To begin with, Alex was failing social studies because the tests came from the notes the teacher wrote on the board. Copying notes from the board was so difficult that Alex couldn’t read them. If that weren’t bad enough, Alex had no idea what the teacher was saying because trying to write the notes was all consuming.

Secondly, he was failing English because of the papers he wrote. The teacher insisted on having his students write in cursive. Now Alex was penalized for poor penmanship and poor grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Thirdly, he failed math because he couldn’t keep numbers lined up nor read his own writing. Finally, he was failing science because his grade depended on written lab reports. So, Alex never did them—too much writing.

Alex is smart. So what’s going on here?

Alex has dysgraphia, a learning disability that makes writing difficult.
Children with dysgraphia can sit in front of a blank piece of paper or computer screen. Three hours later the paper or screen are still blank. These kids often have wonderful and creative thoughts but can’t get them onto paper or a computer. They can tell you what they want to say but are unable to write it. For some, writing is such a slow and tedious process that they don’t have the patience to sit still long enough to write.

Other kids will write fast and furiously, skipping words, getting sentences and paragraphs in the wrong order. Often they can’t read their own handwriting. The end result is the same: poor grades and an aversion to writing.
Often these children stop writing because, even if they can get the paper written, they’re terrified that their teacher or their parents will insist they revise and rewrite.

Some children may also have actual physical problems with writing that are related to poor eye-hand coordination or lack of fine-motor skills. These children tend to avoid writing, even something as simple as their homework assignment.

Symptoms of Dysgraphia :

• Poor handwriting
• Good ideas but difficulty getting the same thoughts onto pape
• Difficulty copying from the board or from a book
• Overly long time spent when required  to write a paper
• Difficulty with spelling, punctuation and grammar

A diagnosis of dysgraphia, a writing disorder, is not appropriate if the child does not have all the symptoms. Some children are simply poor spellers, some have poor motor skills and some simply haven’t learned punctuation and grammar yet. Because children can have different challenges with writing,  you’ll want to pick and choose from the list below to help them improve and learn to enjoy  writing.

Five Strategies for Writing at Home:

• Use a computer. Encourage your child to use a computer when at all possible. Kids who write too fast and whose handwriting is lousy often do well on a computer—especially as they become proficient at keyboarding.
• Set up short practice sessions. For young children, practice writing individual letters, words, sentences, or short paragraphs. Keep the sessions appropriate (in subject and in length) to your child’s age, maturity level and personality. For example, 5 to 10 minutes for 6 year olds because they are just learning how to write, 15 to 30  minutes for 7 – 10 year olds, 30 to 45 minutes for middle schoolers and and 60 minutes and more for high schoolers.
• Depending on their maturity level, personality and desire to write, more time is great. But for the struggling writer, more time may be counterproductive. My book  “How to Improve Writing Skills” helps children with writing challenges.
• Help with spelling. During a writing session, if your child has trouble spelling, spell the words for her. If the primary goal is writing, stopping often to look up a word interferes with the creative process. Or encourage her to ignore spelling until the draft is written. Use the spell-check function of your computer’s word processing program.
• Have your child tell you what he wants to write about. Then write his thoughts on paper. This can be in list form, on a web (main idea in the middle of a circle and thoughts are on spokes coming out of the circle), or outline form. Then decide together which ideas should be in the beginning of the paper, which should be in the middle and which should be at the end. Number the ideas and cross out the ones that do not belong. Then have your child write or type the final copy by writing one thought after the other.
• Try to avoid making your child rewrite excessively.  Forcing a child to do so is drudgery that often turns him off to writing. Remember your child’s maturity and appropriate skill level for his grade.

Dysgraphia can certainly affect children’s grades, test scores, and even their attitude toward school. If you suspect that your child may have dysgraphia, talk to your child’s teacher about modifications and accommodations that can be done in the classroom.

Is Homework a Hassle in Your Home? Use these Three Tools to Make It Easier.

