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by Sarah Major, M.Ed
As is often the case when we discuss people in terms of classification, we tend to over generalize and label people. This is certainly the case when discussing right- or left-brain dominance. I would love to have a dime for every time I’ve heard someone say, “I’m right brained” or “I’m left brained.” A picture flashes into my head of a hemisphere in the brain running around on little legs and bare feet.
by Sarah Major, M.Ed
A customer recently wrote me with the following question: "My 8 year old daughter is right-brained and has difficulty in organizing her thoughts into writing in a sequential and flowing manner. Is there anything I can do to help her with her writing?"
by Sarah Major, M.Ed
It's so critical to teach right-brained learners (those who learn best through visuals, motions, stories and the like) with a global view so they can find patterns in all the material they are taught. Teaching your children to read falls into this category. What follows are some ideas for teaching sound spelling patterns in a right-brain-friendly way. By the way, I taught all my students this way, as even the predominantly left-brained learners gained more from this approach than from concepts taught in isolation.
When I was teaching school, many of my second graders struggled with placing quotation marks in their writing. This first surprised and then puzzled me.
by Sarah Major, M.Ed
Grammar, phonics, and parts of speech often struggle for first place at the very pinnacle of the student boredom scale. When I was growing up, spelling and arithmetic also jockeyed for room at the top. Because my boredom/failure scale was so top heavy as a young student, these days I spend a lot of “working” time looking for ways to teach these types of mind-numbing concepts, ways that are not only easy to learn but hard to forget.
by Sarah Major, M.Ed
Some learners can hear a lesson and follow it with study, review, and practice until they seemingly have it forever in long term memory. Other children (and there are many of them) may hear the very same lesson, be just as smart as the others, but remain unable to store the concept in their long term memory despite all the cramming and reviewing.
by Sarah Major, M.Ed
In this age of digital everything, children can usually avoid struggling to read an old-timey clock face with hands. They can see a display such as 9:15 and glibly read the numbers to you. But does your child really understand the meaning behind the pair of numbers, and will she be able to skillfully use time in her daily life without gaining the meaning behind the number pairs? Using time is a necessary skill, but many children struggle to learn how.
by Sarah Major, M.Ed
Is your child always on the move? Does he find sitting still for long periods of time difficult and loves to make things with his hands? If these are true of your child, likely you have an active learner on your hands who will learn to read most easily through non-traditional methods.
by Sarah Major, M.Ed
Here’s a riddle for you! How do you teach in a way that ensures that all your children with their different learning strengths are reached? It is possible to teach the same multisensory curriculum to multiple children who learn most easily in a variety of ways.
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