Stop the Homework Wars

For years I’ve been suggesting the 10-minute per grade rule that the Parent Teachers Association and the National Education Association recommends. Some teachers are aware of this rule; some aren’t.

When your child is spending an inordinate amount of time on homework on a daily basis – over the 10-minute per grade level, it is time to look at what is actually going on.

Here are several questions you need to ask yourself:

1. Does your child understand the assignment?
2. Is the teacher giving too much homework? Sometimes teachers don’t realize how much time the assignment is actually taking. [I recall this homework problem as a big issue when one of my boys was in the 5th grade. I spoke with his teacher about it. She had no idea it was taking him so long to get the homework done. She said to write her a note after he had spent 50 to 60 minutes of work time on homework and let her know that he had put in the time. I was fortunate because she worked with us on the amount. She also lessened the amount of homework when she realized she was giving too much.]
3. Is there an underlying area of visual or auditory processing that is not working as efficiently as it should that is interfering with your child’s completing the assignment in a timely fashion?

Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills has weekly and monthly project planning calendars to help your child plan their after school homework time out.

Here is a link to an article written by Cathy Vatterott. She addresses many of the same issues I’ve addressed in the past. Cathy’s article goes on to discuss other factors that need to be considered when students aren’t getting their homework done. It is worth the read!

Homework in the Responsive Classroom

Author and educator Cathy Vatterott shares her insights on the meaning of unfinished homework.

Hope this is helpful.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

I can’t tell you how often parents have asked me if their child is dyslexic or they come to me and tell me that their child has dyslexia. I get that question from parents that homeschool as well as those that don’t. Sometimes I even get that question from parents of gifted children. Yes, even gifted children can and often do have areas of perception that aren’t working as efficiently as they should and could and as a result even gifted children often work harder than they need to.

The term dyslexia means reading difficulty. Many children have reading, writing, or math difficulties. The term itself doesn’t explain why your child is having the difficulty. The term does not mean letter reversals although a child that is dyslexic may have letter reversals. The key is to understand what the underlying causes of the reading, writing, or math difficulties are.

Some children have difficulties with one or two of the areas of auditory processing that affect learning. Some children have problems with one or two of the areas of visual processing that affect learning. Some children have a combination of auditory and visual processing areas that aren’t working as efficiently as they should be.

Again, your child can even be gifted and have a hidden learning problem that is making learning harder than it needs to be.

There are several things you need to know as a parent to help your child in addition to the type of program that is best suited to help your child.

1. You can help your child when you know what the underlying causes are
2. You can help your child have greater access to learning
3. You can give your child a 2 – 4 year advantage in reading, writing, and math in just minutes a day

Find out what you need to know to help your child at http://dyslexiahelpnow.com.

Hope this is helpful.

Bonnie Terry, M.Ed., BCET

Hi there,

I recently found you on the web and just watching your vids, I’m VERY interested. To wit: I’m homeschooling my 16 year old nephew who has been diagnosed ADHD and dyslexic. With the phonics reading materials I’ve found on the net and at my local library, I can only find Elementary school age relative materials. Money is tight or I’d simply order EVERYTHING you offer.

Any suggestions?

Thank you for your time, and more importantly your efforts to bring REAL EDUCATION to this nation!

Sincerely,

Rich Brewer

Hi Rich,

Sorry for the delay in responding. I was out of town visiting my mom in Chicago.

I know what you mean about phonics and other reading materials for struggling kids being geared to elementary students. In fact, most are geared to kindergarten through 3rd grade. I’ve always worked with students from kindergarten through adult ages. I figured that my younger students would feel like they were doing older kids stuff and my older students wouldn’t feel like they had to do little kid stuff. That is specifically why I designed my books, games, and guides for all ages.

You can always start small and gradually build what you are using. The first books I would get are the Making Spelling Sense, Making Spelling Sense II, and Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills. The Making Spelling Sense teaches all of the phonics, word attack skills, auditory processing, and word structure. The Five Minutes to Better Reading works on reading fluency and accuracy as well as visual and auditory processing skills.

The Spelling Pack saves you $4.00; the Five Minutes to Better Reading Set saves you $9.00

When you purchase all of them as the Reading Pack – which includes the Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills + the Comprehension Zone you get a $20.00 discount, plus you then have the comprehension piece in place. You also get a bonus with the reading pack – my new e-book: Understanding LD & Dyslexia.

