”

“Teaching the Right Brain Child Part I”

“Teaching the Right Brain Child Part II”

There are 4 learning gates to the brain and your child may have only 1 learning gate blocked but he could also have all 4 learning gates blocked.  You need to decide if what you are seeing is a maturity issue (meaning you just need to give him another 6 months before you try to teach him what he’s having a hard time learning – such as phonics) or if he’s a struggling learner.  Read these articles at HSLDA by Dianne Craft.  Is My Child a Struggling Learner? and How to Tell Why Your Child is Struggling.

Why do some children have to use more energy than others to write, read, focus, etc.?  It’s because they have an “energy leak”.  Think of a battery.  One child will have a task to complete such as copywork and zippity do da, they get it done no problem.  Their battery is still full.  Another child will do the same task and not only will it take them a long time but they’re exhausted by the time they’ve completed it.  These kids now have a low battery from all the energy they’ve used.  (I have a son that would look completely haggard by the end of a school day.)

Maybe their writing was sloppy and and you thought how lazy and unmotivated they were.  This is all part of the Visual/Motor (Writing) learning gate being blocked.

Does your child have reading reversals still? (on= no, was = saw, of=to)  This means they have a visual processing gate blocked.

Can’t remember multiplication facts? Easily misunderstands verbal information, phonics sounds don’t stick?  Auditory processing gate is blocked.

Impulsive behavior?  Inconsistency in performance from one day to another?  Forgets previously learned work much of the time?  Attention/Focusing/Behavior gate blocked.

All these things and others are reg flags that there is a problem somewhere.  You can see the whole list at HSLDA.

That’s all I have time to write about now.  Tomorrow, I’ll try to share about Teaching the Right Brain Child and what I learned about helping those who have great difficulty with spelling.

Has this been helpful to you in some way?  Please let me know.