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Showing posts from August, 2014

100 Powerful Learning Specialist and Educational Therapy Materials

This week I wanted to tell you about my online store, Good Sensory Learning. I’m Dr. Erica Warren, and I established this site so I could share all the materials that I have created over the last 20+ years as a learning specialist and educational therapist. When I first began my private practice, Learning to Learn, I had great difficulty finding fun and multisensory materials for my students that were effective and engaging. So back in 2005, I made it my mission to design and distribute high-end, remedial products as well as memorable, motivating lessons that bring delight to learning. If you would like to try a free sampling of my activities , CLICK HERE . How Are the Products Organized at Good Sensory Learning? You can download my Free Printable Catalog or you can browse the site using the grey “search all products” bar in the top right of any page with keywords such as dyslexia, working memory, and executive functioning. What’s more, drop down menus in the red banner allow you t...
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Ten, Fun Games that Strengthen Visual Processing

Visual processing is an important cognitive skill for children to develop, and there are many fun games that help to strengthen this skill.  What is Visual Processing and Why is it Important? Visual processing is a visual cognitive skill that allows us to process and interpret meaning from the visual information that we see through our eyes, and it plays an important role in reading, math, and spelling.   What Are the Cognitive Skills that Make up Visual Processing Visual processing involves a number of cognitive components: Visual Processing Speed:  the ability to process visual information at a rapid pace. Visual Scanning:  the ability to look at and absorb all parts of visual information and text. Visual-Spatial Skills: the   ability to mentally manipulate 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional figures. Visual-Spatial Reasoning:  the ability to perceive the spatial relationships between   objects . Visual Construction S...
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Free Tools for Helping Students to Plan and Organize for School

With the new academic year around the corner, teachers, parents, and students need to begin planning for the new school year.  But what most teachers and parents don't know is that the part of the brain that assists with planning, time management, and organization is not fully developed until students reach their early twenties.  Therefore, for most young learners, adults need to help create a structured plan and provide assistance when prepping and gathering materials for school. Checklists, graphic organizers, step by step procedures, strategies and more are often required, but many adults are overwhelmed with other responsibilities, and it can be difficult to find the time to take on this role.   I have created a free sampling of 7 printable handouts that can help jump start the process.  This FREEBIE  includes: a back to school checklist for parents, picking your organization approach for students, a school materials checklist, before and aft...
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Mastering the Vowel Teams Freebie

Would you teach your students a reading rule, if the rule only worked or was applicable less than 50% of the time?  The saying: When two vowels go a walkin', the first one does the talkin' is a rule that most learners know.  But if your students applied this to a comprehensive exam on vowel teams or vowel combinations, they would likely fail the test.  Clearly, this rule creates more confusion than good. How Can Students Successfully Master the Vowel Teams or Vowel Combinations? I like to use visualization strategies, hidden pictures, mazes and games to help my students master the concept.  What used to be a boring and tedious task is now fun and memorable.   How Can I Learn This Strategy? I'm offering a free sampling of my publication: Vowel Combinations Made Easy.  This will allow you to see some pictures as well as a maze that I use to entice my students.  The full publication also includes a number of engaging games. I hope you e...
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10 Reasons to Stop Using Candy to Motivate Students

Providing sweets to children to make them momentarily more compliant is a trick that teachers have used for ages.  In fact, fifteen years ago, when I started my private practice, I too can remember bribing challenging students to read lists of words or work through tedious drills.  But it was not long before I realized that this was the wrong tool to entice young learners.  In fact, loading youngsters with sugary sweets and empty calories proves to be detrimental in a number of ways. 10 Reasons to Stop Bribing Learners with Candy: Consuming candy is terrible for children's teeth. Ingested sugar has the potential of destroying one's general health and immunity as it can strip the body of important vitamins and minerals.  Many children are addicted to sugar, and many insist on eating it instead of vital, nutritious diets.   http://eric.ed.gov/?q=sugars+impact+on+learning&id=EJ872852 Eating too much sugar makes children vulnerable to the ove...
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