When my daughter, Erin, a Pediatrician and co-founder of this RaisingSmarerChildren.com blog, was in the first grade, her teacher called me in and said she wanted her to repeat the first grade due to reading problems.

I was horrified as you can imagine, because Erin could read at age 4, and I am a reading specialist.   What was I missing?   

Fortunately, and I believe there are no coincidences, the mother of a child I was coaching in faster learning strategies, told me her son was taking vision therapy. She said her son had visual perceptual problems that weren’t picked up in the school vision exam on the distance eye chart, and she discovered he didn’t see the printed page the way he should.

Just today, I read a story on Fox Business News about the NFC West champion wide receiver for the Arizona cardinals, Larry Fitzgerald, who credits vision therapy for his success.

He says, like I have been saying, teaching and writing about  for just over twenty years now, “that most people don’t know that there are over 15 visual skills that every person needs to succeed in reading, learning, sports and life.  Reading at 20/20 distance eyesight is just one of those skills”.

My daughter, Erin, who had vision therapy in the first grade, was more than just lucky.  When she was finished the therapy, she read well above grade level.  She too, credits her much of her dream of becoming a medical doctor to the vision therapy she received as a child.  Had her visual perceptual problems not been solved right then, she may have struggled with reading all the way through school.

If you’re wondering whether your child needs vision therapy, I’ve worked with the College Of Optometrists in Vision Development and The Optometric Education Program Foundation to create the Eye-Q Reading Inventory.  It is a series of questions you will want to ask your child after they read a page or so to you.

As your child reads, don’t correct them or say anything.  You might even want to tape record your child reading, so you have a perfect record of how they read. Then, do as instructed on the Inventory.

You’ll want to look for things that most vision screenings miss, such as do they skip lines when they read, do they miss punctuation at the end of a sentence, do they see a word like ‘the’ and call it what, or pull a word from the line below or the line below into the sentence they are reading.

If your child gets tired quickly when reading, this is a signal that you need to find out more.  Kids read more than we ever did, and if you’re child is getting tired now, or just doesn’t want to read, it’s not due to laziness.  Reading may actually be painful for your child.

You won’t know until you ask your child how it actually feels when reading.  Most kids who struggle to read, see the child sitting next to them finish the same assignment sooner, and think to themselves that they are ‘dumb’. 

Unless you find out how your child sees the printed page, and how reading feels,  your child can easily be labeled with ADHD, dyslexia, or fall through the cracks at school, struggling forever.

The implications for kids who struggle to read are endless; fights at home about homework, poor grades, acting out in class, withdrawing, dropping out of school, and even  juvenile delinquency. 

If you want to know whether your child needs vision therapy, just like Larry Fitzgerald and my daughter did, my advice is to take your child to a developmental optometrist.  These doctors are specially trained to examine your child’s eyes for health, just like any optometrist, but they will also look for hidden visual or perceptual problems which can affect reading, learning and sports.

You can find a list of these doctors at COVD.org or OEP.org .  The American Optometric Association recommends eye exams beginning in infancy.  You may also want to visit InfantSee.org where former President Jimmy Carter talks about how standard vision screenings missed critical eye problems for his two grandchildren, and what types of exams are better for your child.

If your child struggles in any way with reading, you’ll save years of tears and pain by getting to the real cause now, so be sure and have that special eye exam today.

If you gave your child the Eye-Q Reading Inventory, be sure and take it to your developmental optometrist, so you can provide more specific information.

Thank you to Larry Fitzgerald for speaking out on vision therapy, and the little known facts about visual skills which every child needs for reading success.

Remember, every child is smart in their own way.

Warmly,

Pat Wyman and Erin Mavredakis, M.D.

Remember to visit http://www.HowToLearn.com/coachingstudents2.html for back to school  strategies that show your child ‘how to learn’ for a lifetime of learning success.

        How To Use The Visual Eye-Brain Connection For Written Test Success

If you’ve been following this mini series, excerpted from the best seller, Learning vs. Testing,  on test taking success strategies, today is THE Day to find out HOW to help your child or student add that visual learning style strategy for the ultimate boost in test taking scores! 

  Eye-Brain Connection For Test Taking Success

The best way to teach your child or students to add visual learning style and visual memory strategies as they learn and recall new information is to use the eye brain connection we talked about yesterday.