Hope this is helpful.

I’m glad to see you signed up for the free teaching and homework tips from my blog. BTW: You can subscribe to the videos on You Tube too.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

http://bonnieterrylearning.com 

Bonnie Terry Learning – Review of The Comprehension Zone: Rocket Rap                     

The Comprehension Zone: Rocket Rap

This review is difficult for me to write because this product had such a dramatic and positive effect for one of our children.  It has been an answer to prayer, a break-through for our child who has struggled with auditory comprehension for years.  I am grateful for the opportunity to use this product that we would not have otherwise had access to,  thankful for God’s sovereignty that our family was chosen for this review and that the vendor determined to send us this particular product (as part of the TOS Bloggers Program).

 So as you read this review realize that I’m not unbiased, know that I’m indebted to this product for helping my child in a way that I had failed to help him on my own and take from it what you will.

 Bonnie Terry Learning focuses on products for the struggling learner.  The goal is to enable you to be better equipped to develop strong reading, writing and math skills in your child with dyslexia, ADD, Autism or other general learning difficulties.  Even gifted children can struggle in some of these areas and Bonnie Terry aims at smoothing out those bumps in the road of education.  They try to help you “think outside the box” to address your child’s difficulties from an angle, direction or perspective that you may not have considered, a direction that may be the difference between success or struggle for your child.  Bonnie Terry offers a variety of games and products to improve reading, writing, math and study skills for children 7 years and older.

Bonnie Terry Learning sent our family The Comprehension Zone: Rocket Rap ($67).  Rocket Rap is geared for 1st  grade through adult to help develop and strengthen reading or listening comprehension.  The game comes with 3 sets of cards written at different reading/listening levels (2nd-3rd grade, 4th-6th grade and 7th-12th grade).  Each set of cards can be used in several different ways.  Children can find the factual information, the main point or work on sequencing.  Children are able to read the cards themselves or may listen as you read to them in order to work on either reading or listening comprehension.  This versatility makes it easy to play the game with children at multiple reading/listening levels at the same time.  The cards are self-correcting and include hints to help your child succeed and even allow for using a helper in the scoring.

The Rocket Rap game consists of a high-quality, over-sized vinyl game mat, 3 sets of cards, four playing pieces and a die.  Play progresses by the child reading or listening to the paragraph on the card.  Then they complete their task depending on their level.  Beginners name two facts from the card, intermediates relay the main point of the paragraph AND two facts and advanced students use several cards at a time and put them in the proper chronological order.  Each time the child completes their task they get to roll the die and move.  If they need to use one of the helpers you take one point off of their roll.

All of our children from 1st grade up were able to play together, which as you know is an important feature for our family.  Our older children (10, 11 and 13) were able to easily complete the comprehension activities on all levels of cards, but enjoyed working on the sequencing.  Our 9 year old was happy to play with the 7th-12th grade cards.   The game was interesting enough to the kids that they wanted to play multiple times, even when some of the novelty had worn off.

Pros:

    * multi-level play

    * nice, high quality game

    * lots of fun facts about people and planets included on the cards

    * improves focus on the task at hand

    * gives older children an opportunity to read out loud

    * ability to focus on several different aspects of comprehension

 Cons:

     * price

    * there should be more cards (in my opinion)

    * not a fast-paced, edge of your seat type of game, but our children all enjoyed playing it, so what can I say?

What Rocket Rap did for our child:

The Comprehension Zone: Rocket Rap had amazing results for one of our children.   We have been working with him on comprehension for years.  I often have him draw pictures of what I’m reading, we act things out and we read just a few phrases at a time and ask him questions whenever we are dealing with auditory learning.  He simply struggles in this area.  I was interested to see how he would do with Rocket Rap.

I began with the easiest level.  I read the card to him and he was to tell me 2 facts from the card.  When it was time for him to answer all I got was a blank stare.  When prompted with the helpers, he was still unable to answer.  I was honestly shocked that he could not do this.  The cards we were using only have 3-5 sentences, are chock full of facts and he couldn’t pick out one.  I ended up modifying the game for him, rather than have him tell me two facts per card to earn one roll of the die, I gave him one roll of the die for each fact he could pick out and we used lots of helpers.  He was still unable to finish the game.

We began playing Rocket Rap more often.  The improvement was rapid and dramatic!  By the end of the next game he was able to play without my previous modifications and currently it is easy enough for him to pick out facts while listening that he likes to try reading the card himself.

