Ready to use Brainskills--Can I take a break from Wilson?

[Ginger]

I've had Brainskills sitting on my shelf for about 6 months now, waiting for the right time to start it with my 7yo dyslexic, ADD son. He finished Vision Therapy in December, and we're also wrapping up co-op classes, so I think if I start him next week, the 12 weeks will take us through the end of our school year in June.

 

I also do Wilson with him at home. He is on level 3.1. We generally spend about an hour a day on Wilson (maybe 3 times per week). I don't know how I can keep this up if I spend an hour doing Brainskills with him.

 

I'm also concerned about how my son will tolerate an hour of the Brianskills, after watching the Brainskills video today. That girl was drilling the boy over and over and over, having him restart again each time he messed up-I'm sure that is the point of the program, but my son would have blown up by then. He has very little patience, and a low tolerence for frustration.

 

I'm open to any tips before we dive into this next week. Thank you!

[Claire]

You don't have to do a full hour of BrainSkills at one sitting. Try breaking it up into three 20-minute sessions per day. That's what we often did with PACE, and it helped.

 

Also, the demo is probably showing a very aggressive use of the drill approach. It does not have to be done *that* aggressively. Providers can get away with that, but parents probably do better with a kinder, gentler approach. (I have not seen the BrainSkills video, by the way, but I have seen PACE videos demonstrating the exercises so I think I know what you mean.) Our PACE provider was not that aggressive either. You *do* need to interrupt when a mistake is made, I would say at least 90% of the time or more. You *do not* want to waste a lot of time re-starting. I think the point the video is trying to make is that you should not let most errors slip by (it will come back to haunt you), and you should get the child into the habit of immediately getting back on-track after an interruption. Our provider acted much more like a cheerleader than a drill sargeant, and I copied her approach for the homework. It worked very well. I think they are afraid parents will be too timid about making corrections and so they over-act the drill sargeant approach (plus they can probably get away with that in a clinical setting).

 

Some of the exercises were extremely difficult for my dd and it took her a *lot* of practice to make progress in them (direction arrows was one of these. It took at least three weeks of daily practice before she could read the page correctly, and this was the first level without the timer). Others she found pretty easy and enjoyed (golf, which is a very slow-paced exercise). I alternated the hard with the "fun" ones. If she spent 10 minutes on a "hard" exercise, she earned 10 minutes with a "fun" exercise that she got to choose. Sometimes I even rewarded 5 minutes of "hard" work with 5 minutes of "fun" work. Alternating "hard" and "fun" like this keeps motivation, energy, and attention levels high. Also, allowing the child to choose some of the exercises gives him some control over the sessions.

 

If you don't get a full hour in every day, don't sweat it. It just means you will be spending more weeks on it. What seems to matter the most is putting in the hours. Many children will start showing improvements after 40 hours of training, whether that training is done over a 6-week period or a 9-week period. My guess would be that most children will have optimized training right around 80 hours or so, although a few will need more. BrainSkills has a set program for you to follow because that is the optimal format they found for most families. The company has found that seeing improvements helps keep up the motivation to continue, so they would rather you start seeing progress after 4 weeks (because you've been putting in an hour a day) than 6 weeks (because you've been putting in only 40 minutes a day). If you stick with it, though, the end result will be the same.

 

The other key to success is to do exercises daily. Try not to skip any days. That daily reinforcement is really helpful in terms of making progress.

 

You can definitely take a break from Wilson, but I would advise setting aside 20 minutes a day to spend on reading and review so your ds doesn't lose anything he's already gained.

[Claire]

Another idea for working more exercise time into the day is to enlist the help of your dh or siblings to play SET. At first I could always beat my dd at SET but, as she got better and I didn't practice, she started beating me. She enjoyed that a lot.

 

Another thing we did to lighten up the work was reverse roles occasionally. She would be the trainer and I would have to perform. This works *really* well with someone in the family who has not been practicing the exercise (such as dh or a sibling).

[Ginger]

Thanks Claire...I like the idea of breaking up the sessions. However, I know 'us' and I can see that if we stopped, we wouldn't get back around to it later. Maybe instead I'll break up the Wilson...do the reading one day and the spelling the next, and try to only spend 20 min. on those. We will keep with our daily reading of Advanced Reading Instruction, which he does well with. I'll have to make sure we to Brainskills first everyday, and if some other things don't get done, try not to sweat it.