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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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8 Successful Ways to Help Students Complete Homework

After a long day of school, many kids are cognitively spent and they have little patience and energy to pull out their assignment pad and slog through more academic work.  Often, what should take little time, drags out into hours and hours and families are often desperate for manageable solutions. What Can We Do to Make Homework a Manageable Task? Stop calling it homework!  Just the name can trigger pouty moods and cantankerous behaviors.  Find another word to use such as assignments or activities.  Use a timer to help some students stay on track.  I usually set the timer for both completing assignments and taking breaks.  If students have a competitive nature, you can also use a timer to see how fast they can complete a few problems, and then see if they can beat their time.  This often creates a motivating game that can help them to maintain attention on the task at hand. Create a structured routine.  Make an afternoon and early eveni...
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11 Strategies to Make Homework Fun and Manageable

Doing homework after a long day of school can be a real backbreaker for many young learners! Downtime is both limited and cherished, so making assignments enticing is key. So, what can we do to make the process less burdensome and possibly pleasing? Homework Don'ts: Never pair homework with a punishment. When this is done, students associate homework with unpleasantries, and it can have a negative impact on future assignments. Don't call home assignments, "homework." Who wants to take their work home? Besides, when it is called work, it becomes work. Personally, I like to call it, "home fun!" Homework Dos: Create enticing names for home assignments. For example, I never teach script or cursive. I teach roller-coaster letters!  Generate excitement about upcoming assignments by sharing your own excitement and enthusiasm for the content.  Bring creative options such as drawing, sculpting, and music into assignments. Introduce the fun fac...
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Soothe Your Students and Increase Homework Productivity

When students are spent and stressed from a long day at school, it can be a chore to get them to complete their homework. So how can one entice these passive, unmotivated learners to pick up the pencil and mindfully coast through their assignments? Working as a learning specialist and educational therapist, I meet with most of my students for a single hour each week. Therefore, it is imperative that I use every minute of my session wisely. It took me some time to realize that, for some students, it is a fruitless and frustrating chore to push them to plow through assignments. For these students, I need to commence at a slow pace and pause for 5 to 10 minutes, before they are encouraged to plunge into the pool of school work. What Gets in the Way? There are a number of hurdles that can topple a student session. Low stamina: Many students are cognitively spent after a day of school. Poor motivation: Some students have little to no interest in completing homework. Attention ...
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Learning to a Beat Can Improve Student Mood Attention and Stamina

Having to complete homework after a full day of school is really challenging for some learners. The thought of having to pull out books and get back to work after sitting at a desk for most of the day can be an overwhelming and daunting undertaking. In fact, many students would rather do just about anything than school work. So what can we do to help them get through their assignments in a focused and mindful manner? A Consistent Beat Can Help Improve Mood, Attention, Processing Speed and Stamina Metronomes have been used to enhance abilities in sports and music for decades, and but did you know that for some learners, a consistent beat playing in the background can help to improve mood, attention, processing speed and stamina? A metronome is a device that produces an audible beat—a click or other sound—at regular and consistent intervals. While a slow beat can be calming, a fast beat can increase one’s energy level and processing speed. The trick is to use a device th...
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Social Media Disrupts Homework - Five Management Strategies for Success

Although many students think that they can manage an onslaught of distractions while they are doing their home work, there is a price to pay. Pings from social media and bleeps from electronic devices present constant interruptions that pull attention away from the task at hand. In fact, because many students try to juggle multiple activities, divided attention can turn an hour of assignments into three hours or more. An added problem is that diversions prevent learners from fully engaging in their work on a deep level and their learning curve takes a sharp dive. As result, these students often have to take the additional time to relearn the information at a later date - if they don’t want their grades to suffer.               What Can We Do to Help This Generation of Young Learners Manage Social Media? Teachers can integrate social media into classroom and homework assignments.  Start a group for your class so that students can share st...
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26 Best Homework and Learning Sites

As a learning specialist and educational therapist, it is imperative to keep up with the best online sites for homework and learning. This blog offers a list of my favorite internet resources that can be used to assist all students - but particularly "out of the box learners" or those that have learning challenges. What's more, many of these sites offer multisensory options and tools that bring the fun factor into learning. I have sorted the sites under a number of headings to help you sift through the online resources. Instruction: reteaches academic content Assistive Technology: adaptive devices that make learning easier Test Preparation: sites that help students prepare for tests Tools for Learning: a tool that assists with learning Strategies: ideas that help learners encode information Resources: texts and videos that help with the learning process Resource Description   (IN = Instruction, AT = Assistive Tech, TP = Test Prep, TL = Tools...
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Turning Homework Into Home Fun

Motivating students to complete homework assignments can be tricky. After a long day at school, few learners look forward to tackling academics on their free time.  So what can we do to make the process less taxing, and possibly enjoyable? Strategies for Turning Homework into Home Fun: Who came up with the idea to call after-school assignments "homework?" Clearly, they were not thinking about the psychological sabotage embedded in that word.  I mean, really, who wants to take schoolwork home?  Here are a number of strategies that will help you to improve students attitudes and motivation, about home assignments. Don't call home assignments, homework, but come up with a name that is more appealing and motivating such as home fun.  Think like an advertising agency that is trying to sell a product, and be sure to create fun and enticing names for all your assignments and lessons.  For example, I never teach script or cursive. I teach roller-coaster let...
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