What I Wish People Knew About Education

Five year old students feel prepared when they bring the necessary school supplies to school. Teachers spend countless hours introducing students to the process of learning curriculum, developing social skills, and sharing the experiences of working in a group. We all want these young learners to grasp all that is introduced and to have the necessary skills to understand, retain, and apply this newly learned information. For some students, this is a struggle. The reasons are many and are often found outside of the school experience. Educators are very skilled at supporting students who struggle more than we want. With…

Are You Ready to Pay Attention?

Are you ready to pay attention?What a critical question that is. Preparing yourself to pay attention creates a complex matrix of physical and cognitive abilities. This question answers why I have never lost interest in giving the SOI assessments to all ages and for many different reasons. The SOI assessments define levels of ability in learning, retaining, and applying knowledge. How exciting to share with individuals where they revealed strengths in the ability to pay attention. It’s also comforting to find areas of processing information that weaken the ability to pay attention. Why is it comforting? Because SOI has an…

The Importance of Vision in Everyday Life

In our previous blog post, we talked about the difference between eyesight and vision as well as some possible consequences when either of those things are not working optimally. We also discussed some of the general functions eyes have to be able to perform in the learning environment and why vision issues can be so easily missed. This week, we’re going to focus on: possible behavioral components when vision isn’t strongpractical skills that require a strong vision systemhow SOI can help build stronger vision skills What’s wrong with me? We’ve all had the experience of trying something new. When we…

How Vision Relates to Learning

Has a school nurse or eye doctor told you that you have 20/20 eyesight? Or maybe you’ve been told that you need glasses or contacts to help you see better? While being able to see clearly is important, did you know that 20/20 eyesight isn’t always indicative of having good vision? A strong visual system is critical in finding success in both learning and life. In fact, 85% of the information we take in is processed through our visual system. We have found that a large percentage of learning issues actually stem from poor visual skills. Unfortunately, most people aren’t…

5 Steps for Successful Learning

Now that the school year is well underway, this is often the time when parents and teachers start to notice when students aren’t performing as well as they could be. Learning has become challenging. But why? There are 5 steps for successful learning: receiveprocessassimilatestoreuse One of the biggest assumptions we make about students is that they are both physically and mentally prepared to do these things. Physical Abilities For just the first step - receiving information - a student needs: good vision | eyes that work together and can easily shift from the desk to the whiteboarda strong auditory processing…

IPP: Integrated Practice Protocol

INTEGRATED: combining or coordinating separate elements so as to provide a harmonious, interrelated whole PRACTICE: repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency PROTOCOL: the plan for carrying out a scientific treatment regimen to be followed exactly IPP is the acronym for Integrated Practice Protocol. Those three letters have great value to thousands of individuals that have greatly improved their ability to learn, concentrate, focus, remember, produce, and succeed in the learning environment and in life. It is well known and accepted that a number of students are not as well prepared for the demands…

I Watched But Did Not See | Part 1

I now realize there were many signs I missed as our bright, funny, clever daughter moved through the first five years of her life. I loved watching her play. She was doing 100 piece puzzles at the age of three. How clever is that? She loved to draw, but she rejected doing coloring books. We wanted to expand her drawing ability and we were more than happy to put the coloring books out of the picture. She loved animals of any kind and her menagerie of stuffed animals was significant because everyone in the family knew of her passion. Those…

How SOI & IPP Benefit the Deaf Community

During my many years at the Tennessee School for the Deaf, I was often asked if my deaf students were a challenge because of their deafness. I would always reply, “At TSD, my students are great; it’s the adults that drive me crazy”. I said that because it didn’t take me long to learn that kids in the deaf community are just like their hearing counterparts in public school. They laugh, play, love, and learn just like any other kid. The deaf child also brings into the classroom the same learning challenges that any other child brings. If there is…

What is Intelligence?

This blog post is extracted from an interview with Mary Meeker by Betty D. Watkins. "All children have intelligence. We have asked the wrong question. We ask how much. We must ask what kind." - Mary MeekerIn the late 1800s, Alfred Binet was commissioned to develop a way of identifying children who could not learn in school. Binet's test was modified at Stanford University by Terman for use by American children. Thus were the intelligence test and the I.Q. score created. The Standford Binet Intelligence Test is still used to identify ability to learn in school. The Stanford Binet…

SOI & Reading Comprehension

The need to improve reading comprehension is well-documented. The schools’ greatest successes in reading achievement have come at the third grade level. This is true in every state and at the national level as well. The downward trend in reading achievement begins in the fourth grade and continues through the high school years – it never improves, and only rarely levels off. Why does achievement decline after the third grade? The answer is reading comprehension. Reading instruction through the third grade is mostly concentrated on mechanics and on concrete content. After the third grade; the emphasis shifts to reading comprehension…

What I Wish People Knew About Education

Are You Ready to Pay Attention?

The Importance of Vision in Everyday Life

How Vision Relates to Learning

5 Steps for Successful Learning

IPP: Integrated Practice Protocol

I Watched But Did Not See | Part 1

How SOI & IPP Benefit the Deaf Community

What is Intelligence?

SOI & Reading Comprehension

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