4kids4me Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 Ds (gr. 4) was just diagnosed with ADHD (predominately inattentive subtype) and working memory problems. The psychologist said he'd learn much better if I did whole to part learning. For example if I were to assign a chapter with questions, I should give him an overview of the chapter first so that he knows what to expect. Can you give me more examples of how this would look in different subjects as well as curriculum suggestions for those subjects? He's especially not doing well with writing and somewhat reading. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mary in WA Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 One of the mothers of grown children recently advised me that a child who is dyslexic or has trouble learning should definitely learn from a parts to whole method. She has 35 years' teaching experience and she told me that adults learn better with whole to part, but children learn best, generally, when they learn on a "need to know" basis, i.e., parts to whole. Just our opinion. From Mary, mother of 11 grown children. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Wisc Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Ds (gr. 4) was just diagnosed with ADHD (predominately inattentive subtype) and working memory problems. The psychologist said he'd learn much better if I did whole to part learning. For example if I were to assign a chapter with questions, I should give him an overview of the chapter first so that he knows what to expect. Can you give me more examples of how this would look in different subjects as well as curriculum suggestions for those subjects? He's especially not doing well with writing and somewhat reading. Thanks. When teaching a foreign language, one can either teach vocabulary and grammar 1st, using only those words and those conjugations/declensions that the child has learned OR one can teach sentences, phrases, and dialogs 1st and later learn the vocabulary and grammar later. The 1st option is parts to whole. The second option is whole to parts. You can teach your child to read by learning sight words, adding info on the phonics later, as needed, OR you can teach phonics first, allowing the child to blend and sound out words. Sight words is the whole to parts. I have one child who never did learn phonics--she finally made the connection on how to read by site words. No matter how much phonics teaching we did, it just was not how her mind wrapped around the subject. Science hands-on activities where you learn the big picture of nature and slowly add in the smaller details would be whole to parts--collecting flowers, learning about them by pulling them apart, observing how they grow, planting them and seeing that they were perennial, annual, biannual, looking at them under a stereo microscope...and then moving to their inner structure where you study cells and chlorophyll would be whole to parts. A textbook that teaches all the details first--cells and whatnot--and then ends the chapter with pictures of flowers would be parts to whole. In literature you might want to read a book straight through 1st if you are doing whole to parts. Then you can go back to a discussion of the "parts" of literary analysis--pulling examples from the book to show, say, foreshadowing rather than discussion what foreshadowing (and all the other terms) is prior to reading the book. Math might be more of a Life of Fred style--the story tells you what you need to figure out, then the "how to" follows. History, too, would be the big picture first--I use to read straight through the textbook during lunch time. We talked about it as the kids brought ideas up, but otherwise we just read straight through it. Adding hands-on activities would help, too. AFTER you've seen the "big picture", then you can go back and pull out names of people, dates, and geography locations and learn those--putting them all in context of what you've already been learning. Make sense? Jean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovemykids Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Learning Language Arts through Literature is an example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tami Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Always thing "big picture" rather than minutia. Some examples would be: living books (big picture over textbook-style minutia) copywork - use words in the context of a sentence (big picture) THEN go back and work on spelling, punctuation, etc within that context Shurley Grammar - grammar studied within the context of WHOLE sentences Unit Studies - curriculum that uses a variety of learning modalities and 'intelligences' rather than just memorize/write/test - examples would be unit studies such as Christian Cottage, KONOS, Teacher Created Resources, SOTW w/activity guide. Integrate subjects within a unit to create a "big picture" rather than presenting subjects as unrelated. Two great books that will greatly help you as you design your curriculum are: Super Parenting for ADD (on sale at audible for only $10 and worth it's weight in gold!!)and Right-Brain Child in a Left-Brained World. I would consider these must-reads! You will see clearly how to unwrap the gifts in your add child. HTH!