Here’s the how:

First, ask questions which require your child or student to get a picture in their mind to answer.  For example, ask your child what a picture looks like in their room.  Or ask what their favorite character in a movie ‘looks’ like.

Caution:  Don’t use ‘hear’ or ‘feeling’ type questions or you’ll be asking your child to access another learning style.  You have to use the word ‘look’ in your question.

The Eyes Have It

When you ask picture type questions, watch your child’s eyes.  Ask enough “picture” questions until you notice a pattern with your child’s eyes.

You want to notice whether they look up to their left, or up to their right (or sometimes straight up) to recall a picture.

The important thing is that you don’t tell your child what you are looking for at first, but you need to know where your child’s eyes go when they recall a picture.

Generally,  people’s eyes go up, above the eye level, when they remember a picture – or get into the visual learning style.

If your child’s or student’s eyes don’t go up in the beginning, just wait until another time, and ask picture type questions until their eyes go either up to the left or up to the right to answer.

This means that when they recall a picture, their eyes move up to that location.

This is so important because you can then tell your child to use those eye movements and their up left or up right location when making pictures of what they study, AND when they recall what they’ve studied for the test.

You may want to share this information with your child’s teacher as well, simply because your child will start looking up during a test to remember their mental movie and the teacher might not be used to seeing this.

You can also refer to the Learning vs. Testing book for more information on how to use the eye-brain connection with specific subject areas like math facts in half the time, spelling, study skills for every subject, vocabulary, learning a second language, etc.

Be sure to tell your child or student to look up, to their left or right side, (the one they looked up to when you asked those picture questions), as they make mental movies when they study, turn what they read into a movie, AND when they want to remember those mental movies during the test!

Voila – eye brain connection for terrific grades on regular and standardized tests.  There is no child left behind with this eye brain connection, because every child knows how to learn and how to remember!

Remember, every child is smart!

Warmly,

Pat Wyman and Erin Mavredakis, M.D.

Visit our sister site at http://www.howtolearn.com for free Instant Learning tips and articles on how to solve reading problems, use colored overlays and get better grades in everything.

We welcome your comments, and appreciate you hitting the ’share this’ button and digging the article to share with others.

     Part 1 of our series on visual strategies for test taking success, excerpted from Learning vs. Testing,  Strategies That Bridge The Gap Between Learning Styles and Test Taking Success, talked about how my students revealed their own visual learning and recall strategies to get higher grades on their tests.

Today, we continue with how your child’s eye movements are a clue to creating mental snapshots, which enhance their memory during tests.  While I didn’t understand why when I first noticed the eye movements, the physical act of looking up helped my students created and recall nearly everything they read…

Eyes And Their Signals

Although I did not understand why at the time, the physical act of looking up, above eye level, helped my students create and recall a kind of mental snapshot.  They found that they could easily rely on these images, movies, or snapshots when they wanted to recall information.

They actually used their upward eye movements to imagine a screen with an image or movie on it.

As I looked for more information, I found that some classic research done in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s by A. Pavio and others held answers.  They concluded that students using imagery  had significantly better recall and faster response times to questions than those who did not.

In one of Pavio’s studies (1969), students given long lists of pictures and long lists of words to remember, scored far higher on recall of lists with pictures, thus supporting the power of visual memory.  This classic research further noted that recall is enhanced by presenting information in both visual and verbal form together, and has been supported by more recent work.

A few years after this research appeared, others expanded on it by observing that various eye movements appear to be tied to the visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning modalities.

A field outside education developed, known as neurolinguistics, and has been reported on by people like one of our HowToLearn.com experts, Bobbi DePorter.

In addition, neew psychological therapies to overcome stress and trauma make extensive use of eye movements to help patients successfully reprocess a traumatic event.  In a therapy known as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitication and Reprocessing, patterned eye movements are used to remove or clear emotional, cognitive, and physical blockages.

Eye Brain Connection

Studies definitely show that eye movements trigger certain brain functions.  They can even help relieve pain. In other words, there is an eye-brain connection.

When people are asked to recall pictures or recall words, their eyes move to various positions during the process.  As we create and store visual images in our minds, the eyes move to a specific location (often to an upward left or upward right direction), activating certain areas of the brain at the same time.

