JMJ+

Dear Parent;

First, you are to be congratulated for discerning that your daughter learns best when she is able to move about as she works.  You are observant to notice, also, that she is a tactile learner, as she seems to learn best with hands-on learning.

So, let's go from there!

First, please, please look into the Touch Math system.  This is an excellent approach for children with learning disabilities to conquer math, particularly if they have difficulty with memorization.  Please start your daughter with the first grade math.  That may be below her grade level, but at that level she can quickly learn the program and begin to succeed and advance.  [The system is truly very, very simple to learn. Once you see and read about the approach, you can easily make your own worksheets in a matter of minutes.]

Additionally, since she likes music and movement, it would be a great help to her to use math songs to learn multiplication facts.  She can listen to these during meals, when working in the kitchen, and in the car.  Of course, be sure to praise and point out her progress, as you probably already do.

Using these approaches, it is not unusual for learning disabled or struggling students to advance two or three years in math, in less than a year.  For information to be retained in the memory, it has to first be focused on long enough to get into the short term memory, and then pass into long term memory with repetition.  If information can't be parroted back, it is not getting into the short term memory, which indicates a lack of focus.  In your daughter's case, it would probably be helpful not to ask questions about a story at the end of the story, but rather have her summarize paragraph by paragraph.  That is, you read one paragraph and have her tell you just about the paragraph, then move on to the next paragraph.  Even better, have her read the paragraph aloud, since that will involve not only her sense of hearing, but also her vision as well.  Then have her tell you about that one paragraph.

Also, when teaching any new information, including math, reduce the amount she has to learn.  For example, you may wish to step back to My Very First Catholic Speller, which has only six words per lesson, and give her a chance to review phonics rules.  The short lessons should be easy for her, but help lay a foundation for success as she moves up through the spelling levels.

Also, with those shorter lessons, give her more review.  After she does spelling in the morning, for example, have her write the words again, saying the letters out loud as she writes them, in the afternoon.  For someone with attention deficit, two short exposures are better than one long one.

You didn't indicate whether your daughter is having difficulty with reading.  However, if she has problems in this area, I would also suggest that she go back to the beginning and do the entire Little Stories for Little Folks phonics series.  At her age, she should whiz through it, probably in a few months, but it will build a critical foundation in phonics that will help considerably with her spelling.  Begin with the word family cards in the program before progressing to the stories.  When she reaches the end of Level I, begin My Very First Catholic Speller.

All these activities together should take only about an hour a day, but will truly help her catch up.

If you and your daughter consistently, daily [including through the Summer], work on these skills, you should see an improvement that will allow her to progress so you don't have to worry so much about testing.  Again, you are an observant mom to notice her strengths and weaknesses.  You have already made the first step!

God bless you!

Laura Nicholson