Writing Archives

Back to School Organizing for Middle Schoolers

August 21, 2021 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

Now is the time of year when “Back to School” commercials often appear. Suddenly, as middle schoolers with backpacks and shiny sneakers parade across the television screen, we are filled with disbelief at how quickly the summer has flown by, and excitement about what the new school year will bring.

Many middle schoolers start the year with a backpack full of fresh school supplies – clean binders, unsharpened pencils, folders that make a satisfying “crack” the first time they’re opened. Every year, we find that students try to put these supplies to good use at the beginning of the year and stay quite organized during the first days and weeks.

And every year, a few weeks into school, we notice that many middle schoolers begin struggling to find specific papers amidst a growing pile of handouts, homework assignments, and permission slips. Especially for students just starting middle school, September often marks the first time they will need to balance multiple subjects, different teachers’ expectations, and a larger number of papers and assignments.

Here are some helpful tips to help middle schoolers stay organized this September and beyond:

Use binders instead of folders if your teachers allow it. Folders often lead to an explosion of handouts that are crushed and out of order. In a binder, you can rifle through papers more easily.
Depending on the number of classes you have, you may want a 1-inch binder for each subject. Make sure each binder is a different color with the name of the subject on the front and side so you can locate it easily in your locker and backpack.
Place a flat 3-hole punch and a small ream of reinforcements in the front of your binder so you can keep papers hole-punched and in the proper place.
Keep handouts in chronological order. When a teacher asks you to take out a paper, it will be much simpler to find it if papers are in the order in which they were given out. It will also be easier to consult notes or study for a test when papers are in the same order as they were when you looked at them in class.
Remove extra pages from your binder after each unit. For example, once your class has finished discussing a book in English, ask the teacher if you can remove papers related to that book. Keep extra binders or folders at home or in your locker to file those papers and free up your binder for new materials. However, do not throw out papers until at least the end of the school year since you may need them again.
Use an assignment book or planner. Create a section for each subject, and list homework every day. That way, you will know which binders and books to take home. After you complete each assignment, check it off in your planner. It will feel great to know that you’re staying organized and on top of your work!

For middle schoolers needing additional help keeping things organized, contact us to meet with a private tutor and executive function coach that will help your child learn and practice those lifelong skills.

Written by: Editorial Team, My Learning Springboard, Inc.

Being The Teacher Is a Powerful Learning Strategy

August 19, 2021 Brad Hoffman 1 Comment

OK…as a parent, teacher, coach, or private tutor….it is our job to teach, right? Well, yes, but not always. One of the most powerful teaching tools we have is giving our students the “job” of being the teacher and teaching us. There are several specific reasons for this:

First, often the role of “purveyor of knowledge” is very appealing to kids. I have watched students of all types rise to the occasion of being the teacher. It seems especially appealing if they are asked to teach one or two younger children, or if they are asked to teach an adult!

Second, I have found that I cannot teach anything I don’t truly understand. In the process of teaching, I often uncover any slightly murky parts of my own understanding. This leads me to more thinking and better understanding of the topic. For students who take on the role of being the teacher, the same often holds true. As they try to teach me, they discover what they truly DO know, as well as what is still unclear. Finding out what questions they still need to ask makes them better learners.

Third, we learn a great deal about our students’ depth of understanding by truly listening to what they “teach” us. (Note: truly listening can be a challenge for those of us who are bursting with excitement to teach or who are up against a time crunch or any number of other stressors, but listening is essential.) In the role of “learner” we can appropriately ask questions which will clarify what they really know. We can also determine whether their knowledge is rote (memorization of formulas, timelines, etc.) or actual conceptual understanding of ideas and processes. In some cases, we can guide deeper understanding through creative questioning. Other times we simply uncover misunderstandings and/or shallow understanding that guides our next steps in instruction. Sometimes the discovery is not in the precise area of instruction but in a crucial related area! These “teachable moments” can be especially beneficial to our students.

One of my favorite collateral “wins” from giving students the powerful role of being the teacher is that they really do teach me new learning. My own, very legitimate, excitement about learning something new is contagious. It is valuable for students to realize that respected adults continue to learn, and that we are excited about learning, all the time. By being open to thinking about ideas in new and different ways, I am validating their thinking process and the control they have over their own learning; and I learn something new myself! Now that is powerful!

