Whisper Day, Calming children enough to teach

Often children who struggle to learn, also struggle to calm down and listen.  Sometimes we as adults have the same struggle when we are short on sleep and/ or have too much going on.  Too many children and adults are on overload because of too much going on.  People need time to be calm to function well.  One thing I have done and plan to do with a new group of children is Whisper Day.  One day a week, I have Whisper Day.  The only problem is everyone in the house or school has to whisper.  Many think this is foolishness.  It is.  It also can help when people are too excited to learn.  Unless on the phone, everyone whispers. For a phone call the person talking, an adult, needs to talk as softly as possible and for as short a time as possible for this to work. If this is made into a fun day, it can be enjoyable to all.
Think of all the places that children attend regularly that are loud.  These are most sporting events, video games,
and even the library when children are not taught to be quiet. The public school lunch room is a good example of  loud. Also compare eating places like Rib Crib(loud) to Ruby Tuesday(quieter). There is a time for loud and a time for quiet. Quiet takes more time and planning.  Quiet takes slowing down and thinking ahead.  I am naturally loud and this is a great effort for me.  It is also benefits me.

help I do not like math, math game, addition help

I tutor several children with math struggles.  One 16 year old can do addition with a number line. In my opinion a number line teaches people that math is hard when used beyond showing why math works. This is slow and he makes a lot of mistakes.  He is working on multiplication.  As he learns multiplication he forgets his addition facts.  Math does not seem to connect to itself.  Good multiplication often builds on good addition.  For him each fact seems to stand alone.
We are playing a war or battle game with cards.  Each face card and the 10 are worth 10 points.  The numbers are worth their number.  Instead of playing one card, we play two and the total of the two is compared to the other players two cards. The highest number wins.   This works well because he can count the hearts or spades on the smaller cards and he is learning to add while playing.
If someone with reading problems is struggling with math, a tutor needs to check to see if it is word problems causing the confusion. If it is word problems, reading may be the problem. If  reading is the problem read the problem aloud to the student to build math confidence as you work to raise the reading level.  As a learner reads better have him read the word problems aloud to you instead of you reading to him. As he gets more confidence have him read part and you read part and then as he reads better have him read to himself while you listen and encourage and help with any words so he does not stumble and lose the meaning of what he is reading.

Success stories from tutoring

Today, I was able to see two children I have worked with in the past.  The oldest will be a senior next year.  She struggled with geometry and my husband worked with her more than I did.  She was putting herself down because her ACT score was not as high as she wants it to be.  I told her that her ACT score qualified her to be a millionaire.  I am reading the Millionaire Mind and many of the millionaires did not have an ACT score as high as hers.  She is planning on going to college.  I was telling her about taking the CLEP tests and she does not have the confidence to think she is smart enough to pass them.  I hope to talk to her parent and encourage the testing.  She is so much smarter than she thinks she is. Her comment today was something about who would have dreamed she would be doing so well. She was comparing her Algebra success with her struggle in geometry.
The other child was really struggling to read and is now reading on grade level.  There are several positive things going on in his life now.  I do not know how much the tutoring helped. It is exciting to see him succeed.

Irlen, Dyslexia, struggling learners, vision problems in learning

I was at soccer practice with my grandson.  This is the only time I have been all season.  Another mother was there with a young child.  She is homeschooling for the first time this year.  We were comparing ideas on schooling and she has a child who is struggling in school.  I told her about my child having Irlen dyslexia.  She and I planned a time for her to come see how I tutor.   When she looked up the Irlen online, her daughter said her words moved like the third example.  She went to an educational store, Mardel's, and allowed the child to pick out a plastic color sheet to place over her school work.  On one of the store end caps there was a magnifying glass with pink and black zebra stripes.  Her daughter asked to have one.  When her daughter put it on her paper to read her comment was, "This cages the letters so they cannot escape."   In three weeks, reading was on level.
Her mom had said many times, "I do not understand why you cannot get this," when she was teaching this child.
How many children would benefit from being able to see correctly?  How many are we labeling learning disabled or teaching ineffectively because they cannot see or cannot see correctly?