You can observe the same thing in relation to other learning modalities.  For example, notice what people do with their eyes when they recall sounds or access their feelings about something.  Eye movements to the side, by the ear, will be used when recalling something that was said, and people generally look down when accessing feelings.

Without realizing it, my students helped me understand why children get such different grades on written tests even when they have all prepared in the same way beforehand.  Those students who had problems during the test simply needed to learn how to make pictures as they took their written tests.  Since exams are mostly given in the visual, written learning style, visual input, storage and output work best for those types of exams.

Parents and teachers can now use this eye-movement research to show kids how to create the mental images they need to reinforce and easily recall what they have learned.

Next post:  How To Use The Visual Eye-Brain Connection For Written Tests – you will definitely want to read this one – it will tell you HOW to help your child or student get more visual for written test success.

If you’re looking for specific strategies in math, science, study skills, spelling, reading or any other subject, they are all in the Learning vs. Testing book.

Remember, every child is smart!  Thanks for sending us your comments and hitting the ’share this’ button to send this information to the social media community.

Warmly,

Pat Wyman and Erin Mavredakis, M.D.

Visit our sister site at http://www.HowToLearn.com for more tips and resources to help your child succeed in school and raise a smarter child in every way.

I have since discovered that the secret to their success is exactly what current brain research now confirms.  These methods helped my students learn how to visualize or make pictures of what they read or heard.

Students who made mental pictures and associations recalled large amounts of material with excellent comprehension.  they did this more quickly and accurately than other students and also got higher grades and test scores.

Neither my traditional teacher training nor reading specialist certificate programs actually taught me how to show my students to visualize.  I learned many visual-memory and visualization activities to do with my students, but none were consistently successful.

This was because I did not know the how of teaching my students to create and retrieve visual memories.  Early on, I made lots of mistakes by telling my students to visualize what we were talking about, but did not show them how to do this.  I was inadvertently creating a mis-match for many of them between how they learned best and how I communicated to them.

Figuring out how to show my students to make mental images was an exciting journey.  I observed other teachers, took lots of extra classes, read several phychology and medical information books on mental imagery, and interviewed various educational experts.  Only then did the answers I need finally show up.

At the time, I had many students who made letter and word reversals when they read.  To help them, I used a multi-modality approach known as the Slingerland method.  My students would look up, write their letters or words in the air, and say the words aloud.  I also had them create their letters in a larger size and imagine them in different colors.

When it came time to write (or read), I noticed that the students would look back up as if seeing the letters or words in the air.  In other words, they were checking to see if the their actual work matched the visual image of what they had practiced previously.  This worked very well and they no longer made letter or word reversals when they read or wrote.

Although this visual-memory method worked well with my special reading students, I wasn’t clear whether it would work for all my students.  So I interviewed and observed my highly visual students – these were the studetns who made the highest grades in the class.

Long before the current brain research could support the answers they gave, I discovered that they all used the same strategy, both when learning and remembering things for their tests.  I learned that when they read, the looked up and naturally made images or pictures of what they were reading.  These students seemed to know instinctively how to visualize.

They told me it was as if they were creating their own movie, as they converted everything to images in their mind.  As I observed them during the act ot learning and testing, the students read a bit and then looked in an upward direction as they processed the information.  Some students closed their eyes as they processed, but still looked up.  They told me this meant they were converting what they read into pictures.

Check back this week for part 2 and 3 of our mini-series on visual strategies for test taking success.

If you want strategies to cut learning time in half, Learning vs. Testing is availale at a savings of $12.00 at http://www.howtolearn.com/learningvstesting1.html

Remember, every child is smart!

Leave your comments below and we’ll post them, and hit the share this button to send this mini series message to your friends in the social media community.  Thank you.

Did you know that your child may suffer unnecessarily from visual stress?  In fact, eye doctors say that kids may be working much harder than necessary to read and write, simply because their visual system is stressed and it’s undetected.  On page 53 of the book,  Learning vs. Testing , here are the four ways eye doctors and reading specialists say you can reduce visual stress for your child.