By Jean Snyder, Private Tutor

How Can We Help Our Students With Anxiety and ADHD?

April 15, 2021 Brad Hoffman 1 Comment

How often have you heard these statements?

“I just want to get this right.”

“If I can’t find the right word to use here the sentence won’t be perfect.”

“It’s so hard to put all the pieces together on paper.”

“What if I don’t get an A?”

“How do I compare with my peers?”

“Sometimes I worry so much that I can’t think about anything else.”

“There are so many things to keep track of, I’ll never get finished.”

“I never had trouble with school before, now I am, what’s wrong with me?”

“If I don’t turn it in, I won’t make any mistakes.”

“I’ll do it, just leave me alone about it.”

Anxiety and ADHD

Anxiety and ADHD — these diagnoses often come together and one may look like the other, but they are quite different when looked at closely and situationally. The Anxiety Disorders Association of America estimates that 50% of people diagnosed with ADHD also have an anxiety disorder, and anxiety in children and teens often overlaps with depression. Each of these diagnoses, separately and together, has a negative impact on executive functions, too. These overlaps can make it challenging to tease out the primary or driving issue, but what’s most important is identifying the contributing factors and strategically and systematically planning for intervention at home and at school to disrupt the negative loop.

ADHD

As diagnoses are refined, we find that students with ADHD (whether it’s inattentive type, hyperactive type, or combined type) often find it difficult, if not challenging, to focus and concentrate most of the time in a multiplicity of situations and locations. It’s often a struggle for a student with ADHD to follow multiple steps of a process, manage multiple deadlines, and shift gears without becoming overwhelmed. Students with ADHD can become anxious and panicked due to their worry about missing deadlines, not turning in work or struggling to pay attention in school as this is a pattern which has often been repeated with negative consequences and feelings of distress. Their challenges are generally not situational in nature, though it’s notable that children with ADHD can often focus extremely well, even hyperfocus, on a self selected and high interest task or activity.

Anxiety

Anxiety can be generalized as well; however, it is more often than not triggered by specific situations or events, which can cause students to find it difficult to concentrate and/or focus at that specific time. Students with anxiety may worry about their peer relationships (maybe also family relationships or the home situation) and how their peers view them both academically and socially. These students often become distracted by their worries, which can lead to the development of physical symptoms, such as stomachaches, rapid breathing, and trouble sleeping to name a few. Additionally, many of our students with an anxiety disorder also have perfectionist tendencies, and/or compulsive tendencies, which can render them unable to begin an assignment or assessment due to the anxiety about not being able to complete it successfully or perfectly.

With our very bright, persistent, and perfectionist students, it’s not uncommon to see some rigidity and performance anxiety. Attention and anxiety are closely related, and if a student is focused on “being right” or “not making mistakes” or “needing it to be perfect”, it can make it difficult to begin, or complete, a new and challenging task. Moreover, with these students who are used to “getting it” on the first try, being in a situation where they might not “get it right away” can feel incredibly humbling and frustrating, thus leading to avoidance and/or resistance and overwhelming anxiety. We often see these challenges with our students who are openly labeled “gifted and talented” at very young ages and then encounter certain academic challenges as they age up.

How do we help students manage their anxiety and ADHD?

First, we have to consider the specific factors, variables and triggers in each child’s situation. An intervention plan should be carefully developed that considers both the home and school environment as well as any other activities or transitions in a student’s week. Small changes can often have a big impact, so we like to look for those opportunities first. If there’s a longer history or more escalated concern, the value of a comprehensive evaluation with a skillful and thorough psychologist cannot be underestimated. Then we help families to translate that information into an actionable plan at home and at school.

Second, all of our students, and especially our students with anxiety and ADHD, benefit from consistency, predictability, and order. Having and practicing routines leads to mastery and ease with transitions and provides great comfort to children. Parents can establish morning routines, after school routines, evening routines, bedtime routines, and weekend routines. At the same time, we need to also help our children develop comfort with flexibility and change. For our children with high levels of anxiety, this flexibility can be extremely difficult, so we need to plan for practice opportunities in a safe space. Students with anxiety and ADHD also benefit from having clean, organized, and thoughtful spaces at home and at school. Organized spaces provide comfort and structure while modeling successful executive function skills for our students.

