Eye-opening experience

In trying to find the latest tools, resources and support groups for parents like me who have children with learning disorders, I came upon a site last night that both broke my heart and made me thank my lucky stars that my son's only diagnoses is dyslexia and ADHD.

The site is called Empowering Parents. There are a lot of articles on parenting children with many difficulties. As frustrated as I feel sometimes with my son's learning differences, I cannot imagine what many of the parents commenting on this site must be going through. Many have children who are violent and they fear for their own safety in their homes. They talked about 4-year-olds wielding weapons against them and sometimes a parent taking his own life because he could no longer deal with the emotional strain. It was heart wrenching and brought me to tears.

When I first started on this mission to build a place for parents to go to get support and assistance for their learning disabled children, my focus was mainly on dyslexia and ADHD because that's all I knew. I've been doing my research and educating myself on other disorders in order to provide a well-rounded site for parents, and have had my eyes opened to a world of parenting I can't even fathom.

I know that my website can never be a help to parents who have children with ODD, bi-polar disorder or violent tendencies, so I want to bring to their attention the Empowering Parents website.

I became a member of the site because there are sections for working with ADHD children. It has a wonderful support group and I know that parents who go there are going to get some kind of assistance.

A lot of the information also helps to dispel myths about parents who have difficult children. One of my goals with my website is to help spread awareness that learning disorders are real and not the result of lazy children or parents. Empowering Parents also does a good job of informing the public that violent children are not the result of bad parenting. These parents are doing all they can to protect their children and themselves and do NOT deserve snide comments from perfect strangers who know nothing of what the parents are going through.

All I can say now is God bless the parents who have the courage to work through these difficulties with their children. And God bless the creators of Empowering Parents for providing a support system to those parents.

Success

I feel like I reached a milestone of sorts yesterday. My son won't like me mentioning this, but I must because it is a small victory for me.

My son has reached the age where kissing and romance aren't as gross as they used to be. Yes, it scares me, but I have done all the research on discussing the topic with him and feel somewhat ready to discuss it.

We have talked about how kissing on the mouth and “things like that” are for older people who want to share their feelings and love for each other.

The first conversation didn't go so smoothly. I knew he had already kissed a girl (on the cheek) and wasn't supposed to know. I brought this up to his dad and he suggested I wait until I see it on a TV show he was watching and kind of bring it up. Well in the TV show the kid was 13 years old and had just saved the world. So I think in the end I told my son that he had to save the world before he could kiss girls. I don't know what his future holds, but that's probably not a realistic stance to take.

So after a few bumps in the road, the conversations became easier. I feel more comfortable talking about the changes he's going through and he feels comfortable talking and asking questions.

He finally did admit to me that he had kissed a girl and that she was his girlfriend.

So, yesterday as I was exercising on the Wii Fit Plus, one of the characters he had created was jogging beside me. It happened to be the character of the girl he told me was his girlfriend. He told me that she wasn't his girlfriend anymore. He said that she just wasn't all that smart and he couldn't really talk to her.

That made me want to do a happy dance. Not because there was no more girlfriend but because my son made a choice to prefer someone he could talk to, who had more substance, rather than someone who is pretty.

I have been working hard to teach him to judge people on their talents, intelligence and morals rather than how they look. I've been doing this mainly to teach him tolerance, but I see now that it also applies to finding a partner. Love should be blind, and I'm glad my son sees this.

Rules parents make for themselves

I've heard every parent say it: I'm going to be different from my parents.

We all make rules for ourselves on how we would parent differently.

My mom's rule was she would never say, “Because I said so!” She vowed to always have a reason for telling us “No” or asking us to do something.

I believe that rule made her more fair and definitely set a good path for me to follow.

When I became a mother my rule was I was going to actually listen to my son when he was talking to me. I remember being so hurt when I was talking to my dad who would just murmur "uh huh" from behind his newspaper and was clearly not paying attention.

So I was determined to make sure my son knew that I cared enough to listen to his every word.

I know why my dad did what he did. I talked forever, going on and on and on and on. After a while I'm sure he zoned out because I would never shut up. But I always noticed when he wasn't listening and it hurt my little 7-year-old feelings. And that hurt stayed with me for life. I did not want to hurt my son that way. I also wanted him to know that he could talk to me whenever he wanted or needed and that I valued his thoughts and opinions.

That's easier said than done because my son inherited my nonstop talking problem. But a rule is a rule and I have found ways to work around this. When he really has to tell me something, I ask him to be patient for me to find a stopping point on what I'm working on and then I give my undivided attention.