For the first time in his life our child will raise his hand when Mark asks questions during family worship and he will know the answer.  He will come up to us after church and spontaneously tell us something that he learned from the sermon.  He is so amazingly proud of himself and I’m amazingly thankful.

Final thoughts:

As I mentioned this is a tough review.  For 8 of our children this game would be a fun, helpful activity that is not worth $67, but for one child, for these results, I would happily pay double.  We’ve tried things similar to this in the past, we’ve been focused on this problem for years, but Rocket Rap has been the first activity that has been successful.

If you have a child who struggles with reading or listening comprehension, I certainly think that Bonnie Terry’s The Comprehension Zone: Rocket Rap is worth a look.  If any of you decide to go this route, I’d love to hear what you think.  Have our results been typical?

You may read more reviews of Rocket Rap and other Bonnie Terry Learning products at The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew blog.  You may read more of my homeschool curriculum reviews on my review page.

Bonnie Terry Learning sent The Comprehension Zone: Rocket Rap to our family free of charge (part of the TOS Bloggers Program) to enable me to write this review.  All opinions expressed are my own and I am not otherwise reimbursed for any reviews here on Raising Olives.

I had a call from a parent yesterday and she wanted to know what to do to get her daughter to like math. Her daughter struggled with her math assignments every day. She struggled so much that she actually dreaded the thought of math.

When your child is in that place where they dread or hate a particular subject the first thing you need to do is to help them change their mindset so they know thay can actually ‘do it’. This is true when trying to improve any skills, whether they are math skills, reading skills, or writing skills is to help your kids dissolve their fear of math, reading, or writing. This is especially important when your child has dyslexia, dyscalculia (a math disability) or ADHD. So, how do you help these kids that don’t like a particular subject, often because they aren’t very good at it?

One of the best ways I’ve found to help my LD, dyslexic, or ADHD kids learn to like learning is to play games. Game playing helps reduce the fears kids have. Games put your kids into a relaxed state when learning. Kids often make greater gains in their skills when they are in a relaxed state. Watch how this family plays the Math Zone. They have fun and learn at the same time.

Don’t forget to sign up for the FREE Teaching Tips to your right.

Hope this is helpful,

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

P.S.: Be sure to leave a comment below and ask your questions to the right.

How many times have your kids read the same pages in their textbook, searching for the answers? Your kids may have even flung their book down or at you in frustration? That may be because no one actually ever taught them the skill of reading for meaning, and a result, reading assignments are hard for them.

What if you could play a game as a family and in the playing your kids could actually learn how to read for meaning? That is what these kids are doing. Watch the video of this family playing The Comprehension Zone. They are learning how to find the main idea of what they read. They can also play to find details of what they read or sequence what they read while they play.  

Hope this has been helpful.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

P.S. Be sure to leave a comment below or a question to your right!

Parents often write or call me with questions about helping their child struggling with spelling. In fact Kathy B. writes about her son, “He reads well, but cannot copy from the board or from a book without many spelling errors. The spelling issue is very evident in his written expression also.”

More often than not, when a child has difficulty with spelling it is due to either problems with auditory processing or visual processing or a combination of the two. The auditory processing areas that affect spelling are: auditory discrimination, auditory closure, auditory memory, auditory visual integration. The visual processing areas that also impact spelling are visual discrimination, visual memory, and visual integration. 

I know that sounds a bit daunting, BUT learning to spell doesn’t have to be hard. All children can learn to spell when you teach spelling in an auditory, visual, and tactile method that teaches the structure of the language at the same time.

One of the hidden secrets of spelling is that we only put letters together 8 ways to make words. See how easy it can be to help your child learn to spell. Here is an example of how I teach the first of the 8 spelling patterns.

Hope this is helpful.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

P.S. Please leave your comments below and your questions to the right.

One of the things that has always been hard for my students is note taking and learning study skills. But, note taking and learning study skills doesn’t have to be hard. I know you might be rolling your eyes at that statement, thinking:  “Right – Bonnie has got to be kidding!” But, I’m not kidding. I do know almost every time I used to ask my kids to take notes they dreaded it. In fact, they often just stared at blank sheets of paper, totally frozen, not knowing where to start.

What would it be like if your kids started taking notes from their books confidently and independently, without complaining! That’s what happened after my kids started using the graphic organizers from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills. They are specially designed with the end use in mind, so that even kids with dyslexia or a learning disability, or ADHD could use them with ease.