Third, all of our students, and especially our students with anxiety and ADHD, need parents and teachers to impose technology boundaries. Technology use is a major “time robber” and contributor to off-task behavior and anxiety in children and adolescents. Teaching our students how to responsibly use technology as a tool is critical to their academic and personal success. Achieving responsible use is a much more complicated discussion, but undoubtedly it starts with planning, discussing, and establishing expectations that are enforced with consistency, predictability, and transparency. To the extent that expectations and messages can be consistent between home and school is especially valuable, but it’s okay to have specific expectations at home that differ from school or from friends. Creating a “phone jail” during homework time and dinner time could be very useful for all members of the family. Consider “silent” times when all mobile devices are set to silent or “do not disturb.” Consider “screen free” times within the course of your family’s week. Parents and teachers need to model their own responsible use as well.

Fourth, we encourage families to consider a second sandbox when thinking about school placement. Boarding schools (and Junior Boarding Schools) — which come in many shapes and sizes — are often a better environment for our students with stress sensitivities triggered by city stimuli. New York City is incredibly fast-paced and energized, which is great for the adults who choose to live here, but it’s not always so great for our students. We’re fortunate to have such easy geographic access to so many campuses offering incredible academics, learning support, advisory, arts, sports, and diverse communities, which become extended families and neighborhoods. For students needing therapeutic school environments, we have tremendous resources in that category as well.

Faya, Laurie, and I help families everyday with educational problem solving, which includes school planning and school placement, developing and implementing intervention plans, refining (or overhauling) their weekly schedules, and partnering with their schools more effectively. Whenever possible, we work in close collaboration with psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, occupational therapists, speech therapists, school leadership, school learning specialists, and classroom teachers to optimize resources and coordinate planning. A big challenge for families is knowing what to do at home to support learning and how best to partner with their child’s school. Without this close partnership between home and school, it’s very difficult to successfully mitigate challenges around anxiety and ADHD. If your child is struggling, we can help. Please contact us for more information.

These links may also be of interest:

Anxiety Disorders Association of America

Anxiety and Depression Association of America

NIH: Anxiety Disorders

CDC: ADHD

Child Mind Institute: Resources for Parents

Written by Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed., Board Certified Educational Planner and Learning Specialist, Faya Hoffman, M.A., Board Certified Educational Planner and Learning Specialist, and Laurie Gross, M.A.T., Special Educator and Reading Specialist. Brad, Faya, and Laurie comprise the senior Leadership Team for My Learning Springboard.

How A Virtual College Visit Can Help You Choose The Right College

April 5, 2021 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

The college admissions process is full of milestones: The first day of new student orientation, the first text exchanges with new roommates, the first acceptance letter. These moments are significant for students, and for their families as well. They form important early impressions of an institution you are considering becoming a part of for four years, and often a lifetime. Chief among these milestones are the college visits students and their families would normally take beginning in junior year of high school (or even earlier). These visits help students get a feel for those hard to measure qualities that will determine whether a school is more than a good match on paper, but a place they could see themselves becoming a part of. But this year, and likely next year, too, students will be making virtual college visits.

Not being able to visit a prospective university in person may feel like a disappointment, but a virtual college visit can offer surprising insights into what life is like there, and ultimately, help you decide if this school is right for you. Just remember, a virtual college visit is more than just fifteen minutes cruising an admissions page. If you’re creative, it’s a way to tour the campus, talk to current students and alumni, and perhaps sit in on a few lectures and meet potential professors.

Start with your chosen university’s social media channels and website, where new digital tools and initiatives are being rolled out on a near daily basis. Like many of its top-tier competitors, Queens College at Cambridge has introduced a new live chat initiative. This feature on their website allows prospective students to speak to their team and have their questions about studying at Cambridge and being a Queens’ student answered in real time, no matter where they live. If you’ve ever contemplated reading classics in the UK or attending the Cambridge vs Oxford regatta – this is a great way to learn more without hopping on a plane.