When I was working for psychologists on creating booklets for people to improve their people skills, one of the topics was improving listening skills. One of the tips was to repeat or rephrase what the person said or offer little suggestions or remarks to show that you are listening. One of the great things about this trick is that it also forces you to actually listen. So I employ this tactic when my son is talking. He responds well to it and it actually helps to reduce the nonstop talking syndrome. I think it may be because he develops new ideas when I offer my opinions and he runs off to try something new out with his Legos or movies. Or it may be that he just needs to talk out his problems to find solutions and my mere act of listening is all he really needs.

In the long run, I believe my rule for myself has helped our relationship. He does find solutions for his problems; he is definitely more creative as he talks out scenes to movies or video games he's developing; he comes to me when he has a problem rather than fuming over it in his room; and he feels confident that his opinions and thoughts matter. I know this because he told me and I was listening.

Making history lessons more fun

Maps that kids can color are great for adding visual and kinesthetic learning to a history or geography lesson.As a homeschooling mom I am always on the lookout for new resources to help reinforce a lesson or just make it easier to grasp.

My son is a visual learner and I know that the more pictures or visual representations I can provide, the better he will learn the topic.

So I was excited to see a product that helped me teach history and geography with a little more excitement. My son really hates listening to me just read about history to him (not to mention, history is not his favorite subject unless we are talking about inventions). I have a world map that I use to show him the area we are talking about, but it's a current map that only shows country borders.

At Knowledge Quest Maps there's a product called Blackline Maps of World History that has more than 200 world history maps that you can just print out for your use with your lessons.

There are also lesson plans included for each one to help make teaching the lesson easier. You can see the landscape (political boundaries, major cities, etc.) from the historical time period referenced on the map rather than what the region is like today. That was a huge relief to me because my only map shows everything as it is today.

Also because they are all outline maps, my son can color in regions, trace travel routes and have fun with it. It makes the lesson multi-sensory which helps drive it home for him.

The best part is if you order the complete set of World History Maps, you get American Maps for free. The World History Maps includes Ancient Maps from 5000 BC - 400 AD; Medieval Maps (400 - 1600); New World Maps (1600 - 1850); and Modern Maps (1850 - present). The American Maps are from 1000 AD to the present and includes 50 state maps.

When you order, you can download them right away and don't have to wait for anything to ship (or pay shipping costs for that matter). You can also sign up for a monthly newsletter where they share tips for incorporating geography (and the maps) into your history lessons.

So check it out. I highly recommend it. Click here to learn more about it.

Wonders of the Internet

Ah, the beauty of the Internet! There's so much information, tools, tips and more to help you with whatever ails you. Please let me share my excitement about my recent find.

I am constantly looking for help teaching my son math. Math is not one of my strong points and I really don't know how to explain certain concepts. I know the rules on how to do certain problems, but explaining why is beyond my abilities. Quite frankly, when I was a kid, I didn't care why. I just memorized the steps, did it and forgot it. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever need to know.

So now I need to know and I don't really. That's why I find myself searching the Internet wildly for something that will help me explain. There are lots of math sites out there, but I had never really found one that was fun and engaging and really taught the lesson. Until yesterday, that is.

I found a site called Math Playground. It has lots of tools and games that help kids master math in a way that is fun. There's a tool that helps kids model their word problems so they can work through them more easily. For my son, who learns best when things are presented more visually, that tool is a life saver. (Or a mom saver.) It gives him a word problem and breaks it down into steps. It basically helps him organize the problem in a way that makes it easier for him to solve it.

The games are pretty fun too. I tested a few of them myself. And I let my son play, too. He generally goes for the logic puzzles, but I had him try a few of the other games too. The only downfall to the games that I saw was that they focused mainly on multiplication, division, fractions, decimals and percentages. That's great for me and my son, but for parents of younger kids who are studying placement values, addition and subtraction, that's not so great. The word problems section and the math videos section covers addition and subtraction, but that's it.

All in all, though, it's a really cool site. Now I need to find the same kind of site for history, science, art and all the other subjects. I'm sure I'll be telling you about those soon! If you know of any, please share.

Ah-ha moment with dyslexia training

I had an "Ah-ha!" moment while my son and I were sitting in the Dairy Queen.

I've always known that he could read things that have been reversed. The other side of a sign didn't seem to give him as much trouble as the front side. I used to think, "Well, duh, he's dyslexic." Truthfully, I didn't fully grasp what dyslexia was. Like most people, I just thought letters were backwards for dyslexics. I could empathize with how difficult it would be to read, with many of our letters looking so much alike, but I didn't fully grasp all of the details.

As I learned more about it from other dyslexics, I began to understand that it's more than just backward letters. The letters move, swirl, run off the page, disappear, and generally just won't stay put. Most of the time it seemed my son was skipping letters or not looking at all of them when he would read "them" or "they" as "the" or "wench" as "wrench" and, most frequently, reading words that end in "s" without the "s."

