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Some students struggle academically for the first time when concepts move from concrete ideas to abstract ways of thinking. This happens because they have weaknesses in higher order language skills.  Higher order language skills, also called higher level language or metalinguistic skills, refers to advanced language processing that is an expected competence in middle school and high school.  It  requires both abstract and deductive verbal reasoning skills as well as  the understanding of advanced vocabulary, and word relationships. What are the Common Difficulties Associated with Higher Order Language Skills? When a student has difficulty with higher order language skills, they may struggle with any of the following: Making connections and associations between words, sentences, or stories  Implied meaning or inferences Social pragmatics skills Oral and written comprehension Writing skills Main ideas and details Jokes, riddles, and humor Writing summaries and paraphrasing Sequencing eve

Making sense of the complex weave of assistive technology devices and applications for struggling learners can be a confusing and frustrating chore.  This blog talks about 15 different types of assistive technology that can benefit struggling learners with links to my favorite tools.  For a more comprehensive discussion of these technologies CLICK HERE Comprehensive Technologies: Don Johnston Inc. - $. Kurzweil 3000 - $   TextHelp - $ iOS Accessibility - Free ClaroRead - $ Planning, Time Management, and Organization: iStudies Pro - Free/$ - Remember the Milk - Free - RescueTime - $ Strict Workflow  - Free - Wunderlist - Free - Text to Speech: AnyBook Personal Reader - $ Audible.com - $ IntoWords - $ NaturalReaders - Free/$ Project Gutenberg & Librivox - Free Raz-Kids - $ Read & Write for Google Chrome - Free/$ Read OutLoud - $ Snap&Read Universal - $ Voice Dream Reader - Free/$ Voice Typing - Free Speech to Text: Co-writer Universal - $ Mac Dictation

As many of you know, the process of finding the best after school, academic and remedial support for your child is plagued with many challenges. Even if you have a great evaluation that discloses your child’s learning strengths and weaknesses, it is difficult to find a local professional that has the expertise that your child needs. The Lack of Skilled, Accessible Learning Specialists is a Great Frustration for Many Parents: This is a huge challenge for many families in rural areas. What’s more, the costs for one-to-one services can be difficult to manage and many professionals are booked solid. Finally, many parents don’t have the time in their schedule to be driving their children round town from appointment to appointment. But Things are Changing: Every day, more and more trained tutors, learning specialists, and educational therapists have adopted online tools that allows them to provide high quality, multisensory academic and remedial support to our kids through the Internet. B