1.  Tell your child to hold their book at a 45 degree angle when reading.  This is the optimal way for the light to hit the retina and laying the book flat on the table or desk, or holding it straight up and down, makes the visual system work harder to see the print.

2.  Encourage your child to take frequent breaks.  Have your child stand up, which increases blood flow to the brain, look far away, and then close up again.

3. Have your child use a 3 inch binder, turned on its side, so the book can be placed in a slanted position.  A 3 inch, 3 ring binder is much less expensive than a slant board, and works wonders for the visual system.

4. If your child holds a pencil with the middle finger on top, it stresses the arm, shoulder, neck and visual system.  Use a new pencil grip to relax everything, and you can also have your child turn their chair sideways, parallel with the desk when writing.  Try that for yourself, and see how much relaxed you are.

I just did that one myself, when writing out over one hundred wedding invitations for my daughter’s wedding.  I have to admit, it was much more relaxing turning my chair parallel with the desk!

Visual stress adds to stress your child may have, and this type of stress is completely preventable with regular eye exams by a developmental optometrist, and simple exercises like the ones listed above.

Send us your comments below and we’re happy to post them.

Warmly,

Pat Wyman and Erin Mavredakis M.D.

Visit our sister site and read the free articles, get other tips and resources for helping your child learn faster and easier!

During the past couple of days, you’ve gotten several tips on what to do about inadequate school vision screenings, and which visual skills are essential for you child.

Today, here are 5 things you can do to reduce your child’s visual stress, which will make reading easier, and ultimately help your child do better in school.

If you observe any of these visual problems, then use the suggested solutions:

1. If your child has difficulty copying work from their book to the paper, have another student help by using carbon paper and talk with the teacher about reducing the number of items copied – maybe doing only the odd or even numbers.

2. If your child complains it’s tough to copy from the board, have the teacher make larger letters with more space between them and put the same material on a piece of paper for your child to copy.

3. Tracking problems mean your child loses his or her place when reading.  This is a signal that you need a thorough learning related vision exam by a developmental optometrist, but here’s what you can do in the meantime.

Allow your child to use a marker and inform the teacher why.  Suggest that your child look away from the book for 30 -60 seconds to relax the eyes.  Next, have your child trace a sideways figure 8 in the air, first with one hand, then the other, to activate both brain hemispheres and integrate all visual fields.

4.  If you notice that your child’s numbers don’t line up as they should on the page, then use large box graph paper to make it easier.  You can also suggest that each line of numbers be a different color.

5. If your child doesn’t see punctuation, omits words, complain that the words jump around or gets tired when reading, try colored overlays.  Place one color at a time over the printed page and let your child tell you which color clears up the print.

Most importantly, if you notice any of the visual/perceptual problems, then have your child’s eyes checked by a doctor who specializes in learning related vision exams.  They are called developmental optometrists. 

Remember, every child is smart!

Warmly,

Pat Wyman and Erin Mavredakis, M.D.

Visit our sister site at http://www.HowToLearn.com for other tips and strategies to help raise a smarter child. 

If you like this post, send us a comment about it, and hit the ’share this’ button below to pass it on to other parents in the social media community.

After listening to President Barack Obama’s second press conference last night, it occurs to me that we may be missing something very important as we decide which resources to put into education.  Technology is so very important, but what about the fact that nearly 70% of our kids aren’t reading at grade level?

How can we expect to raise smarter kids, who are able to compete in the global marketplace, when we’re not addressing the underlying causes of our national reading crisis?

As parents, the first thing you need to do when your child is an infant, is to get an eye screening, that includes visual skills as well.  Former President Jimmy Carter arranged for every parent to do this free if you don’t have the resources or insurance for this.  Visit his site at infantsee.org for more information.

As your child gets ready to enter school, you’re going to want more than the typical school vision screening with an eye chart, to know whether your child has the visual and perceptual skills to become a great reader.

Most schools use a simple eye chart, and have kids cover one eye to look at letters 20 feet away.  I don’t know too many kids who read their books while covering one eye, from 20 feet away, so you have to get a better screening.

Eye doctors called developmental optometrists at covd.org and oep.org specialize in learning related eye exams.  As a reading specialist and parent, I can tell you that these are the best doctors for your child to see prior to and during the school years.  They will examine not only eye health, but all the more subtle vision skills that relate to learning.  Visiting one of these doctors early can save you and your child years of problems later on, plus give your child the best foundation for reading possible.

