Category Archives: Right-Brained/Visual-spatial Learners

“Writing” for the Right-Brained Learner

Posted on December 13, 2006 | 6 comments

In my last post, I shared a favorite “writing” resource for my three oldest children, two of whom are strong right-brained learners. This resource approaches “writing” very differently in that it is meant to ignite the desire to create books . . . of all kinds and styles, including those to which a right-brained learner would be attracted. I then shared some samples of my oldest son’s books from his 8-year-old folder.

A few notes about how my oldest son was able to be at that place with “writing”. First of all, he is an artist by nature, and started drawing pictures at 3 years old (not having picked up a writing utensil at all before then). My hubby is also an artist, and he would spend hours each day after work and/or school (whichever stage we were at) drawing with him and sharing his love of drawing and being excited for Eric as he developed his raw talent. So, right there, he had a mentor and inspiration to draw from (haha, pun intended).

At around 4-5 years old, my hubby started telling elaborate bedtime stories that he created, and subsequently, began to record them ala an audio recorder so that the children could listen to those stories again when he was not able to do new ones on some evenings. This inspired the children to tell their own oral stories, again after being mentored and inspired.

We then got this great making books resource and because Eric is an artist, he was attacted to the visual and pictorial types of books, and this mentor resource and inspiration, along with a parent who kept scads and scads of paper available (a whole forest has been destroyed compliments of Eric), he began to compile his drawings into books. So, it wasn’t a one time deal to get him where he got. And even then, others in the world wouldn’t value what he called his “writing” or his “books”, but we did!

Another gift Eric brought to his writing was that he always had a precocious vocabulary. This is why, even though he is a strong right-brained learner, there were some decent words and thoughts included in his early writing. On the other hand, as gifted as he was in speaking, it didn’t show up that prolifically in his early writing, so it shows that “evidence” of the “later writer” in him due to his right-brained learning style.

Another note I will make about his samples I put out, the Toy Story sample, as you may have noticed being significantly better in drawing ability than the others, was because he traced it, and then added the “battle wounds” to the picture. This was another thing he did in the early years to develop his drawing skills . . . he traced! He did this in order to learn from those who were better artists than he, and in so tracing well drawn elements, he was able to begin to freestyle those elements himself. Again, we valued all types of methods to developing skills! That goes further than one might think.

I thought I would also add some more writing samples, this time from Eli, who is my other strong right-brained learner. He didn’t learn to read until 10-11 years old, so you will notice in his books that he had few words. Those he did have often were very slaughtered in spelling. However, what is fun to notice between Eric and Eli with their books is that you can see the slant that Eli brings toward his own right-brained gift: building. He loved Legos, trains, and numbers, and you will see that represented in his drawings.

Eli was very delayed in language and slightly so in fine motor skills. However, because of how obsessed Eric was in drawing 4-5 hours a day minimum, Eli was exposed to that model and inspiration from a young age. Around 5 years old, he wanted to try his hand at drawing. I have a feeling that if he had not had his older brother around, he would have had significant delays in his writing skills, like his subsequent three brothers.

Here are some samples from Eli’s 8 year old folder:

It was about Jack, I believe, his imaginary friend. (Right-brainers have a higher incidence of imaginary friends, and Eli has a handful of them, even today.) You notice how the spelling of Jack is slaughtered. Again, as a right-brainer is skilled at, the perspective in his drawing is remarkable. Also, notice that for Eli, he liked to draw a bunch of little boxes with mini parts to his story line, not unlike Legos that are separate, but put together.There purchase cheap viagra http://amerikabulteni.com/2012/12/05/senatodaki-filibuster-tartismasi-nedir/ are a number of factors which contribute in vascular issues include smoking, alcohol drinking in excess, overweight, lack of exercise etc.

This is another Jack story, but with a train theme. Many of his books have train themes because of his great and deep love for them, beginning around 18 months old and lasting until today. (That is autism for ya!) Also notice his limited verbal descriptions of his characters that he placed on the last page. He actually corrected his The End, which usually was The Edn for several years. Apparantly, this is when he started to notice and correct it.

This is another classic Eli example of his book work. He had many maze-y, puzzle-y type of drawings that depicts his visual-spatial mind. He has always been my instructional reader, preferring the visual diagram and instruction versus the verbal. Notice there are no words although there appears to be visual symbols depicting some code to the puzzle. It may be based on some video games.

Here is a more classic story, all picture with no words, and yet, the pictures depict a thousand words, and a storyline is beginning to emerge in his books. It took him much longer to develop storylines through pictures than his older brother, because language was not an asset for Eli. And yet, notice the perspective yet again (for example, see the two tiny people silhouettes in front of the house in the first picture?). . . his visualizations were quite accurate, even if words failed him!

I wanted to show another sample of another type of child. Eric was my most naturally “smart” and would have been labeled gifted in school with no doubt. However, I’m sure he would have struggled with the classification of “not living up to his potential”, because so many of these valued school skills, such as reading, writing, handwriting, and spelling came later. But, he was very intelligent nonetheless.