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I've done some reading, especially in the early years of our homeschooling, to try to figure out our younger DS's learning issues. Below is a summary -- bear with me! -- so you'll know what I'm talking about further down in my post. In the second post I'll attach to this one, I'll give you specific programs or tips that have helped our mildly dyslexic, impulsive, active, trouble sleeping son. Your DS is unique, and what worked for us may not work you, so take what is helpful and leave the rest. BEST of luck in your homeschooling journey with a wonderful, unique, out-of-the-box thinking young man! Warmest regards, Lori D. GENERAL TIPS Due to the short attention span, school in short "bursts" of learning (10-30 minutes) interspersed with a short break (5 minutes), often including physical activity (run, jump rope, bounce up and down the hall on a big bouncy ball, jump on a trampoline, bike, sports, dance or jump around to an upbeat/fast song, etc) No computer use in the evening (or at least 2 hours before bedtime) -- the monitors flicker at a rate that many people subliminally pick up and it literally stimulates activity in the brain in response to the subliminal visual input, making it hard for the child to calm down until the brain activity from that stimulation effect wears off. Look into pinpointing and removing possible food allergens (causing hyperactiveness) and adding a really good multi-vitamin, essential fatty acids and other nutrients that may be missing to help increase calmness and concentration. We chose not to medicate, but if our DS really needs to focus, say for standardized testing, the caffeine in half a cup of coffee helps him calm down and focus. Hands on learning, wherever possible -- field trips, science experiments, science and history kits, history recreation, science and history documentaries, art classes (most of these students are *excellent* at 3-D visualization). Help strengthen the weaker abstract/analytical/logical brain areas with lots of critical thinking puzzles and games -- visual, logic, word, etc. -- use a wide variety; this will help later on in dealing with more abstract school subjects such as Algebra! GENERAL INFO ON LEARNING STYLE Learning Style (how the brain most easily/naturally intakes information): - kinesthetically (movement, manipulating, touching, doing) - auditorially (hearing) - visually (seeing, watching) Brain Dominance (how the brain most easily/naturally processes that information): - left hemisphere (logically, sequentially, abstractly, parts to whole) - right hemisphere (intuitively, randomly, concretely, whole to parts) Taken together, the learning style (brain intake) and brain dominance (brain processing), add up into an overall learning type, with the most common types being: - VSL = visual spatial learner (visual and/or kinesthetic intake; right hemisphere processing) - ASL = auditory sequential learner (auditory intake; left hemisphere processing) Most children dealing with ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, Aspergers, left-handedness, etc., are believed to be VSL. (See more at: http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm) Many of these children may also exhibit (especially in the areas of writing, spelling and reading) what is now recently being called "Stealth Dyslexia" (http://mislabeledchild.com/html/Library/DyslexiaReading/Stealth_dyslexia.htm). GENERAL BOOK RESOURCES - Upside Down Brilliance: The Visual Spatial Learner by Linda Silverman (overview of VSL, with some specific ideas or resources scattered throughout the book) - Right Brain Children in a Left Brain World: Unlocking the Potential of Your Add Child by Jeffrey Freed (helpful, specific tips on teaching in different subject areas, for middle school/high school children) - Unicorns Are Real: A Right Brained Approach to Learning by Barbara Vitale (helpful diagnostic tips and specific tips on teaching in difrerent subject areas for elementary, especially young elementary, children) - "How They Learn" by Cynthia Tobias (overview to general learning types) - "Every Child Can Succeed" by Cynthia Tobias (learning environment strategies, esp. for jr./sr. high ages) - "How to Get Your Child Off The Refrigerator and onto Learning" by Carol Barnier (specific learning strategies for very active, kinetic, or challenged learning styles; especially for young elementary children) - "100 Top Picks For Homeschool Curriculum: Choosing The Right Curriculum And Approach For Your Child's Learning Style" by Cathy Duffy (specific program recommendations for specific learning types) - Gift of Dyslexia; and; Gift of Learning both by Ronald Davis (both books are geared for dealing with specific, more extreme issues such as dyslexia, disgraphia, discalculia, ADD, etc. But some of the ideas can be helpful for any child) - 12 Effective Ways To Help Your ADD or ADHD Child: Drug-Free Alternatives For Attention-Deficit Disorder by Laura J. Stevens (by improving diet, eliminating allergens and adding vitamin and mineral supplements, parents can diminish symptoms of