Likewise, universities are offering a bevy of small scale Zoom initiatives for potential students and their families to interact not just with the usual student tour guide, but with department chairs and university trustees. Though it is impressive how those well spoken sophomores and juniors manage to walk backwards in flip-flops, it can be much more enlightening to talk with the university’s top brass. And while it’s rare to be able to sit in on classes during a typical campus tour, for your virtual college visit, it’s much easier to get previews of lectures from world-renowned faculty and check out digital art exhibitions and science fairs.

If you’re more technologically savvy, consider using the virtual platforms you already know to create an experience that will better represent what life will be like at a prospective school. For those with Oculus Rifts, UPenn — among many other colleges — has invested in a detailed VR tour that allows participants to virtually walk through campus. Likewise, Columbia has tried to give prospective students a sense of life in New York City (subway fragrances not included) by tapping architecture historian Andrew Dolkart to give walking tours of the Morningside Heights campus via podcast. Some creative universities are even recreating their likenesses in video games, like UC Berkeley, UPenn, and Drexel, which have built digital replicas of their campuses in granular detail in Minecraft. It turns out that all those hours your child spent building elaborate environments out of cubes were not wasted!

Ultimately, rather than thinking about the things we lose with virtual college visits, it’s best to focus on what is gained. CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, Angel Pérez, recalled receiving an email in the fall after his group sponsored its first-ever online fair. Afterard, a student wrote to Pérez to thank him for opening his eyes to institutions he wouldn’t have otherwise thought to consider. It was an “aha!” moment Pérez told Higher Ed Dive. Though you won’t be able to head to the university shop for a sweatshirt and a baseball cap at the end of a lap around campus, a virtual tour opens up the possibilities to see places you wouldn’t otherwise have visited, either because they’re too far away geographically, or they weren’t on your radar. As seniors prepare to make college decisions by the end of the month and juniors kick off the admissions process in earnest, take the time to explore local (or even international) schools virtually. You’ll be surprised by how much you can learn.

Written by Daniel Penny, an educator and writer with an MFA in creative nonfiction from Columbia University, a BA in English from Grinnell College, and an AA in liberal arts from Bard High School Early College.

Choosing A Reading Intervention Program

February 16, 2021 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

If your child is struggling with a reading disorder, such as dyslexia, or another language-based learning disability, you may be looking for the best reading intervention program to support your child’s learning needs. With so many programs available, it is often difficult to determine which one is the best choice for your learner, and often skillful educators make use of components from more than one program. We prefer a systematic, multisensory, and content-driven approach that follows an Orton-Gillingham sequence with integrated opportunities for comprehension work (verbal and written), spelling and word work, and handwriting instruction.

Some of the most successful and commonly used programs to support struggling readers and students with language-based learning disabilities are Orton-Gillingham, Preventing Academic Failure, Wilson Fundations, and Lindamood-Bell. Orton-Gillingham was the first program developed for 1:1 reading intervention in the 1930s by Dr. Samuel Orton and Dr. Anna Gillingham. Preventing Academic Failure and Wilson are both based on the Orton-Gillingham sequence. Lindamood-Bell is not.

Orton-Gillingham

Orton-Gillingham is known for being direct and explicit, multi-sensory, and systematic in its approach to reading intervention and building phonemic awareness, developing advanced phonological understandings, and integrating word study and vocabulary development. Orton-Gillingham can be used with students of any age, and it is recommended to be delivered in a 1:1 or small group setting. The OG lessons are very structured, sequential, and cumulative, always building upon past lessons to review and reinforce previously learned skills and concepts. The lessons are also diagnostic and prescriptive, allowing them to be very individualized based on the successes and errors of the learner. Through multi-sensory techniques and repetition, students overlearn new skills and concepts to build automaticity and confidence.

Preventing Academic Failure

Preventing Academic Failure, or PAF, is an Orton-Gillingham based reading intervention program designed for whole group instruction. It was developed by Phyllis Bertin and Eileen Perlman at The Windward School, which has locations in White Plains and Manhattan. Although it is often used with a whole group in the classroom, PAF can also be modified for use in a one-on-one or small group setting. Preventing Academic Failure is most typically used with students in grades K-3, but that’s only if early intervention has been put in place; often students aren’t identified for targeted intervention until grade 3, 4 or 5, which is terribly unfortunate and unnecessary.

