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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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Mathemagic: Multisensory and Mindful Math Strategies Tailored for the Individual

Many students struggle with the steps required to complete mathematical problems. They may forget the concept, miss a step, mis-sequence the steps, misread a sign, or struggle with writing out or lining up the numbers. In fact, even if a student has understood and executed a problem with precision, it doesn’t mean that they will retain that information at a later time. So what can we do to help these students to encode, into long-term memory, the steps required to complete math computations? The 3 Key Components for Effective Math Instruction Click on the image to learn more Go multisensory: Integrate as many of the 12 Ways of processing as you can into your instructional plan: Visual, Auditory, Tactile, Kinesthetic, Sequential, Simultaneous, Reflective, Verbal, Interactive, Indirect Experience, Direct Experience, and Rythmic Melodic. To learn more about this click here Teach metacognitive and mindful strategies: Metacognition refers to the act of thinking about thinkin...
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26 Awesome and Fun Math Ideas for Struggling Students

With the summer vacation just around the corner, it will be important to implement some mathematics over the break to avoid the "summer slide." The "summer slide" is a term used to describe the loss of academic skills and knowledge over the course of the summer holiday.  In fact, young learners can lose from 2-6 months of instruction. How Do We Entice Young Math Learners to Keep Their Skills Sharp? When I work with students over the summer months, the key to my success is to integrate fun activities and games into all of my lessons.  I not only want to maintain each student's current knowledge, but the summertime is a wonderful opportunity to review concepts students that may have missed or preview topics to get them ahead.  Here are a few simple options that can get you up and running: Create a fun and creative math manual that implements memory strategies. Use online math tools, sites, and apps such as Nessy Numbers , and  Math Playground...
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Accommodating Students with Dyslexia - 12 Strategies for Success

Students with dyslexia or symptoms of dyslexia often struggle in school. It is not that they have limited abilities. On the contrary, many have IQs in the above average or genius range. As a result, instead of a dumbed down curriculum, these students need to be challenged and they need to receive accommodations, modifications and multisensory teaching techniques to unleash their learning potential. What makes it difficult to accommodate students with dyslexia is that each student has their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Yes, two students with dyslexia don’t have the same pattern of cognitive processing deficits. In fact, there are a number of profiles that can lead to this diagnosis . In addition, there are a number of specific cognitive skills that can cause symptoms of dyslexia . Consequently, a successful remediation often requires a tailored, individualized approach. To tap into the quickest results, I have learned that one has to look at the specific cognitive difficul...
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Multisensory and Memorable Mathematics Strategies: Math Favorites Bundle

For some students, learning math concepts is challenging and accommodating the individual needs with the current classroom curriculum can be difficult. To make matters worse, by the time many of these students exhibit the required academic underachievement that qualifies them for the needed assistance, many have negative learning experiences associated with mathematics, they struggle with a poor academic self concept, and some are overwhelmed with feelings of helplessness. What are the Common Difficulties Associated with Math Skills? When a student has difficulty with mathematics, they may struggle with any or all of the following: Memory - remembering concepts learned over time. Sequencing - recalling the required steps to get to an answer. Quantitative Reasoning - understanding the logic behind math concepts. Spatial Skills - understand and remember object’s orientation in space. Visual Processing - making sense of information seen through the eyes. Mental Manipula...
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Strategies that Strengthening Math Abilities for Struggling Elementary Students

There is often an easy solution to helping elementary students that struggle with math.  But first, we must understand that the root of math troubles often results from one or more of the following: lack of experience and practice working with numbers and symbols. drab or humdrum instruction. problems activating the needed areas of cognition to solve these problems. weaknesses in the cognitive areas of quantitive reasoning, spatial skills, visual processing sequencing, and working memory.  What Happens to These Struggling Learners in Our Present Education System? Young learners often lose interest and motivation quickly when they have problems learning concepts. What's more, when their peers exhibit learning mastery and they do not, it can feel embarrassing and humiliating. If left unaddressed, anxiety, a poor academic self-concept and even helplessness can result. How Can We Protect Students from Negative Thoughts that Quickly Damage One's Academic Self Concep...
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How to Homeschool Dyslexic Kids - Fun Strategies for Success

