Step Towards How to Run a Successful Classroom

Now let's take a step towards how to run a successful classroom environment.

Classroom Management

One of your biggest concerns as a daycare teacher is going to be classroom management!

No matter how much experience you have as a mom handling your own children, it's something else entirely when you're responsible for a room full of children.

They all come from different backgrounds and have different personalities. Don't worry -- all you need to do is learn the basics of classroom management and you'll likely find that it is easier than you were expecting to manage your classroom.

A huge part of classroom management is organization. If your classroom is not well-organized and well-run, it will show in the behavior of the students.

Handling Inclusion Students

A good inclusion teacher will do his/her best to motivate his or her students, especially the ones who are struggling or who refuse to do the work regularly. Sometimes, a non-disabled teen will reject the help, it has happened to me, believing erroneously that I am not their teacher or that it would place them in the same category as the special education classmates. Yes, there is a certain stigma attached to the label "inclusion student"; the perception is probably due to the lack of comprehension by both regular students and classroom teachers. The question I am asked most often is "What exactly does Learning Disability mean?" I try to clarify the best way possible to my teaching colleagues that these students do not perceive stimuli normally, even though their intelligence level is average-normal. It would take a trained psychologist to give all the details, I am not, but the tool we use to detect such learning disability (LD) is a series of tests which show severe discrepancies between the potential and the actual academic performance. For example, if a child's verbal ability is calculated at 100 and he/she performs at 85, we call that a learning disability in Reading Comprehension.

Auditory Processing Disorder in Children

• Does your child often ask "what?" or "huh?"
• Do you need to repeat questions and directions frequently?
• Is your child easily distracted or bothered by loud or sudden noises?
• Are conversations difficult for your child to follow?
• Are noisy environments upsetting?
• Are verbal (word) math problems demanding?
• Does your child have difficulty following directions?
• Does your child make a great effort to hear the differences between words or sounds that are similar (COAT/BOAT or CH/SH)?
• Does your child struggle with reading, spelling, writing, or other speech-related language difficulties?

Auditory processing disorder affects about 5% of school-age children. 

Advocating For Your Child

An advocate is someone who speaks for another person. Typically, adults speak for their children and hopefully want the best for their child. But what is the best way to be an advocate for your child?

Parents need to learn what their rights are. Any school can give parents a copy of their rights (usually available from special education personnel). Parents must learn to advocate for their children, not blindly accept what school officials or teachers say or deny what their child can and cannot do. This means they need to stand up and say what they want to happen, the way they want it to happen and what results they expect for their child's behavior and academic progress.

Will parents always get what they want? Maybe, maybe not. Parents and schools often must compromise because of the limitations of time, money and personnel resources. Requests and/or expectations must be reasonable and stated in ways that are accommodating to everyone involved. 

ADHD Hyperactivity, Impulsivity And Inattention - What Parents Should Know

For the vast majority of parents ADHD hyperactivity is the one problematic symptom that they desperately want answers for. While hyperactive behavior can really prove taxing both on the family and in the classroom environment, it is important for both educators and parents to understand that the ADHD has no control over this symptom of their disorder. The hyperactivity is not voluntary and is most definitely not the result of bad behavior. According to a number of studies it would appear that the hyperactivity associated with kids with ADHD is caused through an imbalance of neurotransmitters within the brain. These neurotransmitters are norepinephrine and dopamine. When the imbalance of these chemicals is addressed and balance restored, the symptoms of ADHD are curtailed and sometimes totally eradicated.

Although there is a tendency to think that ADHD hyperactivity is something that affects only children, this is in fact erroneous. There are adults with ADHD as well but the hyperactive component tends to morph into more subtle forms. 

Top Special Educational Advocacy Tips for Parents

Most parents who have a child with special needs want to home school their child. They choose to do so in order to keep their child safe from peer pressure and close to themselves, for their child's safety. This can be a daunting process, if you choose to educate your child yourself. However, it is not insurmountable. Check out the following steps that can make the process easier:

1. Know what suits your child best
You as a parent know the best for your child. If you feel that your child has a certain disability, you can help them cope with it. You understand your child best so you decide better what can help them learn. You can use different visuals, cues and other fun learning ways to educate your child.

2. Use letters to communicate important matters
Communication through email or telephone doesn't work really well. Letters help you keep track of the entire history of communication. You may need to look back at your child's documents later in case you fall into a disagreement with the educational advocate. You may create "minutes of the meeting" and send a copy to the personnel later, in case you have a face-to-face conversation.

Could Food Be Causing Your Learning Difficulties' Nightmare?

Research You May Not Be Aware Of....

Concerns have existed for approximately 40 years about the impact of modern processing of food on our children. In the early 1970's leading paediatricians, allergists and doctors began to question the safety of processed foods. One allergist/paediatrician in particular, Dr Feingold, was extremely concerned. Over the space of a decade, he had seen an exponential rise in children being brought to him with behavioural and learning issues. His research lead him to the conclusion that the processes, additives, flavourings and preservatives being used to grow, manufacture and store food were behind this exponential rise. He was seeing children with migraines, irritability, mood swings, depression, aggression, the inability to read, conditions that mimicked dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia as well as all those behaviours and symptoms we associate with ADD/ADHD.

He was not alone with his concerns. Researchers across the globe began to look at the effects of food on behaviour and the ability to learn. Their findings may surprise you.