Time Management. Be sure your child has enough time to do homework, and you have enough time to help if needed. To be sure, download this schedule template and fill it in with your family. You may want more than one. Maybe fill one in for each member of the family. By doing so, you may see that your kids’ days are completely booked up between school and after school activities. They have no down time to relax or play much less do homework.

Homework Helper. Be sure that your children aren’t spending too much time on homework. Even though homework may be beneficial, it can also be counterproductive. The following are appropriate time spans for homework per grade: 1^st – 10 minutes, 2nd -20 minutes, 3rd – 30 minutes, 4^th – 40 minutes, 5th -50 minutes, 6th – 60 minutes, 7th and 8th – 60 to 90 minutes, 9^th thru 12^th – approximately two hours. If your child is spending more time doing homework than is recommended, find out why. Maybe, she needs some extra help, maybe there’s too much homework, maybe he’s not completing classwork. To help with homework problems, read my free homework advice booklet.

Organize Papers. If you can’t find the homework sheets because you and your child are drowning in school papers, you need to get three basic items: a good three-hole punch, a large three ring binder and dividers. With your child, at a convenient time for both of you, sort out all the old school papers from his backpack and binders. Discard papers that definitely will not be needed in the future. Put the remaining papers in the binder under each subject. Do this weekly to stay organized.

Now, with a little help from you, your child can stay on top of homework.

But how do you know if your child’s problems stem from a learning disability or something else? When Andrew struggles with the multiplication tables, it could be a symptom of a much bigger issue which hours of math-drill won’t solve. Better than math-drill is finding the real issue. Does Andrew have a learning disability? By ignoring the possibility of a learning disability, many children never get the help they need. As a result, they find the entire school experience difficult, confusing and frustrating. School can be hard enough for most children. When a child has a learning disability, it’s even more exasperating because it rarely goes away.

So it’s time to discover why your child struggles in school or in a particular subject and what you can do to help him attain school success. Start by finding out if your child has a classifiable learning disability. “Classifiable” means the learning disability fits into a category that’s on the “approved”
list. This entitles him, by law, to receive special school support.

Most students have trouble in school at some point in their lives, but their problems may not be ongoing, severe enough, or specific enough to be considered learning disabilities. For example, Jessica keeps failing her social studies tests, Andrew can’t remember his math facts, and Cari cries every time she has to write a book report. According to the law, are these children defined as having a learning disability? Maybe?

Perhaps Jessica’s family is having problems at home, and Jessica is so worried about her parents that she keeps flunking tests. Maybe nobody showed Andrew a way that works for him to remember his math facts. And Cari missed a week of school when she had her tonsils out. Unfortunately, it was the week her teacher taught the class how to write a book report.

Just because a child has difficulty doing something in school doesn’t mean she has a learning disability. If that were the case, everyone would be classified as learning disabled!

Three Strategies for Managing Learning Disabilities

• Have your child evaluated. How do you know if your child has a
learning disability that meets legal criteria? It would be great if we could give them a blood test or a throat culture, but it’s not that easy. Parents, teachers and administrators have to rely on a combination of specific criteria. The school will do testing for learning disabilities. They will be looking for nonverbal learning disabilities, verbal learning disabilities, and other types of learning disabilities.

If you suspect your child’s school difficulties may be caused by a learning disability, consult your child’s teacher, school counselor, school social worker, school psychologist or principal for advice, or ask to have your child evaluated by the school. If you need to follow through, write a letter to your local school district requesting that your child be tested for a learning disability. This test is typically free, even if your child goes to a private school.

You can take your child to a qualified professional, usually  a neuropsychologist or psychiatrist. Or ask your pediatrician if she has a list of professionals who can help. And remember, it’s a good idea to get a second opinion.

