V.1 #4 Recommended Practices - Parent-Teacher Conferences: Make Them Effective
Unfortunately, parents often leave parent-teacher conferences feeling bombarded with jargon and statistics and understanding nothing. This serves no purpose. Successful parent-teacher conferences need to be practical and should give parents a positive message that the school and home need to work together to promote the child’s greatest chance of meeting her potential. To make conferences “positive” for parents, Dr. Roger Pierangelo and I (as Executive Directors of the Nation
V.1 #4 Counseling - How Can Learning Problems Affect Children Emotionally?
It is not unusual for teachers to have concerns about children’s emotional well-being, especially when they struggle academically. Often, though, these concerns cannot be fully alleviated. It is not a matter of “if” their children will be affected emotionally, but “in what way” and “how intensely.” For example, because of frustrations stemming from failure experiences, some children may become anxious, others depressed, and still others, angry. Additionally, the intensity of
V.1 #4 Social Development - A Model for Teaching Social Skills in Classrooms
Although the federal government’s definition of learning disabilities (LD) fails to mention social and emotional difficulties, both parents and school personnel recognize that some students with LD have such difficulties. Fortunately, the research community has documented these concerns and has developed interventions to address them. For students and teachers, the classroom is a natural place to work on social skills. In addition to providing many opportunities for children
V.1 #4 Early Intervention - The Effects of Early Child Care: Lessons from the NICHD Study of Early C
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has reported on an important study that compared the short- and long-term developmental effects of different types of childcare. The study, called the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (NICHD SECC, http://secc.rti.org), began in 1991 when it enrolled 1,364 newborns and their families from sites across the country. Since 1991, the researchers measured different aspects of the children’s development (e.g., socia
V.1 #4 Spelling and Writing - Beyond Commas: Revising with Less Skilled Writers
In a previous column I discussed the rationale for revising and some of the typical behaviors of skilled writers as they revise. In this column, I will discuss how less skilled writers approach revising. Revision is an intricate part of the writing process that requires a writer to essentially re-look, re-evaluate, and clarify their thoughts with the aim of crafting improvements in their ideas, words, sentences, paragraphs, and/or overall text. Interestingly, there are quite
V.1 #4 Reading - Retain or Promote?
Sixth grade students rated grade retention as the single most stressful life event, higher than both the loss of a parent and going blind (Jimerson & Kaufman, 2003, p. 627) Teachers often debate whether to retain children who struggle with reading. Those who support retention argue that struggling readers will benefit from repeating a grade. Retention will give them an opportunity to review the material, or mature socially and emotionally. Fear of additional retentions will m
V.1 #4 Mathematics - Strategies for Successful Word Problem Solving by Students with Learning Disabi
“Strategy instruction” is a promising intervention for helping students with learning disabilities (LD) improve their ability to solve mathematical problems. Strategies for problem solving strategies may range from specific heuristics (methods used by solvers to present word problems in new ways that facilitate understanding) to broad guidelines: Specific heuristics aim directly at helping students understand and solve a problem. Two heuristics are paraphrasing the problem an