Career Counseling for a Millennial: SOI ALA-PLA

The SOI test is helpful for career counseling. The SOI career analysis reviews an individual’s different abilities and matches their aptitude to a career preference. No matter the academic experience, a person may not have the qualifications within their ability skills to meet the requirements for a particular career. SOI test results allow you to construct an academic path toward a career in which you will be successful. A 28 year old young man came to me for therapy for anxiety. He graduated the University of Florida in engineering, but could only find a job in sales. He reported that…

Essential Reading Skills & Abilities

How many intelligent children are failed each year due to their lack of reading skills? How many teachers blame themselves because their students do not thrive under their tutelage? If one says it takes intelligence to learn to read, everyone would agree. Therein lies the conundrum – what is meant by intelligence? We know that general intelligence is not the answer. What if we asked a different question – not how much intelligence but what kind. If we ask what kind of intelligence is required for learning to read, we have a much better chance of understanding how intelligence is…

Functional, Integrated Education

One of the things we learn by experience is that truth is truth. We know there are certain immutable, undeniable facts that no matter how some may argue, are found to be true. Whether we are considering the realm of the physical or the mental, the concretely understood or the intangible, the “truth” wins out. Just as the body will heal itself given the right input in terms of nutrition, we also learn that in education, if the correct methodologies and input are applied, the mind and body will work together to accomplish learning! Hence, we come to an understanding…

Parents: Take Your Babies Out of Those Buckets!

What buckets am I talking about? I mean those carriers for babies that small children sit in while riding in the car. I am sure you have seen moms take the baby and his “bucket” out of the car and put the child and “bucket” into the grocery cart at the market or the stroller at the mall. When shopping is done, back into the car goes the baby in his “bucket.” What amazes me is that these babies seldom cry or act like they want to be picked up. Neither of my grandsons would stand for the being in…

Addressing Learning Difficulties

IPP (Integrated Practice Protocol) is one of our most popular programs at SOI. Why? Because it addresses a variety of learning difficulties including visual, auditory, and sensory-motor skills through a series of exercises customized to meet every student's needs! Each student gets to work on building his/her skills. The IPP program is a system for treating learning difficulties. It works to improve attention span, memory, comparison/contrast thinking, eye-hand coordination, systems reasoning and other skills essential to the learning process, helping students perform better in school and in life. With IPP, the following areas are screened. An explanation for each is…

Similarities Between Parents and Children

ASSESSING PARENTS AND CHILDREN: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES On many of the occasions where I have assessed both parents and their children, I have been fascinated by the results. Here are two examples. Many years ago, I assessed a father and son. Both had a high incidence of gifted scores, were left-handed, and had significant hidden visual perception issues. In the case of the father, the vision issues didn’t prevent him from becoming a good reader. He attained good scores in English literature, qualifying to be a teacher and entering a Master’s program. The son, whose visual perception problems were all…

You’ve Got Talent!

I have often thought of renaming my position from teacher to “Talent Development Specialist”. The idea of helping children develop their talents and gifts started many years ago when I read a book call the The Power of Uniqueness by Bill Hendricks and Arthur Miller. This fascinating book changed my thinking about how we encourage and train children. The authors emphasized that each of us are born with a prescribed pattern of strengths that indicate what kind of life’s work we should pursue in the future. When I was introduced to SOI, I recognized it was a fantastic tool to…

Seven Key Questions You Should Be Asking in Your Classroom

What makes a successful classroom? Or, more importantly, what makes successful students? Is it a good teacher? The most organized classroom? The most exciting lessons? While all of these things are important, we believe that the key to success is this: the student. Is this student ready to learn? How does the student learn best? What areas does the student struggle in? How quickly is the student progressing through the lessons? Does the student have any learning gaps? What can we do to help the student learn best? Why is this student falling behind? Do these things sound important to…

I Can Hear the Drum Roll of Education

SOI gives you the tools and materials needed to help students who are struggling, challenge those that are gifted, and give them all a solid foundation to be successful throughout their education! It has arrived or will soon arrive. That would be the new school year. The machinery behind school beginning is monumental even down to the small five-year-old I saw that was proudly lugging a basket full of schools supplies. I expressed my respect to him that he was carrying that big basket himself. He cocked his head and said, “Yup, I’m going to school and we have everything…

Trauma Treatment and SOI ALA-PLA Learning Therapy Part 3

AN ADULT DYSLEXIC: PART 3 Click here to read the first part of Juan's story. “Can you teach me to read?” Juan asked me three months ago as his psychotherapy came to a close. Because he was beaten and humiliated as a boy for his “dyslexia,” I first treated his trauma in therapy and then applied SOI learning therapy. He has now taken both the computer test (ALA-PLA) and the CR test (paper and pencil). You may remember what his profile revealed: with the exception of auditory memory, Juan tested at the bottom stanine in every ALA-PLA subtest! However, Juan…

Career Counseling for a Millennial: SOI ALA-PLA

Essential Reading Skills & Abilities

Functional, Integrated Education

Parents: Take Your Babies Out of Those Buckets!

Addressing Learning Difficulties

Similarities Between Parents and Children

You’ve Got Talent!

Seven Key Questions You Should Be Asking in Your Classroom

I Can Hear the Drum Roll of Education

Trauma Treatment and SOI ALA-PLA Learning Therapy Part 3

Support Request

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