One more thing you can do to help your child is to check up on your school’s vision screening.  Ask your developmental optometrist how to make this screening more meaningful and related to what we ask kids to do in school.

Tomorrow:  Look for the list of visual skills every child needs to do classroom work – we’ll use the excerpt from the best selling book, Learning vs. Testing, Strategies That Bridge The Gap Between Learning Styles and Test Taking Success.

Remember, every child is smart!

Pat Wyman and Erin Mavredakis, M.D.

P.S.  We’d love to hear from you, so please share your comments and we’ll publish them.  If you like this post, hit the ’share this’ button below and pass it along as a member of all the social media communities.

Visit our sister site at http://www.howtolearn.com for more tips and information on raising smarter children.

Last week, I was in a fifth/sixth grade classroom and assessed just how prepared the kids were for taking tests in the upcoming weeks. 
 
The bottom line – they weren’t.  Both teachers and parents are beginning to panic because the state testing dates are too close for comfort.
 
So, in response, here is an article from information in the Instant Learning For Amazing Grades E-book, with 5 unique tips to help your child excel when they are taking tests.  
 
I’ve also included a $10 savings coupon for this e-book, for our readers who want their kids to get higher test scores on those upcoming tests.  You may also send this onto any friends or family members who want their kids to do better on tests.
 
Just type in the word   learnfaster   where it says to apply coupon at
http://www.howtolearn.com/amazinggrades.html

As a parent, you want your child to love learning, do well on all those pesky tests, and make the whole process stress-free for both of you. 
 
Use these 5 unique test taking tips to insure your child is prepared to excel on any type of test, whether in school, for their driver’s license, or to get in and graduate from college with terrific scores. 
 
1. Tests generally involve reading, so help your child be a great reader, before taking any test.  Besides the usual preparation, listen to your child read aloud, and continue doing this several times each year.
 
Check for any of the following to uncover hidden visual/perceptual problems that may hinder reading success:  skipping lines, losing place, not noticing punctuation, adding a word from the line above or below into the current line, changing the order of letters in words, or getting tired quickly when reading.
 
These can all be signs that your child doesn’t see the printed page the way you do, or is using far more energy than necessary to read their books.
 
The Tip:  Dig deeper than a diagnostic test, giving you only a grade level score. You want to cure the cause of any reading stumbling blocks.
 
Look online for a developmental optometrist to get to the real cause of reading problems. These doctors specialize in reading and learning.
 
A great reader turns print into movies in their mind, speeding recall during any test.
 
2.  Make sure your child’s personal learning style matches the testing format, if you really want to see better test scores. 
 
If your child thinks in pictures, and is a visual learner, there’s a match, increasing the odds of much higher scores.
 
If your child is auditory and learns best by listening, or kinesthetic, and moves around a lot, there is no match between their learning style and a written test.
  
The Tip:  Respect your child’s individual learning style and add some visual learning strategies, like looking up, above eye-level, and have them make a mental movie out of everything they read to
boost memory.
 
3.  Is your child’s diet affecting behavior and test scores?

Food and learning go hand in hand.  The experts say eating protein keeps blood sugar levels more stable throughout the day. 
 
Studies frequently show that kids who eat a great breakfast, stay more focused and really do get better test scores.  The same is true for adults.
 
The Tip:  Nix most of the sugar, add more nuts, lean meats, fish or beans to their diet after a quick talk with your child’s pediatrician to make sure your child can eat more of these high protein foods.
 
4.  Have you ever asked how your child ‘feels’ when they read, write, talk in class or do their homework?  Kids really do love to learn, as long as it isn’t painful.
 
Get to the bottom of the pain, before thinking your child might be lazy or unmotivated.
  
Many kids get labeled as slow learners, learning disordered or worse, all because no one knows why learning and test-taking is hard for them.
 
Spend some quality time with your child, and keep asking how they feel about what they’re doing.  You’ll be amazed at what you can uncover. 
 
 The Tip:  Rule out learning problems, speech and language disorders, health concerns, eye and vision issues, ADHD and more by asking the right expert.
  
