Applying to college

Applying to college can be an overwhelming process for all students, but for students with learning disabilities, this process can be even more challenging. You may want to start by researching various institutions and looking at the support services they offer for students with learning disabilities. If you can, try to visit the colleges you are considering once you have narrowed down your search, and spend some time in the disability office learning about the services they offer. Once you start the application process, it’s up to you to decide whether to share your diagnosis but it may be helpful for colleges to know what your needs are. Doing so may help provide a more complete picture of your profile and allow colleges to better understand your needs. If you do decide to disclose your disability, make sure you have support documentation, including evaluations, IEPs, or 504 plans. If the school requires a standardized test for admission, you may want to apply for accommodations for these exams. You might also want to also consider test-optional schools where you may not be required to take a test at all for admission.

At college

Once you are accepted and have chosen which college to attend, one of your first visits should be to the school’s disability office. If you are seeking services, you will need to submit the documentation of your learning disability to this office so they can verify which services and support you are eligible for. The office will then help manage and coordinate your support throughout your college journey.

Tutoring

Many colleges offer free tutoring to students with learning disabilities. This may come in the form of peer tutoring from other college students, or it may be through federal funding that is available for students with disabilities. Some schools offer learning centers where students can come in-person for help. When you are at college, if your school offers a learning center, you may want to visit it, meet the tutors and staff members, and determine how they can help you. You can also look into private specialized learning disability tutoring if you feel that’s more suitable for you.

Accommodations

It is important to determine which accommodations you may need while at college. You might need extra time on tests, or perhaps you will need to take your tests in another location like a learning center. Other accommodations you might qualify for include note takers, preferential seating, audio versions of textbooks, access to a computer during tests, and other related accommodations based on your disability.

Organizational skills

A large key to success in college is developing strong organizational skills. Try to build your time management skills to help you manage your classes, workload, and other obligations. For example, you might want to learn and practice the ET/AT time management technique, where you predict how much time you think it will take to complete a task (which is the ET, or estimated time), then compare it to the AT, or actual time it takes to complete that task. You can also work on planning out your schedule in a physical or electronic calendar and work on breaking down assignments into individual steps. Additionally, you can work on techniques for prioritizing tasks by listing the most important tasks at the top of your list and less important tasks beneath that. You can also use your phone as a tool to set alerts before appointments to further help with time management. If organization is still a challenge, executive functioning coaching can help you develop these skills.

Self-advocate

In college (and in life), it’s important to advocate for yourself, especially if you have a disability. Try to fully understand your learning disability and which tools have or haven’t helped you in the past. Identify the types of services you think you would benefit from and seek them out. If you feel you are struggling despite the support you are getting at any given time, seek additional resources or tutoring. Go to your school’s disability office, explain what is going on, and ask them what they can do to further help you. You should also know your rights. There are federal laws that protect you and ensure that you receive the services and accommodations that you need. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits any discrimination towards individuals with disabilities.

Students with learning disabilities absolutely have the ability to thrive in college. It is important to visit your school’s disability office and learn the types of support and services they offer. You can also seek tutoring and accommodations as needed, strengthen your organizational skills, and self-advocate. Following these tips will help you on your path towards success in college and in life after school.

The post Can Your Child with Learning Disabilities Thrive in College? appeared first on EBL Coaching.

If you answered NO to any of these questions, then, chances are, your child lacks effective studying, reading comprehension, test taking, or writing strategies—strategies which are critical to school success. This lack of effective strategies often leads to frustration, poor grades, weak motivation, and a dwindling self-esteem.

The following is a reading comprehension and study skills technique, one of the many strategies that are important for giving your child an edge in understanding material, studying for tests, attacking text books, and taking notes. It is a strategy that is used by some of the most successful students.

The PPORA method has been proven to strengthen reading comprehension and study skills. The acronym stands for Preview, Post-it, Organize, Review, & Answer.