It was frustrating until I realized that he may not be seeing the letters. I've read so many accounts since that explain how dyslexics view the page and the words. It's mind-boggling but also explains so much.

So, when we were at the Dairy Queen, we were having fun reading the words on the signs posted outside. Of course from the inside they are backwards but that just made it easier for my son. I wondered why for a bit, looking at the sign, looking at the letters and trying to determine why it was so easy for him to read it backward than forward. The letters are still letters, even if they are backward. Would being backward be just as confusing?

Then it hit me. I have learned that many dyslexics are visual-thinkers. They are very good at solving puzzles and dealing with visual challenges because they can rotate, move and rearrange items in their heads like some kind of virtual reality video game. That's why there's such a challenge with reading, because their brains automatically rotate, move and rearrange the letters as well.

But why would a word written backward be easier to read? The brain would still try to rotate, move and rearrange the letters right? Exactly! Because my son knows the word is backward, it becomes a puzzle to solve. Plus, seeing it backward allows him to see all the letters of the word. They don't disappear like when he's reading forward because they are now pictures that represent part of a whole and not just letters of a word. The deciphering of the code is less of a challenge, I think, because it's now a visual representation and not a word. I'm not sure if this is a conscience effort on his part, but it seems to work for him.

So how do I work that into his dyslexia training program? Well, I'm still working on that and would welcome ideas. I have been thinking about taking a word and writing each of the sounds on separate cards (for example boat would be separated into b-oa-t because the "oa" make one sound) that are spread around out of order. He could then put the word together like a puzzle. I've seen this trick before in phonics training, but I can see the uses in dyslexia training.

If anyone else has any ideas, please share.

A love to learn

It's hard to teach a child to love to learn, especially if that child has a learning disability. My son and I have had a difficult time with education because he is dyslexic. I can't just give him a textbook to read and test him afterward. The words on the page are going to distort right in front of his eyes and create a lot of confusion. He begins to get headaches and then the emotional overload begins. At that point, it is no longer possible to teach him anything.

After years of researching what I can do to help him, I did learn a few simple techniques to help the overall process of learning. I try to provide a more visual educational experience for him, like providing videos, computer games and programs, maps, etc. We save the reading practice JUST for reading and not for other subjects that can be learned in another way. Some people would say I'm just being soft on him and hurting him in the long run because he's not getting enough practice reading, but I don't agree.

I am nearing the end of a book called Overcoming Dyslexia that made me feel better about this decision. While the author, Sally Shaywitz, M.D., says that reading practice is essential, she also says that carefully and thoroughly going over assignments by reading them to him and providing a multi-sensory education (like using videos or hands-on experiments) help drive information home.

What she said was most helpful was having him read out loud and to give him books that are a little under his skill level so he can feel good about having accomplished the task.


She introduces the book with the history of dyslexia — the earliest documented cases were in the late 1800s. Then she discusses the work she has been doing more a couple of decades now. She had taken scans of the brains of non-dyslexic and dyslexic people as they were reading to see the differences.

It turns out that non-dyslexic people begin the reading process early in life with decoding and sounding out (that takes part in the front part of the brain). The more practice they get, the more they build up a memory bank of words that they pull from the back of the left side of the brain.

Dyslexic people continue to struggle with the decoding and sounding out of words even later in life and never properly collect a memory bank of words. That is why they they struggle over words that seem to simple to average people: it's like they've never encountered them before.

Dr. Shaywitz did many studies and created a congressional report to help create better programs that can be used in schools to help struggling readers. She offers lots of advice, tips, tools and programs that will help. She gave me lots of ideas that I will incorporate in my son's studies.

However, there were a couple of things I didn't like. First of all, she's a doctor at Yale and the language of the book is really up there. It can be hard to make it through certain sections without having to read them again and look up some of the technical terms. She states that her intended audience is parents and K-12 teachers, but the language is geared more toward scholars and not regular people.

Secondly, she kept insisting that parents not try to teach their children on their own. As a homeschooler, it upset me. However, I am trying to keep in mind that she is talking about special education and not simply regular education. That is a subject that requires someone who has studied the topic in depth and really knows how to help learning disabled children.

In the end, I was able to take much of her advice and use it with my son with some amazing results. He has been practicing reading out loud every day and the improvement in his reading and spelling is pretty dramatic.

I can't list everything here, because the book is packed with a lot of information. However, I will give you some tips I gained along with the practicing reading out loud.