Ask other parents and around your community about books, and references to learning and diagnostic experts to speed up the testing process for your child.
 
When it comes to things like ADHD, a lot of ‘experts’ are quick to diagnose this problem in only a few minutes.
 
“It’s a lot more complex than that says one of our medical experts, Dr. Frank Barnill at DrHuggieBear.com, so ask your doctor to rule out other possible culprits, before using the criteria in the basic manual 
found in every doctor’s office.”
 
5. What about sleep?  Is your child getting enough?
 
My son struggled for a while because I didn’t realize that he kept waking up during the night. 
 
Ask your child how he sleeps, and if you don’t like what you hear or see, keep a diary of your child’s bedtime and sleep habits.
 
The Tip:  Ask your child’s pediatrician if sleep studies can help your child get a better night’s rest.
 
These 5 unique tips will go a long way to removing roadblocks to your child’s success and definitely help your child get better test scores.
 
For lots more practical taking success tips, check out the full ebook, Instant Learning For Amazing Grades, and help your child be prepared for those upcoming tests.
 
Put in the word learnfaster in the apply coupon section and get a $10 savings, plus the peace of mind these test taking strategies will give you and your child.
 
Remember, every child is smart!

Warmly,

Pat Wyman and Erin Mavredakis, M.D.

Be sure and hit the ’share this button’ below and help your friends and family members who have kids taking tests.  Visit our http://www.howtolearn.com site as well for many more tips on taking tests and getting better grades in school.

It occurs to me, as the new year approaches, that President Elect Obama, has made one of the wisest choices possible, amidst the thousands he needs to make - and that is to concentrate some of the resources on early childhood education.

The question is – will he focus on the two most overlooked issues that have created the dysfunctional educational system we have now?

So, Mr. Obama, if you’re listening, here’s some significant advice, based on proven statistics and 30 years experience as a reading specialist, teacher, university instructor and author of Learning vs. Testing.

Fact:  Nearly 70% of our children do not read at grade level.  Science scores are lower than that, math not much better, and it gets worse as we go.

While many try and spin these numbers, check the National Center For Education Statistics, or at the least, most local schools.  Reading levels are lower than ever, and the real reasons must be considered a national crisis in order to make any headway.

What we’ve done has not worked – so let’s get to work on change and fresh ideas. 

Children who receive the following services early, continue to enjoy learning success, higher self-esteem, a better chance of attending college, and will become people who truly contribute to our society in a positive way.  They are an integral part of the solution to our nation’s problems in every area.

If you want to insure your child’s learning success, it is imperative that you do many things; foremost among them:

1.  According to the American Optometric Society and other organizations, studies show that nearly 1 in 4 children have undetected visual problems.  Imagine how that might impact their ability to read.

Get your child an eye exam by a developmental optometrist (these are optometrists who perform regular eye exams, plus a special exam which relates to your child’s learning and reading success). 

Visit these four sites for more information and read the personal information from two former Presidents whose children or grandchildren experienced hidden visual problems themselves:  http://www.howtolearn.com/ireadisucceed.html   http://www.covd.org   http://www.oep.org and http://www.infantsee.org

Make certain your child has an eye exam before 12 months of age.  Why?

Read more about former President Jimmy Carter’s grandchildren at http://www.infantsee.org – your pediatrician is not trained to see things like lazy eye, that could lead to blindness if not corrected, and you can prevent a multitude of other visual problems early.

Luci Johnson nearly dropped out of school when her dad, Lyndon Johnson was President?  Why?  Because she had hidden vision problems to nobody diagnosed until she was 16 and ready to just quit.  If you kept failing over and over, and words on the page didn’t look the same to you as they did for the A+ students, how would you feel?

Continue with the eye exams as the demand on the eyes from computers and reading increase – don’t just visit a regular optometrist – they will only look at the health of the eye and check for visual clarity.

See a developmental optometrist once a year or once every two years, and immediately if your child of any age seems to dislike reading, has reading problems, or complains about writing and doing homework every night.  They may be giving you signals that they need this special type of exam, so you know how the world looks through their eyes.  Go to http://www.covd.org and http://www.oep.org to locate a doctor.

I did this for my daughter, and if you’ve been following my work for any time at all, you’ll know that she needed vision therapy, and is now a Pediatrician who can better help her own patients.

