Basic Reading, Writing & Spelling Difficulties Cause Problems in All School Work
Don’t Wait for Your Child to ‘Grow Out Of’ Basic Reading, Writing and Maths Problems
Every day that goes by without strong basic skills means your child will not be able to learn effectively at school and so will fall further and further behind.
The Homework and Schoolwork Blues
Urgent intervention is needed if your child regularly:
- Resists or has trouble reading
- Does not read for pleasure
- Is a poor speller
- Has poor handwriting
- Can’t remember maths facts and procedures
- Resists your attempts to help with homework
- Is reluctant to go to school
- Is un-cooperative or does not follow instructions well
- Gets upset, angry or withdrawn on a regular basis
- Is forgetful
- ‘Hides away’ in TV and computer games
- Has digestion or sleep problems
Your Attitude Matters
Do you think that your child is lazy?
Very few children are lazy if they have the skills they need to do well at school. It is important not to blame your child for struggling with schoolwork because it is not his/her fault that certain foundation skills were not learned. Pushing your child to ‘try harder’ when he/she is working to the limit will drive him/her to lose confidence and give up, or get frustrated and get angry.
Have you tried extra help but it didn’t work?
Even if you have tried to get extra help at school or externally and it didn’t fix the problem – that doesn’t mean that the problem can’t be fixed! You just haven’t found the right person to help – YET. With the right program, virtually all educational problems can be fixed, or in the case of people with special needs (such as poor eyesight, hearing problems, overly emotionally sensitive), the problems can be worked around by compensating in other ways.
Do you think your child lacks the intelligence to succeed at school?
IQ tests are not (and never were) an accurate measure of a child’s potential, especially if the child is struggling with language problems in areas such as speech, listening, reading and spelling. Unfortunately, many educational psychologists, teachers and parents treat low scores on IQ tests as a reason to give up helping the child because they think there is no hope. Many of the world’s most successful people in business and other areas did not realise their potential until after they left school. And let’s face it, driving a car is a difficult and complex task but we don’t make people do IQ tests before they sit for their license – so IQ tests can’t be that important.
Child Development – The 4 Key Rules
As long ago as the 1920s, Developmental Psychologists (such as Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky) provided us with models that explain how children develop. They highlighted 4 key rules of development:
- Development happens in stages
- Progress to the next stage depends on mastery of the previous stage
- Development also happens in strands (physical, intellectual, social, language, emotional, etc.)
- Failure to master one strand at a particular stage will hamper progress in the other strands
Uneven Development Hampers Progress at School
A typical scenario:
If a child has not mastered basic comprehension skills:
- The child will not be able to read instructions properly,
- So the child will need to copy what others are doing or ask them for help thus causing a disruption to the class,
- So the child will get known as someone who doesn’t pay attention and will often be blamed or even punished for bad behaviour.
- So the child will react emotionally becoming either angry, withdrawn, or so tense he/she cannot concentrate no matter how hard he/she tries.
- This will make it impossible for the child to carry out the original task.
The Best Time to Fix Educational Problems is NOW
If your child is falling behind it is important that you act promptly to fix the underlying causes of the problem or your child will quickly lose self-confidence and fall even further behind. This can lead to serious emotional and social difficulties which will make the problem worse and cause disruption to your whole family.
We Understand . . .
We understand how to fix the blockages that slow down or stop your child’s development – we teach the exact skills required to overcome each blockage so your child will be able to excel at school. This success will mean your child will be much happier, both at school and at home. Homework will become a pleasurable and rewarding experience, and the stress levels in your whole family will be reduced.