• Become educated. If your child is classified as having a learning disability, learn what’s available to your child. Contact your state education department for information. You can also contact the Learning Disabilities Association of America (www.LDANATL.org ) for advice. Many strategies can help your child learn. Go online or go to the library or local bookstore to find books on helping learning-disabled students.

• Be an involved parent. It’s important to help you child but don’t make a career of your child’s learning disability. Accept it, understand it, make adjustments and move on with your lives. Too many parents become over-involved, some to the point of being obsessive-compulsive about their children’s learning disability. This is harmful to them and to their children.

What if, after testing, you find your child doesn’t have a learning disability? Our schools are filled with children who, in spite of having learning problems all through school, don’t meet the state or federal guidelines for having a learning-disability.

These children often aren’t provided sufficient support. They may be given remedial reading in the lower grades. However, for the most part, once they reach middle and high school, they’re on their own. They may not be able to keep up with the reading, writing, or math.

Now it’s up to you to step in. Ask the school for more support. Get tutoring. Do what’s appropriate to get the help your child needs. Your child deserves school success. The good news is that many school districts now have learning labs and other support systems in order to address these students’ needs, and most private schools provide additional support.

Here’s what 12-year-old Joey explained to me: “Those teachers are losin’ it. They get nuts if you forget a pencil! I’m talkin’ about a pencil! I have to remember which room to go to each period, how to get there, what book I need, if I have my homework, if I can get to the bathroom in those few minutes, and if it’s A, B, C or D day, and they want me to remember a pencil too?”

Joey’s not lazy or stupid or trying to annoy his teachers. He’s been classified with a learning disability.

If your child is experiencing some difficulties at school, don’t be too quick to blame him. Instead, find out what’s really going on. Your child may have a learning disability. Many become frustrated and angry with their children or with the teachers and the schools. They blame their child for being lazy, for having a low frustration level, or for giving up too quickly. They invariably lecture and punish her when she gets poor grades.

Here are three strategies to follow if you think your child might have a learning disability.

• Shift your attention to find the cause of the learning the learning disability. In order to solve the problem, you need to shift your attention from the bad grades to the more important issue: what is causing the bad grades. Once you find what is causing your child to struggle and find ways to fix or overcome that, his grades will automatically go up. You can think of this in terms of cause and effect. The bad grades are only the effect. Once you find the cause and remedy it, the bad grades will cease to be a problem.
• Become your child’s ally. When a child struggles because of a learning disability, it’s hard for both the child and the parents. In such situations, parents should behave as their children’s allies, not their adversaries. They need to help their children by trying to identify the causes of the problems, and then to help them resolve their problems through remediation and/or accommodation. Again, it’s not an easy task. But to insure school success, parents need to understand the real problems their children are experiencing, and then find the support they need.
• Find out what assistance is available for children with learning disabilities. The good news is that no parent or child needs to experience such frustration and anger. If your child is struggling, there’s plenty of help available, both through the school and through private counseling and tutoring. Talk to the teachers, counselors, administrators, psychologists, physicians, friends, relatives, and neighbors. Find out what assistance is available, and how to go about taking advantage of these services.

Always remember that your goal is to insure that your child experiences school success.  If it takes navigating around a few more bumps than you had anticipated, that’s okay.

Happy navigating.

Michael believed that if he tried hard and kept working at something, he’d succeed.  He could succeed at school. He was sure of it. He said that nobody had told him this—not his parents, not his grandparents. How did he know?  It was the message in his fortune cookie in a Chinese restaurant–so it must be true.

It’s a cute story but in Michael’s case, luckily only partly true. In fact he had wonderful support from his parents and his grandparents. They cheered him on every day as he struggled with severe language issues.

Although Michael could speak when he was five, nobody could understand him. His family was concerned with school and worried about his future. By the time I met Michael, he had been through three years of neurologists, audiologists, pediatricians, and speech therapists.

