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Learning Letter Article Archive
Past articles and reviews
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College Board Changes Affect Students with Learning Disabilities
Parents take note: Starting September 2003, two important changes by The College Board which provides the SAT as well as the PSAT and AP tests will take affect changing how college's view students with learning disabilities. Continue
What is a Learning Disability (LD)?
We recently sat down with Dr. Risa Tabacoff, founder of DAIC, for a discussion about the basic realities of learning disabilities; its definition and ramifications. -editor (MH)
MH- Dr. Tabacoff, could you briefly describe what constitutes a learning disability?
Dr. Tabacoff- Generally, a learning disabled person, as it is used in the educational system today, is someone who shows a significant discrepancy between their ability as measured by an IQ test or expected developmental norms and their school performance. Continue
BOOK REVIEW:
How Your Child Learns Best-Friendly Strategies You Can Use to Ignite Your Child's Learning and Increase School Success
How Your Child Learns Best is a groundbreaking guide for parents that combines the latest brain research with the best classroom practices to reveal scientifically savvy ways to improve your child's success in school.
Written by Judy Willis, MD, MEd, a board-certified neurologist who is also a full-time classroom teacher, How Your Child Learns Best shows you not only how to help your child learn schoolwork, but also how to capitalize on the way your child's brain learns best in order to enrich education wherever you are, from the grocery store to the car - a necessity in today's "teach to the test" world.
By using everyday household items and enjoyable activities, parents of children ages three to twelve can apply targeted strategies (based on age and learning strength) in key academic areas, including:
• Reading comprehension
• Math word problems
• Test preparation
• Fractions and decimals
• Oral reading
• Reports and projects
• Science and history
• Reading motivation
• Vocabulary
Discover how to help your child increase academic focus and success, lower test stress while increasing test scores, increase class participation, foster creativity, and improve attention span, memory, and higher-level thinking.
How Your Child Learns Best shows how to maximize your child's brain potential and offers something for every parent who wants the best for his or her child.
"At last we parents now have a reference that will help guide us in assisting our children's growth and flowering. This book is what parents have been searching for and need now more than ever." - from the foreword by Goldie Hawn
About the Author
Judy Willis, MD, M. Ed (Santa Barbara) a board certified neurologist and middle school teacher, has combined her training in neuroscience and neuroimaging with her teaching education and years of classroom experience. She is an authority in the field of learning-centered brain research and strategies derived from this research for use by parents and educators. Her articles connecting neurology and education have been published in numerous education journals. Paperback: 336 pages; Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc. (September 1, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1402213468 ISBN-13: 978-1402213465
Overcoming Dyslexia:
A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Overcoming Reading Problems at Any Level, -by Sally Shaywitz
Yale neuroscientist Shaywitz demystifies the roots of dyslexia (a neurologically based reading difficulty affecting one in five children) and offers parents and educators hope that children with reading problems can be helped. Shaywitz delves deeply into how dyslexia occurs, explaining that magnetic resonance imaging has helped scientists trace the disability to a weakness in the language system at the phonological level.
According to Shaywitz, science now has clear evidence that the brain of the dyslexic reader is activated in a different area than that of the nonimpaired reader. Interestingly, the dyslexic reader may be strong in reasoning, problem solving and critical thinking, but invariably lacks phonemic awareness-the ability to break words apart into distinct sounds-which is critical in order to crack the reading code. The good news, Shaywitz claims, is that with the use of effective training programs, the brain can be rewired and dyslexic children can learn to read. She walks parents through ways to help children develop phonemic awareness, become fluent readers, and exercise the area of the brain essential for reading success. Early diagnosis and effective treatment, the author claims, are of utmost importance, although even older readers can learn to read skillfully with proper intervention. Shaywitz's groundbreaking work builds an important bridge from the laboratory to the home and classroom. 34 line drawings and graphs. Hardcover: 432 pages; Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (April 15, 2003)
*ISBN: 0375400125 From Publishers Weekly
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