Learning Specialist and Teacher Materials - Good Sensory Learning

When considering the estimates that 1 in 10 people have dyslexia and that there are successful teaching methods available for this population, one might wonder why our education system does not have standard practices to identify and help these students. In addition, with the new research suggesting that students with dyslexia also exhibit cognitive based strengths compared to those without dyslexia, perhaps one might consider it to be a learning difference and not a disability. Sadly, without a diagnosis in hand, our current education paradigm dooms these struggling learners to maintain the same ill-instruction. With a Whole Classroom of Students, How Can I Help? Have you ever come across a bright and creative student that is struggling in class? Reading is labored, decoding is difficult, spelling is poor, writing is challenging and their grades just don't reflect their abilities? Did you ever wonder whether he or she may have dyslexia? With a large classroom of students, it can …

Have you ever wondered if you can turn an image or a PDF into an editable document? What was once a costly and buggy turnaround, is now free and quick with Google Drive. This can be an invaluable trick that can save students time, resources, and most of all, energy! Let me show you the steps.
What are the Steps?
1) On your computer, go to drive.google.com or select the icons shown in the image below.
2) Drag the desired file into your Google Drive as illustrated below. You can convert JPEG, PNG, GIF, or PDF (multipage documents) files.3) Select File  Open with Google Docs as shown below.


4) A sheet icon appears while the file is converting (see below). Google is now changing your PDF or image file to text with OCR.
5) A Google document will soon open. The image will be on the top and the new editable text will be below it.

What are the Ways Students Can Use This Helpful Feature?
Take a clear picture of a teacher's notes or another student's notes, pull then into a Google do…

How can we accommodate the needs of struggling readers, so they can quickly master this critical skill?  Pedagogy, an educational method that assumes the learner to be a "blank slate" and dependent on the teacher for guidance, evaluation, and the acquisition of knowledge, is a common approach when assisting struggling readers. However, it is often forgotten that these students do have a wealth of prior knowledge that can be utilized. In addition, many of them have specific learning deficits that have left their learning capacity riddled with booby traps that ambush the encoding of information and sabotages confidence. So how can we reach these capable learners?  Luckily, there are three steps that dismantle these snares and fortify each student's academic infrastructure. Uncover Cognitive Deficits First, we need to reveal any cognitive deficits. Comprehensive psycho-educational testing is a great option that reveals areas of weakness that need to be addressed. However, i…