I started working with Michael when he entered kindergarten and continued meeting with him through high school. Between the school and hour-long weekly tutoring sessions, Michael succeeded. Sure there were rough times. At times, Michael became so frustrated that he would pound his fist on the table because he couldn’t retrieve the words he needed to express himself. But, through everything, Michael’s family never walked away.

They accepted his strengths and weaknesses, supported him daily and respected his needs. He’s in college now, wants to be an engineer. He’s an amazing math student! And he now talks up a storm!

Michael’s story shows that even with odds stacked against him from the get-go, with the proper support, success in school and beyond is attainable. However, it takes a great deal of effort on three main fronts: the child, his parents and his teacher.  But it starts at home with you.

All parents, like Michael’s, want their kids to do well in school. How well children do in school and beyond is determined by their own special genes (nature) and experiences (nurture). Sometimes their genes contain special “gifts” from the past. For example, they may have inherited their Great-Grandpa Joe’s dyslexia or Grandma Sue’s love of reading.

Some children are extroverts like their dad and get A’s in class participation, while others are introverts like their Aunt Sally, and are very happy just to listen and take it all in. Many parents have a fantasy of a child they want their child to be, but it may not be the child they have.

To ensure school success and beyond, you need to

1. Accept your child for who he is.
2. Support your child in any way you can.
3. Respect your child so that she can reach her full potential.

These are three of the most important factors in school success. Since you—Mom and Dad—are the most important significant others in your child’s life, your acceptance, support and respect are essential to her emotional, social and intellectual growth.

In fact, these three factors are the building blocks of positive self-esteem, which is of the highest importance to ensure school success.

It seems, Newark, along with other school districts in the country have developed intensive programs in order to help increase enrollment and student performance on AP exams.

Weekly or monthly summer courses, also called “summer camp” or “boot camp” have been established to prepare high school students for the AP courses they will be taking come September.

Wow! This article reminded me once again of  the challenges our high school kids face as they get ready to apply to college. Should Jimmy take as many AP courses as he can fit into his schedule? If Mary takes only one AP course, will the colleges look down at that? If Suzy doesn’t get a 4 or 5, is she wasting her time?

Or should high schoolers put more effort into SAT prep?  The decisions become overwhelming.
 
As with everything else in life, there are no absolutes, no shoulds and no musts. Students have to find their own comfort zones so they not only do well academically, but maintain healthy social and emotional lives.

If taking AP courses comes naturally, then why not take them?  But if students are sleep deprived, grabbing candy bars for lunch, and having continuous meltdowns because of overload, they need to think through this AP conundrum with their parents and school counselor.

By the way, if you’re in New York, we offer SAT prep courses  all year long. The next one starts August 6.

Summer is time for playing, having fun, relaxing . . . and yes, for learning too.  Summer learning will boost school success in the fall.  We just need to make sure that summer learning is relaxed and fun.

Even writing can be lots of fun.

My friend went to visit her grandkids. She took each of the girls a make-your-own scrapbook kit with stickers and cut outs, pages for pictures, pages for drawing and pages for writing.

The three girls, a 1st grader, a 3rd grader, and a 5th grader, sat down at the dining room table with their grandma, their scrapbooks, and the necessary supplies. 

Grandma’s role was to encourage creativity and offer help when asked. ”Grandma, can I put stickers around the edge of this writing page.”  “Sure, why not?”  “Grandma, how do you spell summervacation?”  “It’s two words. Spell “summer” and then spell “vacation.” Grandma’s job was to say nothing when “vacation” turned out “vakaton.”

Dad came home a couple hours later.  Of course, the girls wanted Dad to loook at their scrapbooks and wouldn’t he please print some photos from his computer for them to put in their books.

Two of the three girls said “Daddy, look at what I wrote.”   Grandma hadn’t told them to write on the writing pages. She simply gave them the opportunity to write, the freedom to be creative, and the permission to make mistakes.

I don’t have scrapbook kits for your kids, but I do have a dozen fun writing activities and games for your kids this summer.  My “How to Improve Writing with Fun Games and Creative Activities” TeleWebcast is tonight, June 28, 2009 at 8 pm Eastern.