• Make sure your child knows how to separate words into syllables as well as phonemes. Phonemes are the sounds that letters and letter combinations make. For example, the word cat has three phonemes: /k/ /a/ /t/. Letter combinations like -ow- create only one phoneme because you only hear one sound. Dr. Shaywitz suggested a game in which you have your child use concrete objects such as pennies or blocks to indicate the sounds they hear (the phonemes) in a word. For example, for the word zoo, a child would push one penny up for the sound /z/ and another for the /oo/ sound.

• Despite all the naysayers who suggest I pamper my child too much, the good doctor says I do need to read to my child. She gave one case study where the child would sit with a teacher before going home and she would go over all of his assignments, reading them to him and discussing what he needs to do. That is so he doesn't get frustrated and lose hope. Building self-esteem is extremely important.

Also, along the same lines of reading to him, I need to just read for pleasure. Allow him to follow along with me as I run my finger along the bottom of the text I am reading. This helps him in a couple of ways. First, he sees the word and hears how it is supposed to be pronounced, and if I make a mistake he gets to see me correct myself and knows that it is not the end of the world.

• Dr. Shaywitz says that reading the same passage or paragraph over and over again (at least four times) in a short period of time helps children build up that memory bank of words they need to be able to read more efficiently. She suggest planning poetry recitals or plays where the child will need to practice reading the lines over and over to memorize it for the recital. The good thing I like about this plan is that it is something all students would do (even the average ones) so it won't make the dyslexic student feel targeted for special help.

One thing to keep in mind while choosing poems or a play is to select something with those high-frequency words. High-frequency words are words that show up in our language most often. Dr. Shaywitz has a list of them in her book. That way the children get practice in words they will see most often as they are reading other materials.

On top of providing a lot of scientifically proven reading techniques, Dr. Shaywitz also provides lots of websites, word lists, book lists and other resources that are useful. Some techniques and products are meant for a school system (which makes them a little inaccessible for us parents) but there are some intended for parents to use.

She does include information on what parents can do to help and how to make sure your reading-disabled child is getting a good curriculum. All in all, it's a very helpful book.

Kindle great for studies

One of the coolest educational “toys” I’ve seen recently is the Amazon Kindle.

It is thin and lightweight and can hold up to 1,500 books for the smaller one and 3,500 for the bigger one. There are more than 400,000 titles to choose from and that number keeps growing. If a book doesn't come with a Kindle version, Amazon.com provides a link for you to tell the publisher that you'd like to read it on Kindle and they pass the word on.

Kindle books and periodicals are delivered in less than a minute and you don’t need a computer to download many of them. You don't have to pay for Wi-Fi or search for hotspots in your neighborhood. You can even download books when you are out of the country because it has Global 3G.

Best of all, the Kindle versions of books are much cheaper in most cases. Some books that run close to $30 for the hard copy are only about $10 for the Kindle version. Even when the discount isn't that great, it's still less than the hard copy by a couple of dollars or more most of the time.

The latest version of the Kindle has a text-to-speech feature, meaning Kindle can read to your child — a bonus for those of you with dyslexic children. For kids who have problems reading on computer screens (like my son), the Kindle is not a problem because it reads just like you are reading off of paper. There's no glare.

The educational value in the Kindle for me is the fact that I can get so many titles for my son to read or listen to at a lower cost and much quicker than I could with traditional books. The Kindle Store boasts more than 30,000 textbooks and more than 16,000 children's chapter books. So if we are learning about the Lewis and Clark adventure, I can quickly go to the Kindle Store and locate children's Lewis and Clark Kindle books to help enhance the lesson. Some of those titles are only a dollar.
As a bonus, the Kindle is lightweight and easier for my son to carry with him to the baby-sitter's house or on road trips (it helps that he doesn't get car sick).

I also can't deny the "cool" factor. He loves showing off the technological devices that I buy him for educational purposes. When I got him the iPod Nano, I was downloading TV shows from Discover Channel and the History Channel and he didn't mind because he was holding this sleek, cool new gadget that his friends really admired.

The cost (between $139 and $189) may seem overwhelming at first, but is counter-balanced by the reduced cost of Kindle books. Plus there are literally thousands of free books that can be put on the Kindle. Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org) has many classics you can put on your Kindle for free. The Kindle Store also has plenty of free titles to choose from.

If you already own an iPhone or iPod Touch, you don't have to buy the Kindle. You can get the Kindle App for free and start downloading Kindle books onto your device. For information go to Kindle for iPhone or iPod Touch. There's also apps for your computer and other smart phones.

There are many other features to the Kindle that make it such a cool gadget. So check out the Amazon Kindle and read all the specs, testimonials and such. It really is a cool device that will make educating your child a lot easier, if not cheaper in the long run.