Finding excellent educational materials when you are homeschooling your children can be a challenge, but when you have a child with a learning disability, such as dyslexia, it is extremely important to utilize fun and engaging multisensory materials as well as cognitive remedial tools that make the learning process both enjoyable and memorable. What is Dyslexia? Dyslexia, a common condition that effects 5 to 10 percent of all people, is a learning disability that impacts decoding and comprehension of text as well as spelling and written language. Common causes of these difficulties are visual and/or auditory processing weaknesses that make it difficult to encode new, language-based information. Many also have a hard time accessing learned information, and they can experience word finding difficulties. How Can a Student with Dyslexia Learn the Needed Skills in a Homeschooling Environment? Although dyslexia is called a learning disability, it does not mean that these stud...
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Factoring and Multiples - Fun and Memorable Lessons and Activities

Creating magical activities for struggling math students is one of my favorite things to do. Teaching fun memory strategies, hooking techniques, color coded steps, drawing strategies, and color implementation can be the secret weapon to igniting joy in the learning process. Over the years, I have found that many of my students have trouble with factoring and multiples. As a result, I have created a new publication to make the learning process both enjoyable and memorable for both the teachers and the students. Now, teachers have all the tools that they need to teach these concepts in a multisensory and effective way. Students can learn the concept once and continue to remember the process over time. What’s My Method? All of the following strategies are integrated into my publication Mathemagic Magical Math Instruction: Factoring and Multiples . M emory Strategies: Implementing memory strategies helps students encode the new material. Hooking Techniques: Presenting hookin...
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Teaching Mental Math to All Elementary Students

Many people think that mental math is too difficult for elementary learners, but, in fact, youngsters have wonderful imaginations and capacities to visualize that can be utilized while doing mathematical calculations. In addition, it teaches them how to use their brains in an efficient, mindful and active manner. What's more it develops working memory, executive functioning skills and attention abilities that can serve them for the rest of their lives. How Can Mental Math Utilize and Develop Working Memory, Executive Functioning and Attention? Working memory is the key mental process that enables one to hold, manipulate, organize and process both new and stored visual and auditory information. When employing working memory, students also develop their executive functioning skills as well as their attention so that they can retrieve, integrate, and process the problem at hand. Teaching Children the Power of Visualization Makes Mental Math Fun and Memorable Another importa...
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Reading Comprehension Strategies for Stories

Helping your students to develop excellent reading comprehension skills can help them to succeed in academics as well as life. But simply decoding words is not enough. Successful readers must remember content, understand inferences, maintain focus and make connections. It is a comprehensive process that requires mindful pre-reading activities, reading activities and post-reading activities. Pre-reading Strategies Reading a summary of the chapter helps students to conceptualize main ideas so that they can read deeper and prepare to visualize the content. Questioning prior knowledge about the topic can help students make connections and it can capture their interest. Skimming a prior chapter or reviewing personal notes can help to bring back the story line or main idea for the reader. Predicting what will happen in the story can help to engage learners imaginations and creativity. Reading Strategies Underlining important characters, settings and events can help the ...
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Midterms and Finals: Free Strategies and Handouts for Success

For many students, midterms are right around the corner, and learning how to plan for these comprehensive exams can be key to helping them manage test anxiety and achieve the desired grades. What Can Teachers Do to Help Prepare Students for Midterms and Finals? 1. Throughout the Term Encourage Your Students to Create a “Test Preparation Portfolio”: Help your students to create test preparation materials weekly from homework, classwork, notes, handouts and textbooks.  Provide the opportunity for your students to ask questions about prior class content that creates confusion when they are preparing their portfolio. Evaluate each student’s test preparation materials and make recommendations. 2. Communicate with Your Students About Upcoming Exams: · Inform your students about the exams well in advance and provide a study guide. · Inspire your students to organize their materials. Evaluate their approach and offer recommendations. · Encou...
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