The PPORA method

Preview — read all headings, sub-headings, picture captions, bold words, and questions to get an overall picture of what you’re about to read. This will prepare you for what is to come.

Post-it — read each paragraph. At the end of each paragraph, stop and describe in your own words what it was about. Then, using small-size Post-it notes, write 2-3 words which summarize what the paragraph is about. Place these Post-it notes on the margins next to the text.

Organize — After you have written Post-it notes for the entire section, create a graphic organizer using the information on the Post-its. There are many types of graphic organizers. You should choose one that best suits your learning modality. A visual learner, for example, would probably benefit from a spider-like organizer. To create this type of organizer, write the main idea of the section in a circle in the center of the page. Next, create “legs” containing the text from each Post-it note. Underneath those legs, list bullet points of the important details, in your own words, from the text.

Review — Review the information on the graphic organizer, including the main points and supporting details.

Answer — Answer the questions that are given at the end of the section. By this point, the answers should be a piece of cake!

I have seen students comprehension abilities improve many-fold using this technique, in just a short time period! It is one of the many structured and systematic techniques that are crucial components of academic success.

The post Effective Study Skills and Strategies for School Success appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Does your child’s backpack look like the bottom of a dirty trash can? Does he conveniently “forget” to write down or complete homework assignments? Or, better yet, does he complete his assignments and accidentally forget to turn them in the next day?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then your child may be in need of some organizational coaching. As students advance through school, the organizational demands placed on them become progressively greater. More and more information is presented, homework loads rise, and at-home projects become increasingly prevalent. Without the right types of organizational tools in place, it is easy for a child to feel overwhelmed and sometimes lost in this plethora of demands.

By utilizing the following organizational tools, your child will learn a systematic approach for all homework, class notes, tests, and quizzes that may come his way. While encouraging independence, you should show your child how to implement these strategies to help carve the path for organizational success.

1. Homework Assignments. Remembering to write down specific assignments, break down long-term projects, and turn in homework on time can be some of the most difficult organizational tasks. For many students, learning the right strategies for homework organization can help lead to academic success.

For starters, make sure that your child is using an assignment book on a regular basis. Ideally, the assignment book should have dates pre-written in it and should contain enough space for each day where your child can write in all homework assignments, tests, and even after school activities. Before the week begins, have your child divide each day in the assignment book into five columns: ET (Estimated Time), AT (Actual Time), O (Order), D (Done), and Assignment (by far the largest column).

At school, the only place where your child should write any information is in the last column which reads “Assignment.” For example, in that column, he might write “Math, complete pages 24-26 in text book,” and underneath that, “English, complete five-paragraph essay,” and so on. Then, when he gets home from school and sits down to do his homework, he should read each assignment and predict how much time he thinks each one will take. He should list these times under the “ET” column. For example, he might think his math assignment will take 30 minutes (he writes 30m) and his English assignment will take one hour (he writes 1hr). Next, he decides which order he wants to do the assignments. He can choose to do either the shorter or longer ones first, and will order the assignments 1, 2, 3, etc. underneath the “O” column accordingly. He will then complete each assignment in his designated order and write the actual amount of time it took to complete the assignments under the “AT” column.

Typically, when a child first begins using this strategy, there is a big discrepancy between the actual and estimated time (ET and AT) for each assignment. The more he uses this strategy, however, the more realistic he will become with his time and the closer these two times will start to merge. Finally, when he has completed all assignments and puts them away in the proper folder in his backpack (this is a very important step!), he places a check under the appropriate “D” columns. This is a dynamic strategy which helps build homework, time management, and, of course, overall organizational skills.

2. Notebook Organization. Alas, the notebook! You may notice that your child begins the school year with a well-organized set of color coded notebooks and folders, only to see the famous “trashcan backpack” emerge shortly after the year begins. Some students choose not to even attempt to create any sort of system, since they feel at a permanent organizational loss. Finding the right system for notebook organization, however, can be the secret tool for success in this arena.