hyperactivity) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 WRITING - encourage the student to type vs. handwrite - do a variety of types of writing throughout the day in short bursts; example: early morning: 2-5 minutes to do a 1 sentence warm up ( later in morning: 10 minutes for a 3 sentence journal entry or free writing from a prompt early afternoon: 10 minutes from a writing program late afternoon: 10 more minutes from the writing program, or other writing: 1-3 sentences on: book report, history narration or time line, science or other report, etc. - break a writing assignment into small chunks, and either intersperse throughout the day with other work, or throughout the week - work with the student, doing some of the writing for the student, so the student can focus on thinking of what to say rather than also trying to juggle the difficult struggle of physical act of writing and spelling; mix it up -- one time have student dictate the keyword outline to you, and then the child fleshes it out into complete sentences, and another time have them do the keyword outline and you write out the finished sentences they think of from the keyword outline - IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing) Keyword outline techniquein IEW very helpful; gives you a big picture outline for any paper to be written, and then you just flesh it out with the details. - Wordsmith Apprentice Extremely gentle "short bites"; fun "cub reporter" theme and little comics interspersed. The first writing program DS didn't mind! - Jump In Similar to Wordsmith Apprentice, but more in depth, with more focus on how to organize your writing. A good next step after Wordsmith Apprentice. SPELLING This is a very sequential, logic activity which really cannot be learned from whole-to-parts -- to spell correctly you do so letter by letter in a correct left-to-right sequence, not as a whole. Stories, drawing pictures, and using color help make the abstractness of spelling more visual. Megawords Teaches vowel patterns and syllabication rules to help see the parts of a word for spelling attack. Can be used as stand-alone spelling or as a very helpful spelling supplement. Sequential Spelling Written by a man with dyslexia for dyslexics -- but helpful for many students. Starts with a simple root word and adds on prefixes, endings, additional syllables to build bigger words. one-on-one practice - "Toss It" = this has really helped our son develop his weak area of sequential learning; I say the word clearly, spell it (by syllable if long), then toss him a beanie toy; then he says/spells the word and tosses it back to me. The tossing helps keep him focused and not distracted as he has to anticipate the beanie coming at him. If he misspells a word, *immediately* correct by you repeatedly (4-5 times) spelling correctly and guide him in spelling correctly while looking at the word so he does not imprint the wrong spelling. - work with words on the whiteboard homophones = tell little stories with little drawings to help visualize the difference between homophones ("meet" = it takes 2 people to meet, and "meet" has 2 "e"s -- see them shaking hands? (draw the "e"s shaking hands; "meat" -- draw the "a" like a heart -- I LOVE to eat "meat"! and see, the word "eat" is IN the word "meat"!) endings/suffixes = use different colors; tell a story (ex.: "stare" and adding ending "-ing", or "-ed"; or "puppy" and making it plural "puppies" -- "when an ending starts with a vowel, and your root word ends with a vowel, the 2 vowels get into a fight over who gets to say the sound, so you have to drop the vowel from the root and let the vowel from the ending do the job") Mary Pecci's Super Seatwork: Word Skills workbook Very gentle, simple workbook pages with fun cartoon drawings and not too much work on a page for practicing Roots and Endings, Syllables, Compound Words, Possessives, Contractions, Prefixes, Suffixes, Alphabetizing, and Dictionary Skills. See it at: http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/Word+Skills/003946/1237047285-1918795 GRAMMAR Keep it hands on and visual as much as possible. - Winston Basic (gr. 4-6) -- parts of speech; noun functions - Take Five Minutes: A History Fact a Day for Editing (gr. 5-8) -- editing practice; grammar mechanics practice - Editor in Chief (gr. 5-8) -- editing practice; grammar mechanics practice - Mad Libs and Grammar Ad Libs -- fun supplement for parts of speech - Schoolhouse Rock: Grammar (DVD, and also the computer game) -- fun supplement for parts of speech - Comicstrip Grammar (gr. 6-8) -- fun supplement for parts of speech, word usage, etc. - Grammar with a Giggle (gr. 3-6) -- editing, grammar instruction within context of building a story each day - online grammar games such as Grammar Gorillas MATH Look for visual, hands-on programs -- ones that help take the abstract concepts and make them concrete and visual. Math-U-See Video lessons throughout, plus use of manipulatives really help the student SEE the abstract math concept and how it works. K-12. Really liked the fractions, percents and decimals and the pre-algebra levels, but the algebra program does not explain as fully as needed -- at least for our DS -- making it not as helpful as we'd hoped in the high school years. Singapore Moved too quickly for our VSL son, BUT -- we used this as a supplement, as it is excellent for teaching mathematical thinking and they have a great way of drawing the information you have from a story problem to help you see what you need to do to solve. Life of Fred Excellent resource for helping student see how abstract math really works in real life (big picture). Teaching Textbooks, Chalkdust Both programs for middle school / high school math, with video lessons throughout. READING Read Alouds For literature, history, etc. allow fidget toys, coloring, sitting/laying on big bouncy ball, Lego building -- as long as the quiet activity to keep the hands busy doesn't keep the mind from listening and learning. Readers We do a lot of aloud together reading, even now in high school, popcorn style "you read a page, I read a page". This allows us to define a vocabulary word in context, discuss in the moment, and bypass the need for comprehension questions or fill-in-the-blank literary or history worksheets. SCIENCE Hands on and science videos as much as possible. Field trips, kits, experiments, co-op program. Science videos suc as: Magic School Bus, Schlessinger Media video series, Eyewitness video series, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Popular Mechanics for Kids, Mythbusters, NOVA programs, etc. We did not use a formal science textbook until this year in 9th grade doing Biology, and he really understands science by having DONE it and watched it. Science is one area you do not have to do more formally until high school, and it shouldn't involve too much writing -- once in awhile make a chart or something to monitor an experiment, or make the writing assignment from a science topic to research, but other than that, keep it hands on! HISTORY Similar to science -- living books -- the Usborne books are great -- very visual with little chunks of info in the captions! -- historical fiction; documentaries, travelogue videos, feature films set in different historical time periods, and educational/historical videos; museums; field trips; go to history recreation events; do history activities; play games from other cultures/time periods; make foods from other cultures; etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Don't forget to do a lot of logic/critical thinking, as it FUN for struggling students, and really helps strengthen the left brain hemisphere processing which is often weak in these students -- which will really help them later on when they hit more abstract school subjects such as Algebra. Below are gr. 4-6 ideas for logic/critical thinking. logic books: - Dandylion Logic series: 1. Logic Countdown = gr. 3-4 2. Logic Liftoff = gr. 4-5 3. Orbiting with Logic = gr. 5-7 - Logic Safari series (book 2 = gr. 3-4; book 3 = gr. 5-6) - Connections series (by grade level) workbooks: - Mindbenders - Perplexors (like Mendbenders) - Puzzlemania series (gr. 1-5) - Dr. Funster Think-A-Minutes (gr. 3-6) - Dr. Funster's Creative Thinking Puzzlers (gr. 3-6) - Critical Thinking Activities in Pattern, Image, Logic (gr. 4-6) -- by Seymour software: - Logic Journey of the Zoombinis (by grade level) - Revenge of the Logic Spiders (by grade level) - Crazy Contraptions series (gr. 3+) - Operation: Neptune (gr. 3-6) - Mission: T.H.I.N.K. (gr. 2-6) games: - Mastermind - Amazing Labrynth - 221 B. Baker Street - Checkers - Chess - Boggle - Scrabble - Quarto puzzle pages: - mazes - crosswords, word jumbles, anagrams - codes, cryptograms - sudoku puzzles books (solving "whodunnits"): - Encyclopedia Brown series (Sobol) - Roman Mysteries series (Lawrence) - 17th century Japanese boy and samurai mysteries by Dorothy Hoobler - Nancy Drew series (Keene) - Hardy Boys series (Dixon) - minute mystery books by Conrad, Sobol, Weber, and others Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovemykids Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Lori D. Wow, so many good curriculum suggestions there. I completely agree with so many of those, my oldest is taught more effectively with some of those that you mentioned. She is right brained and learns from big picture type programs. Another good read would be you Can Teach Your Child Successfully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4kids4me Posted March 14, 2009 Author Share Posted March 14, 2009 What great suggestions. Thank you to everyone VERY much. Lori, you gave such an extensive list of curriculum suggestions that will definitely help me. Again, I appreciate everyone's replies! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted April 16, 2011 Share Posted April 16, 2011 Updating the link for Stealth Dyslexia (the one in the post above is no longer valid) = http://dyslexicadvantage.com/forum/topics/stealth-dyslexia-writing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
virtual_twins_mom Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 WOW!! Thank you so much for all the information. Better than reading a book!! If you haven't already, you should do presentations at conferences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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