2.  Next, teach your kids “how to learn” and don’t let anyone just tell them what to learn.

There are very specific brain compatible and scientifically proven strategies for memory, study skills,reading a text book,  how to ace a written test, and how to write.  Use them.  You’ll do your child good for a lifetime!  One example that can truly help is in the e-book, Instant Learning For Amazing Grades – 210 pages of practical and proven strategies that have worked with well over 250,000 kids.

Read it on Friday, use the “how to learn” strategies on Monday. Some include learning math facts in half the time, cutting learning time in half, how to become a spelling bee champion, how to read and recall the information in a text or other written material for a test and much more.  There is even info on what foods help you stay focused longer.

This is at http://www.howtolearn.com/amazinggrades.html

For Mr. Obama, our next President, I urge you to think about this – if we insure that our children can read well, diagnose reading problems in the most foundational way, fix them if we find them, and then teach them “how to learn”, everybody wins. 

Kids are happier, families aim higher for their kids, values are stronger, and we hit the delete button on most behvior problems.

Thank you for listening, and if any of you have comments, we always welcome them – just press the comment button below, add those two numbers together so we know you’re a real person, and we’ll respond.

We thank you too, if you want to spread the word to help our nation’s reading and educational crisis - hit that submit button and share this post around the social networks.  They do make a difference in how many parents this information can help.

Thank you, and remember, every child is smart!

Warmly,

Pat Wyman and Erin Mavredakis, M.D.

Visit our other website for more information on helping your child solve learning and reading problems: http://www.howtolearn.com

This is our final segment in our back to school success series.  If you want more tips, just leave a comments and we’ll respond as soon as possible.

Do you have a child or student who studies and studies to learn their math facts, then can’t remember them during the test?

Does your child or student take months longer to learn their facts than you’d like?

Here’s some great news.  In this final part of our Back To School Success Series, here’s the secret formula for learning and remembering math facts in HALF THE TIME. 

This is an excerpt from my best seller, Learning vs. Testing, Strategies That Bridge The Gap Between Learning Styles and Test Taking Success.

It’s so easy, every parent, teacher and child can use it right away!

1.  Get these materials:  several packages of 5 inch by 7 inch unlined colored notecards and a note card box to store them in.  A full package of thin tipped colored markers (You can use both for all the other subjects as well.)

The secret is that your child is going to learn addition and subtraction at the same time, and following that, multiplication and division  at the same time.

Start with just a few facts for day one to give your child confidence.  For addition and subtraction, have your child make a right side up triangle, in one color, on a colored 5 inch by 7 inch note card that is unlined.  At the top of the triangle, put the answer to the addition or the subtraction problems.  On the bottom corners, put the other two numbers that make the addition or subtraction answer.

Remember to put these two numbers in another color, different from the answer at the top.

Then, have your child hold the card, above eye level, trace the fact, saying it aloud, while snapping a mental image of the fact on the triangle.  Have him or her do this several times, making sure that the card is above eye level where your child can recall any picture easiest.  It could be up to their left or up to their right, or maybe even straight up above their eye level.

While your child is doing this, make up a test for them on that fact.  As an example, put the addition fact every way it could appear on a test – numbers lined up, numbers across, etc.

After your child has practiced their fact, take the card away, remind them to look above eye level, and see the fact in their own mental movie.  This is what A+ students do – they turn everything they see and read into pictures.

Then, hand your child the test, and watch the fun begin.  If your child needs to look up into his or her “magic memory snapshot”, that’s great.  Just be sure to tell your child’s teacher what he or she is doing before any test.

If you happen to notice your child needs to correct anything, simply take the card, have your child use more colors to decorate the triangle and repeat the process to give time for another look.  Don’t use words like right and wrong, just give your child’s eyes another look, because you will preserve their self-esteem, and make them confident in the process.

For multiplication and division, do the very same thing – only invert the triangle to separate the mental image from addition and subtraction.

In just a few short weeks, your child will know all their facts – in precisely half the time!

Remember, every child is smart!  For more information on how to learn in any subject, visit our website at http://www.howtolearn.com

Warmly,

Pat Wyman and Erin Mavredakis M.D.

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