Special Ed Robotic Instruction for One-On-One Education

One of the biggest challenges we have in special education in our schools, at least out here in California in my area is the cost of one-on-one education. A good many of these kids really do need one-on-one instruction as that is the most appropriate given the situation, or at least multiple teachers or teacher aides per classroom, and those classroom sizes are smaller, and it's a lot to handle when helping these kids learn.

There have been significant strides made in working with computers and avatars to help Special Ed kids, and that's a wonderful thing, but still we must reduce the cost further. Of course that's difficult without lowering the level of instruction. Okay so let's talk about this for a second and some potential solutions.

First, our think tank has been working hard to come up with new ways to improve the efficiency without reducing quality of the classroom. It's all about costs, budget controls, and leveraging the technology. Still, the teachers need latitude, and freedom to do their teaching.

Celebrating World Autism Day With Dinosaurs

This week is a special week for all those teachers, educationalists and teaching assistants who are involved in teaching and supporting young children on the autism spectrum. April 2nd is the fifth annual World Autism Awareness Day. Every year, for the past five years, organisations with an involvement in autism or in related fields such as Asperger's Syndrome on this day celebrate the uniqueness of these conditions. Market research undertaken by the National Autistic Society in the United Kingdom a couple of years ago, postulated that there were perhaps 500,000 people in the country with some form of autism. Many children with autism find it difficult to interact and participate with their fellow pupils, however, a fascination with dinosaurs, dinosaur models and facts and figures about prehistoric animals can help build a bridge between school children.

Autism and Dinosaurs

Autism is very debilitating, affecting the way that people with this condition interact and communicate with the rest of the world.

The Wonders of Video Modeling

Video Modeling is a scientifically proven method of teaching and has been approved by the CEC (Council for Exceptional Children). Studies have been around for many years, but video modeling seems to have just recently surfaced into the mainstream.

I made my own video modeling about 10 years ago having no idea of how effective it was. I made videos out of pure desperation to teach my autistic child.

Video Modeling provides so many lessons, moments, pictures, cues and more. These visuals simply cannot be replicated in one on one teaching to the extent the teaching can be done in video. VM provides repetition without needing a teacher. There are no distracters in VM - no one to attend to - no demands being placed on you and no actions needed. VM is simply watching. Most children with autism are visual learners; which explains the attraction and success.

Tips For Parents of Specials Needs Children

You can get a very good, quality education for your special needs child within the school system. You do need to take heed of some important aspects when dealing with disabilities and the school district.

Educate yourself before you go into a meeting with the professionals in the school district:

* Learn all you can about your child's specific disability (classification)
* Learn your rights & responsibilities (for you & your child)
* Learn the rights & responsibilities of the school district
* Find an advocate through the state dept. of education
* Find a support group or start one of your own
* Find online support groups- they have a wealth of information that you may need.

You will never learn all the laws of special education as there are several notebooks (about 4 inches thick) filled with these laws. You can, however, learn the laws that pertain to your child and their specific needs.

Can An ADHD Child Really Benefit From Attending A Specialty ADHD School?

As countless parents around the world can attest to, a child with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) can be quite a handful, and many parents actually get to a stage where they literally become desperate. If parents of ADHD children feel this way, just try to imagine how teachers must feel if some of their students have ADHD. Not only is it a huge challenge trying to work with these kids, but they can also make it very difficult for a teacher to focus on other kids in the class.

With the number of ADHD kids rising year on year, we're seeing the arrival of more and more specialty schools which focus solely on providing high quality education to children with behavioral disorders such as ADD and ADHD. This is achieved by allowing children with these types of disorders to be taught in an environment which is specific to the special needs of these kids.

One of the most common behavioral traits of ADHD children is inattentiveness. This is not to say these children cannot pay attention to what's being taught in class, but they certainly have great difficulty staying focused on a particular subject or project for any length of time. 

Sensory Stages One and Two in Concept Development

In order to learn about the world and the things in it, we must explore our surroundings and gather information through our senses. Regardless of whether we are talking about a child or adult, or a developmentally delayed or gifted individual, and regardless of the skill or concept we are considering, the brain must begin its search for information by using the senses.

If we do not recognize something as having been encountered in the past or if we encountered it but did not understand it, we will rely on our sensory organs to gather information. Both children and adults who are presented with something completely novel to them will begin their investigation by looking, touching, tasting or listening to it. It is only after we have gained information about the physical properties of the thing we are exploring that we can move on to investigating it at a more sophisticated level.

Because sensory exploration is the foundation of all learning, individuals who have visual or hearing impairments and those who have inadequate sensory integration or sensory processing abilities are at a great disadvantage and are therefore at higher risk for experiencing delayed development and learning disabilities.

What You Should Know To Help Struggling Students

Children, adolescents, and adults with learning and performance difficulties are usually faced with information processing problems in a few specific areas. These areas include visual processing, auditory processing, organization, memory, attention, executive function, abstract reasoning and more.

For children and adults with LD and/or ADHD, their parents, and their teachers there are three very important words to remember: 1. Information, 2. Knowledge, and 3. Wisdom. Read on to find out what this means.

INFORMATION

The 1st level of understanding comes when you gather information (a) about LD and ADHD, their types, the combinations of difficulties, how they are diagnosed, and how they are treated so that you know as much as possible in order to proceed successfully, and (b) about the individual, including strengths, difficulties, testing results, behaviours, and performance. You will read books, watch DVDs, attend workshops, and ask questions.