Understanding and Helping the Struggling Learner - Part 2

Characteristics and Interventions

www.diannecraft.org

1.  Learning Disabilities - or learning glitches as Dianne Craft calls it:  these are the kids with average intelligence but low achievement.  They're probably good in math, but read below their grade level.

A.  Processing Problems

1.  Visual Processing Dysfunction Characteristics

1. labored oral reading - they can read okay but it's one. word. at. a. time.

2.  reverses words or letters - straight reversals

for example, 'b' could look like 'd', 'p', or 'q'

'm' looks like 'w' (so your child may read 'wan' for 'man')

'n' looks like 'u', 'h' looks like 'y', 'f' looks like 't

This prodlem is not too harb for any doby to beal with. (labored reading)

But your child may also rotate their letters.

Tyaf cau qe a liffle yarger fo tignre onf.

Ask your child if this happens to them.  Preface by saying, 'sometimes this happens to smart children.'  I asked all my kids today and they all said this has never happened to them.

3.  mis-reads familiar words - sometimes the letters scramble so the word 'the' looks like 'eth' or 'hte.'  Your child won't tell you their letters scramble - to them it's normal.  You need to ask them if it ever happens to them.

4.  poor eye tracking - the right brain is automatic.  The left brain is where we think about things.  When we learn how to drive, for example, we start by using our left brain.  As it becomes more familiar, we move it over to the right brain and it becomes automatic.  We can then relax a little and listen to music at the same time.  We need to get the basic skills of eye tracking over to the right brain.  She shared a vision training technique here that I'll try to share in another post.  I'll probably have my kids do it and record it...it's much easier to see than explain.

5. becomes fatigued easily - here Ms. Craft talked about using colored transparencies to help with eye fatigue.  College students use these to help them study longer without getting eye fatigue.  She bought a package of vivid colors - blue, red, green, yellow and gray - and let her students each choose a color to lay over the books they read.  One child laid the transparency on their page and said, 'oh, it's a magnifying glass.'  Another said, 'my words are still with this.'  Another said, ' look at the spaces in between the words.'  And another said, 'oh, the green dot stopped moving.'  She had always seen a green dot move along with her as she read, but when she put the green transparency over her book, the dot disappeared.  Gray and yellow are the most common for adults to use and blue is the most common for children.  I haven't been able to find colored transparencies (or plain ones for that matter...who uses them these days?), but I do plan to try this with the kids (and myself).  As the visual processing dysfunction improves, they'll use the transparencies less.  

If we don't find a way to relieve the stress in their learning system or give them some answers, they'll think that they're really dumb.  They need to know it's just a glitch and it can be fixed.  

2.  Writing Dysfunction Characteristics

1.  frequent letter or number reversals - some people say it's okay for 1st graders to do this, but if that's true, why don't they all do it?  It could be a warning sign.

2.  difficulty writing above or below line - like there's a forcefield blocking them from crossing the line.  Caleb does this.  If he writes the word 'they' it looks like 'theY' because he can't drop the tail of the 'y' below the line.  'Therapy' would be written 'TheraPY.'  Same with g's, j's, and q's.

3. no spaces between words - thedogwenttothestorewiththegirl

4.  poor placement of math problems - lining up numbers in problems is hard

5.  resists cursive - some parents are just satisfied that their child can print and don't force learning cursive.  But our kids need to know how to read cursive (Caleb can't wait to learn cursive so he can read his birthday cards), which means they need to learn how to write it.

6.  low production of written work - good orally but written work is poor.  Kids who never finish anything.  They write very little when asked to.

7.  Leaves out letters in Spelling Test even though they know how to spell the word

8.  no established hand-dominance - young children who haven't established hand-dominance yet are frustrated, short fused and probably have behavioral issues.

9.  mixed eye/hand dominance -  An easy way to check their eye dominance is to tear a small hole in a piece of paper and have the child hold it at arms length while peering through the hole at an object on the wall.  Tell the child not to move his arms while you go behind him.  Cover one eye and ask if he can still see the object without moving the paper.  Do the same with the other eye.  We sight with our dominant eye so when you cover that eye, the object on the wall will seem to disappear.  If their left eye is dominant and they are right handed, this is mixed dominance (and vice versa).  You'll recognize these kids as hunching over when they write because they're trying to see what they're writing.  Many children who experience difficulty in written expression, particularly in the area of reversals, are found to be mixed dominant.  In order for the brain to function and process most efficiently, single side dominance (right eye and right hand or left eye and left hand) is best.  Mixed dominance children are forced to cross the midline of the brain/body every time the eye and hand have to work together.

Here Ms. Craft recommends the Writing 8 exercise.  The point is not to change the child's dominace pattern.  With repatterning and integration exercises, we can facilitate efficient brain processing for the dominance pattern that the child has.  This will greatly reduce the stress on the child's system and relieve the fatigue associated with mixed dominance.  Some children who are mixed dominant are 'hard wired' to be left handed, but are using their right hand to write.  Watch them draw a circle.  A child who is hard wired by the brain to be right hand dominant will make his circles counterclockwise.  A child who is hard wired to be left hand dominant will most often make his circles clockwise.  (Isn't that interesting?  I am left-handed and I do make my o's clockwise.  And my left eye is dominant which makes me uniform-dominant.)  For this child it is very important to do the Writing 8 exercise.  This will greatly relieve the stress in the child's writing system.  Anyone will benefit from doing the Writing 8 exercise daily, whether he is mixed dominant or uniform dominant.

So, what is the Writing 8 exericise?  I will share that soon.  It's another one where a visual will be very helpful.  The kids and I have been doing it together each day and it's quite relaxing.

Next time I will share my notes about Auditory Processing Dysfunction, which is Caleb's glitch.