Many students have thrived using the three-tier notebook organization system, which is composed of the following three parts: working notebook, reserve notebook, and long-term filing drawer.

The Working Notebook. This is the notebook that should be taken to school on a regular basis. It can be set up in the form of one three-ring binder with separate tabs for each class. Alternatively, it can take the form of one color-coded spiral notebook (for taking notes) and one folder (for handouts and homework) for each class. What is most important about the working notebook, however, is that it only contains papers that your child absolutely needs to be carrying with him to school. One day per week (you should help your child choose this day and have him write it directly in his assignment book each week) will be designated as his clean-out-my-working-notebook-day. On this day, he will clean out all papers that he no longer needs to take to school with him and file them in his reserve notebook.

The Reserve Notebook. The reserve notebook should actually take the form of a large, multi-section accordion folder. For each class, there will be three sections in the accordion folder: one for homework, one for class notes, and one for tests or quizzes. For example, for math, your child would have sections labeled “math homework,” “math class notes,” and “math tests/quizzes.” He would have similar sections for English, Science, Social Studies, and all other classes. Remember that the working notebook should be cleaned out and transferred to the reserve notebook on a weekly basis.

The Long-Term Filing Drawer. At the end of the semester or school year, if your child has written a stellar essay, completed a notable project, or scored sky-high on a particular exam, you may want to save this work for the long-run. This information should be placed into a filing drawer for long-term safekeeping (you should be in charge of this drawer).

Other organizational strategies that you may want to implement include setting up a regular space for your child to complete his homework with easy access to (well-organized) supplies. You may want to encourage your child to work on his homework at a consistent time of day: for example, as soon as he comes home from school or right before dinner. You can also include some incentives, at least at the beginning, for regularly following and maintaining these organizational systems. If your child still faces organizational issues even with these tools in place, there is always one-on-one coaching and small group clinics to help create individualized organizational tools.

Remember that organization is one of the most important facets of school success. The earlier you teach your child these tools, the easier it will be for him to implement and maintain them as he progresses through school. Try out these tools and help your child begin his journey to organizational success!

Emily Levy is the founder and director of EBL Coaching, located at www.eblcoaching.com, which offers one-on-one and small group tutoring and organizational coaching.

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New York City learning specialist Emily Levy has developed this set of fifteen workbooks, best for late elementary and middle school students in need of highly structured training in reading comprehension, organizing ideas, and writing. They are structured on sound principles to support student mastery: integration of the same techniques throughout the various workbooks, and the opportunity students to work through many examples of each skill.

The teaching of highlighting in color is the premise on which the series is based.
Highlighting for topic, main idea, and details is explicitly taught, first using pictures and then paragraphs of text. Students use the same three colors for the same elements throughout the workbooks on summarizing text and note taking. Later, students can choose their own highlighting colors as they structure their own paragraphs and essays.

Each of the excellent note taking books develops skill in a different technique: webbing, column note taking, and outlining. The three books on writing–two on paragraphs and one on the 5-paragraph essay—integrate the skills of webbing and color highlighting. In all the books on writing skills, checklists appear after each student writing page, based on COPS (Capitalizing, Organization, Punctuation, Spelling) and paragraph structure (Topic Sentence, Detail, Detail, Detail, Concluding Sentence).

While the series is subtitled A Multisensory Approach, in fact most of the work exercises a student’s visual and motor skills. Nonetheless, the emphasis on teaching students to use color coding is a wise way to enrich visual processing of language structure. Two books explicitly teach auditory analysis of text, integrated with visual and motor representation: “Visualizing Text”, which employs fiction passages read aloud to the student who then draws a series of pictures; and “Summarizing”, which presents nonfiction passages that can either be read to the student or read independently by the student for summarizing in writing. In appearance, these books are unadorned and non-distracting.

Learning disabled students are likely to come away from this series feeling more confident in their capacity to analyze and structure text.

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