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Showing posts with the label Following Directions

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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How to Easily Teach Struggling Students to Follow Directions

Learning to follow both aural and written directions is a crucial skill for students to master. It is the foundation of learning and difficulties in this area can impact a student’s ability to focus, follow a sequence of steps, take notes, answer questions as well as show their knowledge on written assignments and even tests. What Causes Difficulties in Following Directions? Even if a student appears to be listening, it doesn’t mean that they will actually follow directions.  Once a student hears the information, the brain needs to make sense of the sounds, and weaknesses in attention, auditory processing, visual processing, reasoning, executive functioning, and language processing can block one's understanding.  So if students do not understand lessons, we can't expect them to provide the needed response. So What can be Done about This? The best solution is to exercise and strengthen the core cognitive skills. Students need to learn and practice the subtlet...
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The Best Free Following Directions Activities

Learning to follow both oral and written instructions is a vital skill that students need to learn at an early age.  However, grabbing their attention long enough to learn the complicated process can be challenging! Why are Following Directions a Difficult Skill for Young Learners? Following directions involves a combination of mental tasks. Therefore, for a student to be good at this, he or she needs to be proficient at the following skills, and he or she also needs to be able to do them simultaneously: Attention is the ability to maintain focus on a selected stimulus, sustaining that focus and shifting it at will. Receptive language  is the ability to understand language “input” - including both words and gestures.   Memory  is the ability to understand and remember information over time. Verbal reasoning  is the ability to understand and reason with words. Executive Functioning  is the ability to multitask , self-monitor, self-initiate,...
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What are the 7 Root Origins of Poor Listening Skills?

It is easy for parents and even teachers to lose their cool when children do not listen to repeated directions. So, if kids aren’t making sense of what they hear, how can the learning process even take place? To solve this problem, it is necessary to uncover the root causes of poor listening skills.  Then, one must find the individualized, cognitive-based culprits for each student. What are the Cognitive Skills Behind Listening? There are a number of core cognitive skills that support one's capacity to listen: Attention - Attention is the ability to tune into information, sensations, and perceptions that are relevant in the moment. Working memory - Working memory is a cognitive function that enables students to recall and use relevant information to complete an activity. It also enables learners to hold multiple pieces of information in the mind and manipulate them. Often described as a mental workspace, working memory helps students stay focused, block distractions ...
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Free Following Directions Sample Activities

Many young learners struggle with the complexities of linguistic cues and following both written and oral directions can be a challenge.  This requires vocabulary development as well as the strengthening of cognitive processing areas such as auditory processing, visual processing, sequencing and more Come download  free sample activities  that you can use to help your students strengthen these needed skills. Cheers, Dr. Erica Warren Dr. Erica Warren is the author, illustrator, and publisher of multisensory educational materials at  Good Sensory Learning  and  Dyslexia Materials . She is also the director of  Learning to Learn  and  Learning Specialist Courses . · Blog:  https://learningspecialistmaterials.blogspot.com/ · YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/user/warrenerica1 · Podcast:  https://godyslexia.com/ · Store:  http://www.Goodsensorylearning.com/  &  w...
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Holiday Activities that Strengthen Following Directions Skills and Freebie Offering

Do some of your students struggle with subtle linguistic cues, tricky wording and following both oral and written directions?  Difficulties in these areas can make it challenging to complete all aspects of an assignment, interpret multistep directions and comprehend multiple choice tests.  This is a common problem for students with dyslexia and other language-based learning disabilities, however, most students benefit from the development of this skill.  So what can we do to help foster these skills while bringing in the fun factor? With the holiday season around the corner, many students love to get into the spirit and providing festive activities can be entertaining and motivating.  My Thanksgiving and Christmas Following Directions Activities  could be just what you are looking for! In fact, I offer a holiday bundle too that celebrates, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, St Patrick's Day and Valentines Day.  Come download some free sample...
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Mastering Tricky Wording: Free Follow Directions Summer Fun Activities

It's easy to forget how challenging it can be for children to learn the complexities of the English language. Following a parents' directives, interpreting the needed steps to complete a homework assignment, understanding multiple choice test questions, and discerning a teacher's instructions are just a few examples of how young learners need to be able to understand and navigate the subtleties of linguistic cues. For many children, learning to follow directions is a complex task that requires instruction, and the mastery of this skill involves vocabulary development, mental flexibility, attention to details, listening skills, receptive language skills, and verbal reasoning. What Happens When Kids Have Trouble Following Directions? When kids have trouble following directions, they often encounter the annoyance and frustration of others. In fact, a true misunderstanding can even result in ridicule and punishments that can leave the child confused and dejected. How...
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Using a Geoboard to Help Students with Dysgraphia

Recently I discovered the geoboard and now I love to use this product to develop mathematical skills, visual spatial skills, visual reasoning and fine motor dexterity.  In fact it is great for my students that have dysgraphia. What is a Geoboard? A geoboard is a math manipulative that students can use to explore basic shapes and geometry such as perimeter, area and coordinate graphing.  It consists of a wood board with evenly spaced rows of nails or a plastic board with protruding pegs around which string or rubber bands are wrapped. How Do I Use My Geoboards? Due to the popularity of rubber band bracelets, one can get a huge variety of colorful rubber bands in many different sizes.  I have organized mine into sectioned plastic boxes so that my students have many options to choose from.  Here are a number of fun activities that I offer my students in my own private practice. For my young learners I use the geoboard to: learn the formation of...
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Following Directions: How Do I Teach this Skill?

It's easy to forget how challenging it can be to learn the complexities of linguistic skills. Following oral directives, interpreting the needed steps to complete assignments, understanding multiple choice questions, and discerning a teacher's written instructions are just a few instances of how young learners need to know how to navigate the subtleties embedded within our language. For many children, learning to follow directions is a complex task that requires explicit instruction, and the mastery of this skill involves vocabulary development, mental flexibility, attention to details, listening skills, receptive language skills, verbal reasoning, and expressive language skills. What Happens When Kids Have Trouble Following Directions? When kids have trouble following directions, they often encounter the annoyance and frustration of others. In fact, a true misunderstanding can even result in ridicule and punishments that can leave the child confused and dejected. H...
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