Delicious Words

Life is so much fun when you see children or adults learn.  The 15 year old I last posted about is back in school and I am again tutoring him.  We took  December off and tutoring is getting started again.  I do not tutor the week school starts because the kids are tired and often on a sugar high from the Christmas and New Year happenings.  I am having the 15 year old read books to me.  They are simple.  The reason I am having him read them is that he can have success reading a book.  We read millions of cats by wanda ga'g. This is a good read because it allows success.  We began one book that was determined to be boring.  So we quit in the middle.  We do not need anymore boredom with learning.  It is ok to say I do not like a book and go to one we enjoy.
Another 15 year old that does not like to read was introduced to Ransom of Red Chief  by O'Henry.  The next time, he wanted to know if we were going to read anymore of that book, so we chose another story by O'Henry.  We are also working on his fractions and math.  It will be interesting to see what his grades will be.
I introduced a 6th grade girl to the delicious words of Anne of  Green Gables.  Her mom reported that her paper was fuller for school.
A  5 year old that is turned off learning melted when I told him that he was going to read the word cat in milliions of cats.  I told him cat was his word.  I read the rest and when I came to cat that was his word.  I do not know what happened that he is so afraid of  failure that he is afraid to try but we will see how he does.  He is already doing much better than when we started in September. He has had his second art class.  We have a wonderful art teacher in our town named Vada Weaver.  We went once before and he could only stay 40 minutes.  This week he had the confidence to stay an hour.  I had to tell him we had to go as class was over.  Sweet success.
Another young child about 7 liked the Chuck's Truck by Peggy Perry Anderson.  His words were Fat Cat Pat in this book.  He was excited to begin to understand he could learn to read.

Hello all,  I am sorry I have not been on in a while.  Will try to post more often.  I am working with a 15 year old that is exhausting me.  He is special needs and expelled from school.  The biggest problem for me is that he needs a high school paper that says he graduated.  He also probably would benefit from the goodwill program when he is old enough to be in it.  The problem is that without the high school paper, he cannot get a job even if he can train for one.  Therefore instead of tutoring which is more productive, we are doing the school paper chase.  By paper chase I mean that we are doing the papers for school that get him a grade.  I will be glad when he is back in school next semester so we can do more tutoring and less paperwork.  We are doing things that he is not understanding or retaining just to get a grade instead of spending the time with activities to improve his reading.
The teacher is trying and working with us so he can get a grade this semester.  Some of the work could be valuable if it was something I teach well.  I am impressed with some of what they have him doing at school.  However, the required mainstreaming is too far over his head and must be modified to the point of being busy work to follow the requirements with little reward.  We should be more thankful for our teachers in the formal school setting and the challenges they face.

Confidence in learner

Saturday, we had an opportunity for a former teacher to come see how the 15 year old is doing.  He came about 30 minutes before the teacher. He really liked this teacher and was so excited before she came that he could not do anything, except try to decide what all to tell her.  She had worked really with him and is an exceptional teacher. 
Just a few minutes before she arrived, I finally convinced him to work on tracking with his eyes.  He has become bored with the way we were doing the ball swinging from the ceiling. He no longer wants to just lie on the floor and follow the ball with his eyes.  He solved the problem by bringing a plastic toy light saber. It lights up and makes sounds as you play with it.  He lies on the pad on the floor and swings it at the ball as he follows the ball with his eyes. This is a fun way to exercise the eyes because he is trying to hit the ball with the saber. The key is still control.  His grandmother had told him to leave that thing at home as he was going to tutoring not to play.  The teacher thought it was such a good idea she is going to try to do this in her special needs classroom to see if it helps some of her students. She was here a little over two hours.         The first thing the teacher said when she walked in was how much confidence this young man has.  This is music to my ears and the young man's ears, too. She also had an idea to help his handwriting that we will try.
I talked to a fellow teacher and this teacher called her to share how confident the young man is. We are sharing other ideas that might help this young man.