One of the things that has bugged me the most is when my students came to me after doing a note taking exercise in their classroom. They would show me their notes and ask me what they were supposed to do with them, how were they to use them. My students were not able to use the notes they had made. That is why and how I designed graphic organizers for my students.  I wanted to be sure they would actually be able to use their notes once they had taken the time to do them.

Watch this video of kids using the specially designed graphic organizers from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills. They decide which form to use with their assignment. You’ll see how easy it can be as well as learn other uses of the graphic organizer forms! 

Hope this has been helpful. Please leave a comment below or a question to the right.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Back to School…

What can you do to make your life a lot easier? Anna Weinstein from education.com contacted me earlier this week and asked if she could interview me about what parents of LD children could do to help there kids have a great start to the school year. We recorded the interview, so you can hear it here.

Here are a few of the highlights that you will hear Bonnie talking about:

At 4 min: There is a special tip regarding school supply tips to help your child be more organized.
At 6 min: How do you organize your homework area
At 7:29 min: Specific supplies that help the homework time
At 15:53 min: How much time should kids spend on homework – especially when they have dyslexia or LD?
At 17:30 min: How do you talk to teachers?
At 21:05 min: Specific things to tell the teacher to set your child up to have a great year
At 25:40 min: Can you just contact the teacher via email or does it have to be in person?
At 29:44 min: Isn’t there a system put in place already for me to meet all of my kid’s support team?
At 31:54 min: Doesn’t the teacher already know what my child needs – he was pulled out last year for services?
At 38:45 min: Why you want to have a clear understanding of what is going on with your child
At 40:00 min: Ways to keep track of your child’s assignments
At 42:40 min: Parent self care & support for parents
At 47:30 min: Evening family routine
At 51:27 min: Best way to speak with the teacher or principal

Listen to it here!

Today’s post relates to you as a parent or teacher rather than about your children or students.

I don’t know about you but I seem to get busier and busier every single day and it seems that there is even more incoming information to deal with every time I open up my e mail system or log on to the web. Occasionally I find myself feeling quite overwhelmed by the incredible amount of stuff to process and that really eats into my effectiveness.

I have been quietly wishing for a way to manage things so I am not overwhelmed and have longed to find ways to get things done much quicker so that I can spend more time with my family.

My students have been bringing in their webbing style graphic organizers for years and we’d have to totally redo them so they would be usable. That’s why I wrote Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills. It is a book filled with graphic organizers that are easy for kids to do and then actually be able to use.

But, I kept hearing about using Mind Mapping if you want to get more things done and deal with tons of information quickly and easily.

There even seems to be quite a buzz online about using Mind Mapping and Mind Mapping software in particular so I have been looking into what all the fuss is about.
There is a lot of hype out there about the amazing things that Mind Mapping software can do for you (usually put out by the software companies themselves).

So, I finally broke down and actually started using a Mind Mapping Software program (free trial). I was having difficulty and getting overwhelmed trying to use it. Then last February I attended a seminar and to my delight I met a productivity and Mind Mapping Specialist.

This guy has put together a really simple solution to being overwhelmed, to being too busy and to struggling to get things done by showing you how to use Mind Mapping Software in what he calls the “right way”.

Now the really cool thing about what this guy has done is that he shows you how to apply some really powerful ideas to ANY decent Mind Mapping Software (including a really good free package).

I was very fortunate to be able to beta test his program. I checked it out backwards and forwards to make sure that what he offers really does work.

Well, all I can say is, I was amazed. In fact, I even did a testimonial for him I was so impressed! And everyone else in the beta testing group was just as impressed! He even has videos from some extremely happy and satisfied customers.  One guy saved 10 hours a week from using this system (I can tell you THAT caught my eye immediately!), another started sleeping better (that would be nice) and yet another claims they now have a “much easier life”.

This is an extremely professionally presented and comprehensive package that contains step-by-step videos and fully illustrated pdf manuals AND there are some quite incredible bonuses with it too.

I must admit though, it has been an extremely effective solution for me. If you are overwhelmed by what you have to deal with, would like to get more things done efficiently and effectively and would love to have at least a few more hours a week for yourself and your family you’ll want to check it out. I’m really excited to be able to share it with you when it becomes available to the public. It’s due out in the next 2 – 3 weeks.

Let me know what you think. I’ll keep you posted!

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET