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Visual processing is an important cognitive skill for students to master. It assists with the encoding of information into the brain, and it helps students make sense of the learning content. This skill often needs to be developed and exercised, and there are many engaging activities that can help. What is Visual Processing? Visual processing is a cognitive skill that allows us to process, interpret and find meaning from visual images. In other words, it is how we make sense of what we see. Why is Visual Processing Important? Visual processing is vital because it plays a key role in learning visual information from our environment. It is a fundamental skill for reading, math, and spelling. What Are the Different Types of Visual Processing? Visual processing involves a number of cognitive processing skills: Visual Construction Skills: organizing and manually manipulating spatial information to make a design.  Visual Processing Speed: processing visual information at a certain pace ...

For many struggling readers, sight words can seem like an impossible hurdle. Sight words are high-frequency words that are commonly seen when reading and used when writing.  Students are encouraged to memorize these words by sight because most do not follow standard decoding rules and can not be "sounded out." What if a Student Struggles with Visual Memory? Over the years, I have tried a multitude of strategies to help my struggling students master sight words.  Repetitive, multisensory lessons were a bore, games were a great improvement, but the best technique, to begin with, is creating a multisensory memory book.  Instead of expecting students to use rote, visual memory, I like to teach my students hooking strategies and have them record their ideas with colorful markers in booklets or notebooks.  It is a word diary of sorts that students can title with their own fun, creative name (e.g., magical memory strategies...). Each difficult sight wor...

When I first began my private practice about 20 years ago, my primary focus was remedial reading with Orton Gillingham (OG) methods. With my doctoral training in hand, I continually reviewed reading programs, read books, and went through a number of OG training courses.  Although the suggested materials were purported to be "multisensory," I still found the process, for the most part, dull and boring. In addition, I often had to bribe my students with candy and stickers to read long lists of words and complete tedious drills.  What could I do to make the process fun, exciting, memorable and even more multisensory? Creating Games with Phonics and Orton Gillingham Content I soon began to create card games out of sight word lists as well as board games for the 6 syllable types.  My students loved the games, and their motivation and memory improved dramatically.   I continued to create more games for words beginnings, word ending, rhyming words, syllabicat...

I am so pleased to feature this insightful and informative blog by early literacy and reading specialist, Nancy Platt!  Nancy worked as a children's librarian for 15 years at the Ferguson Library in Stamford, Connecticut, and she is passionate about multisensory and play-based early education. Currently residing in the Dominican Republic, Nancy is furthering her expertise in advocacy, language acquisition, and bilingual education. ---------------------- If you have a child or a student with reading problems or dyslexia, you may be surprised to know that using songs and music can help! When children are babies and toddlers, parents and caregivers often sing and recite nursery rhymes to their children. But what can you do if your child is well past the preschool age and is struggling? Revisit the classics, and find new ones! What Does the Research Say? Studies have shown that generations upon generations of mothers were not wrong - nursery rhymes and singing are excell...

Many students have difficulties reading text from left to right and from line to line. Although some outgrow this difficulty, other's need extra help to develop this skill. What Exactly is Tracking? Tracking is the ability to move one's eyes smoothly across the page and from one line of text to another.  Problems can arise such as eye fatigue, word omissions, reversals, losing one's place while reading and most importantly these difficulties can negatively impact reading comprehension.  Tracking can be improved by strengthening eye muscles as well as getting the eyes and brain to work together. There are three eye movements that need to be developed:  Fixations : ability to hold one's eyes steady without moving off a target. Pursuits : ability to follow a moving target with one's eyes. Saccades : ability to jump to new targets that randomly disappear and reappear in a different location. 10  Free Tracking Exercises: Use  colored overlays to read books to ...

One of the most common questions I get asked is how to help students improve reading comprehension. There are many books on this topic, and the vast majority of strategies involve a structured and mindful approach to teaching this skill. While this can serve many students, I have found that the best possible tool to nurture voracious readers is to teach students how to apply visualization skills while reading. Although this is not a strategy that is taught often, the research behind this approach is robust and has been used for centuries . Why is Visualization Important in the Reading Process? Can you imagine what it would be like to go to the movies with your eyes closed?  Who would want to do that?  It would be hard to maintain attention.  In addition, it would be difficult to comprehend and remember the plot, because images help to support the storyline and develop the characters. Similarly, reading without visualizing can cause comparable difficulties with a...

About 20 years ago, when I first began offering students one-to-one Orton Gillingham based reading remediation, I was having to bribe my students to read long lists of words, word parts, and nonsense syllables. My enticements began with candy, moved to stickers, and finally morphed into a well-stocked prize box. This worked, but I found that I was getting my students hooked on external reinforcements, and that what I really wanted was for them to be internally motivated. I wanted to kindle a joy for learning.   How Could I Bring the Fun Factor into my Lessons? I began to look around for game-like activities that could make the learning process fun.  What I found were simple matching activities and bingo-like games, but nothing was addressing the specific syllable and syllabication rules. In addition, writing, inferences, following directions, main ideas/details, and other language based learning struggles, were pretty much all addressed through boring workbook pages.  Cle...

This week I have a guest post by Nancy Platt. Nancy is a early literacy specialist and worked as a children's librarian for 15 year at the Ferguson Library in Stamford, Connecticut. Nancy is passionate about multisensory and play-based early education.  Currently residing in the Dominican Republic, Nancy is furthering her expertise in language acquisition and bilingual education. --------- Each year as schools close their doors for summer vacation, a familiar scene plays out. Students joyously, rapturously careen into vacation mode without a thought to the summer reading lists and “enrichment packets” that likely made their way home in the final days of the school year. The ten weeks that make up most schools summer break is a deceptively dangerous time academically for many kids, as studies have shown that during this relatively short break, students lose significant ground and forget crucial skills learned throughout the school year – at least a month of reading gains, on average...

Students with dyslexia and other language-based learning disabilities often learn differently and require an alternative approach to learning basic reading. In addition, most of these young learners are working full tilt while sitting in the classroom and by the time they get home and have to complete their homework, they are mentally spent. As a result, tagging on remedial reading lessons to a cup that is already overflowing can be enough to turn these kids off to learning altogether. How Can We Help These Students Learn the Core Skills Needed to be Successful Readers? First, employ an individualized approach as each student has unique challenges and gaps in knowledge.  If you need to assess the areas that require remediation be sure to use an assessment tool such as the  Good Sensory Learning Reading Assessment Second, the process needs to be fun and engaging.  Many programs require students to slog through boring lessons, complicated rules, and bland workbook page...

This blog shares my most recent video podcast, featuring dyslexia advocate and entrepreneur, Nathan John. This is the fourth of many free video podcasts for Go Dyslexia! Having overcome the barriers of being an undiagnosed dyslexic at school, Nathan John became a successful event organizer and DJ while completing a university degree in Applied Economics. Now, Nathan is a successful multi award-winning entrepreneur who has been publicly endorsed by the Prime Minister as well as Richard Branson.  What’s more, he was appointed young ambassador of the year for the Prince’s Trust, granted an entrepreneurship role model for the Welsh Government and represented the UK as a business delegate. Nathan founded Rewise Learning in 2008 and specializes in providing innovative educational solutions covering a range of services including, education, training, e-learning, consultancy, public-engagement and participation events. Rewise Learning is constituted of four distinct brands, each offering a...