Because it’s based on the Orton-Gillingham program, PAF also uses a multi-sensory approach, but it’s significantly differentiated from a traditional OG approach in that it systematically integrates phonics instruction, spelling, handwriting, and reading comprehension. Skywriting is one multi-sensory activity that PAF focuses on to support students’ spelling needs. By using gross motor movements to form the letters while spelling words aloud, the children are more actively engaged in the process using verbal, visual and kinesthetic modalities.

During each PAF lesson, when a new sound or rule is taught, dictation is used to practice spelling words or sentences including words that focus only on that new rule. This dictation exercise allows students to not only practice their new spelling rule, but to work on their handwriting skills as well. As students develop stronger spelling and decoding skills, students can then improve their reading comprehension skills through PAF’s carefully scaffolded texts.

The program believes that “only when reading is accurate and fluent can students then develop meaning.” At the end of each lesson, students read stories in Merrill Readers to reinforce decoding words with the sounds they have just learned, as well as to develop and strengthen their reading comprehension skills.

For writer’s workshop, PAF is complemented by Judith Hochman’s Teaching Basic Writing Skills.

Click to visit The Windward Teacher Training Institute site.

Wilson

The phonetic sequence in Wilson is also aligned with the principles of Orton-Gillingham, and it offers a variety of programs for different ages and learners, including: Fundations, Just Words, and the Wilson Reading System.

The Wilson programs are designed to fit within the tiers, or levels, of the Response to Intervention (RTI) framework. All three programs support students with learning and language-based disabilities through multi-sensory instruction and differentiated pathways, but these programs aren’t as fully integrated as PAF with regard to scaffolded texts mapped to each lesson.

Fundations is used for prevention and early intervention for grades K-3 and focuses on phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, and sight words. Just Words is typically used for intervention in grades 4-12 for students who need greater support with decoding and spelling skills. The Wilson Reading System is a more intensive program for learners in grades 2-12. This program focuses on teaching the structure of the English language to students with language-based disabilities, such as dyslexia, who have severe language deficits and are not making progress with their standard classroom curriculum.

Lindamood-Bell

Lindamood-Bell is comprised of five reading programs and one math program for students with dyslexia and other language-based learning challenges as well as students with general learning challenges or autism. These five programs include: Seeing Stars, Visualizing and Verbalizing, Talkies, LiPS, On Cloud Nine Math.

Lindamood-Bell’s reading programs are not based on Orton-Gillingham principles but rather focus on the sensory-cognitive functions that support reading, including symbol imagery and concept imagery, both of which involve creating mental pictures. Instruction is typically implemented 1:1 but can be adapted for small groups or classroom settings.

Though not an exhaustive list by any means, Orton-Gillingham, PAF, Wilson, and Lindamood-Bell are especially popular programs to support struggling readers, and there are components from each program that would benefit ALL learners. While many practitioners discuss or recommend programs with a purist approach in mind, we recommend not fixating on a single approach because it’s not entirely that simple, particularly when instruction is being delivered at home in a 1:1 setting.

Each learner is different and reading intervention needs to be targeted to meet specific needs at specific times. Motivating and engaging each learner must be carefully factored in as well. In our experience, it’s best to coordinate support between home and school with skillful teachers, experienced in a variety of programs and intervention techniques, making professional judgments based on a palette of instructional approaches and strategies rather than rigidly following a scripted curriculum. That said, these judgments should be based on evidence-based research, and we prefer a systematic, multisensory, content-driven approach that follows an Orton-Gillingham sequence.

If you suspect your child has a reading challenge, don’t wait to organize targeted support. Engage your child’s classroom teacher in conversation and seek the school’s input, but don’t ignore your parental hunch. There are a variety of classroom assessments that can help to determine current levels of performance and needs. These are different from formal assessments used by psychologists to make diagnoses as part of a comprehensive evaluation.

It’s a lot for parents to consider, which is exactly why we partner with parents so closely. Our leadership team can help you figure out the right next steps taking longer term school planning into consideration, curate a program for your child, and then organize in-home support while also collaborating with your child’s school team and/or related service professionals as appropriate. Please contact our office to discuss your child’s reading and writing needs.

By Brad Hoffman, Curriculum & Instruction Specialist, Nicole DeMartino, Special Educator, and Laurie Gross, Reading Specialist

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