Only $9.99 for the TeleWebcast which includes the podcast from last week’s TeleWebcast on having fun with reading over the summer.  Both TeleWebcasts include detailed Action Guides with instructions for the activities and games. Sign up now.

Can’t make it? Sign up anyway. You’ll get the replay which you can listen to at your convenience, and you’ll get the Action Guide.

How do you encourage your children’s writing and creativity. Let us know in the comment box below. We love to hear from you.

However, so many other really fun things are just waiting for your kids’ creative and fun-loving minds. So put the computer away and discover how to keep learning alive and boredom at bay for your kids this summer.

Tonight (Thursday, June 25 at 8:30 Eastern, 5:30 Pacific) I’ll be talking with Dr. Rory Stern about kids, summer, and ADHD. It’s one of Dr. Stern’s free TeleSeminars, and I urge you to register.  We’ll be giving you lots of good suggetions for helping your kids during the summer–even if your child doesn’t have ADHD.

I also finished up my July School Success Newsletter today.  It’s posted right here on the blog. Just go up to the top of the page and click on newsletters. Then select July 2009.  Because we’re celebrating the 4th of July, I’ ve got a bunch of fun activities for your kids to do that will also help them learn more about 1776 and the American Revolution.  Your kids won’t be memorizing boring facts history facts with these activities!

All my TeleWebcasts this summer focus on school success by learning while playing. I’ve got a whole summer’s worth of fun games and activities to help insure that you child continues to learn over the summer. You’ll want to check out these summer TeleWebcasts now. (Remember, you can listen later to the replay if you can’t make the date.)

So between Dr. Stern’s call tonight, the activities in “Dr. Linda Silbert’s School Success Newsletter,” and the “School Success with Summer Games” TeleWebcast series, there’s no reason this summer for you child to say “I’m bored.”

They’re eager to be outdoors playing, jumping in the swimming pool, going on family outings.

But what about learning? Are you worried they’ll forget a lot over the summer. What if they’re behind when school starts in the fall?

It’s three months without school, without daily reading and writing. But you certainly don’t want to assign homework. Summer is supposed to be fun.

So I’ve got a solution to your dilemma. I’ve created summer fun, yet educationally based, activities to do with your kids on hot summer days, at the beach, after camp or on vacation, so that your child is ready to fly in September

It’s all about reading and writing on June 14 and June 28. We’ll do math on July 12 and 19. Then on August 2 and August 16, we’ll get ready for school with games that help improve focus and concentration.

You can sign up for each one. Just $47 for reading and writing in June. Just $47 for Math in July. Just $47 for Focus and Concentration in August. That’s half-off the regular price. It’s even less when you sign up for all three.

I’m offering Reading and Writing (both sessions), Math (both sessions), and Focus and Concentration (both sessions) for only $94. You’re getting six TeleWebcasts for the price of two. That’s a savings of $188, or 67% discount off the regular price!

And your getting the recording of all six session plus six Action Guides packed with information.

Sign up now to help your child stay on track with school success.

If some of the dates don’t work for you, you can always listen to the recording on your computer or download it to an mp3 player. You won’t miss a single game or activity.

My guest Alison Stowell, a registered dietitian, had some great tips for all of us.

You can listen to the recording and still pick up the handouts if you missed Session One of Mom’s Spa.  

Now for the BIG news: I have the opportunity to offer the Strong Interest Inventory to you. It’s all part of Mom’s Sap, Part Two, where we’re talking about “Attending to Your Life-long Needs.” 

Of course, you’ll also get an Action Guide jam packed with information.

Sign Up Today for Session Two
Attending to Your Life-long Needs
and get the Strong Interest Inventory

I’m looking forward to having you at the TeleWebcast Sunday night. And be sure to take your Strong Interest Inventory first. You’ll get all the details when you sign up.