Eli would have been labeled disabled and put in special classes if he had attended school. No one would have noticed or given credit for his amazing spatial skills, but we did. Although the valued skills of reading, writing, spelling, vocabulary, English, speaking, etc., came well later for him, they were put in perspective as we focused on the skills that did emerge for Eli. Building, spatial skills, math, music, and a highly sensitive heart were nurtured young, and when the other skills that were delayed began to emerge, these assets of his that had been well developed helped him capitalize more easily in bringing everything together. I have no doubt he would not be the child he is today if he had not been homeschooled, and valued for the perspective and skills that surfaced, and being encouraged by bringing in the resources that he could build on, which included a lot of trains, tracks and Legos as his core homeschooling foundation. It has served him well!

6 Comments

Posted in Autism, Homeschooling, Learning, Right-Brained/Visual-spatial Learners, Writing

Favorite Writing Resource

Posted on December 12, 2006 | 7 comments

One of the most used resources for writing for my three oldest children when they were growing up is called Read! Write! Publish! Making Books in the Classroom”, by Creative Teaching Press.

I got it early in our homeschooling journey (of 15 years!) so I didn’t think it was still purchasable, but I found it here!

Basically, it is a book about making books, and the format is SO easy for the children to do on their own. Each type of book has a two page layout. The first page shows visually how to make the book and if you need to have a “blank formatting page” (found at the back of the book). The second page shows visual samples of how others created diverse books from the foundation. So, all I did was provide a stack of the various blank pages available for the books provided in the back of the book as well as other materials needed such as regular blank paper, tagboard, and other such items.

This is an especially useful tool for the right-brained learner. These children tend to develop traditionally valued writing (words to paper) later, not to mention they often dislike handwriting while young as well. Many of the books to be made in this resource capitalize on the right-brained learner’s assets: visual, three-dimensional, pictorial, creative.

Some of the more popular books for my creative learners to make were: Pop-Up Book (makes sense, since it is three-dimensional!), Video Book (again, makes sense . . . it’s a picture slide show), Flip Book (again, humor mixed with pictures with minimal words), Wheel Book (making a visual with a wheel that turns), etc.

What I think this resource showed my creative learners was that books are fun, and making books are fun . . . the words and writing were secondary for many of these book ideas, so the focus was on expressing their ideas in the way that works for them, and then appreciating that they were “writing books”. There was no “writing phobia” or “dysgraphia” that surfaced because of this approach 🙂

I’m so excited that the resource is still out there . . . I highly recommend it. Of course, if you want the potential benefits of what happened with my diverse children, you would want to use it as a resource they can use anyway they want. 🙂 For instance, here are some of the “books” that I pulled out of my oldest son’s 8-year-old files that I know were “inspired” after using this resource as well as interrelating with various types of books:

Notice that he still wrote certain letters backward, particularly “S” and “J”. He told his story more in his drawing than in the writing. In this “book” (10 pages total), which he had stapled together on plain paper, were simply labels of each picture, although as you go through the pictures, there is a story there. The last page has the declaration, “What a fliat” (flight), so there is also “invented spelling” still.

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This one I was able to give as a complete sample. This is when he was really into penguins. My focus on admiring his work was on the overall representation of a story, not the parts that made each up, such as the continued backward letters, invented spelling, or that there were minimal words, let alone basically labeling or putting phrases versus “complete sentences”. It was all a process, and I was amazed by how the pictures and words combined to create a lot of feeling and plot.

This is a dinosaur activity book. He loved dinosaurs from around 3-4 years old until around this time. In this book, he did a little of everything. He started off with a few pages of labels, then a few pages of traditional activity pages, and then a mini story at the end. It was a total of 14 pages and I took a page sample from each “category.”

He had a couple Lion King story books in this folder, stapled together, about 40 pages each. Again, it was a mix of words and pictures that together created a really awesome storyline. In the samples above, I liked the perspective that one often sees in a right-brained learner’s pictures, with the back of the lions’ heads looking on the scene, as well as a simple outline of the lions’ bodies running down the hill. Cool!

Eric loved Africa for a good season. Here was a “book” compiled on that unperforated computer paper that you could buy in the day where it is “continuous fed and unperforated paper” so that it lies accordian style and you have to tear off the hole-punched side feed. My children used this type of paper a LOT back when. This was about a 70 page compilation and it pretty much consisted of labeling the various animals of Africa. This is how he learned about his continents and countries . . . his fascination with animals and his need to know everything about them, particularly where they lived and why and how.

There were other books in his folder. One type that showed up a lot around 9 years old were “Colorform books”. I guess I had purchased some Colorforms around that time, and he decided to make his own based on his favorite interests. He would draw and color a background scene, and then meticulously draw, color and cut out the “forms” that you would play on the scene. He would then tuck these cut-outs into an envelope, which he labeled, and stuck in the place they belonged within the book pages.

So, what I saw was that once this initial resource showed my children that they could make their own books of all sorts of types and styles and functions and focus, they began to make books of their own creation often inspired by other resources that came into the home. They discovered that even if you couldn’t find a particular resource about their favorite interest, they could create it themselves! For a right-brained learner, I think it’s all about resources that inspire, not resources that dictate.

7 Comments

Posted in Homeschooling, Learning, Right-Brained/Visual-spatial Learners, Writing

My Reading Foundational Beliefs

Posted on December 4, 2006 | 4 comments

Stephanie from Throwing Marshmallows has an excellent post about the ins and outs of learning to read. She starts with a comment from someone else that said thus:

What is your take on unschoolers who don’t teach their children to learn how to read until they’re “ready”? This can mean 8, 9, or 10 from what I have been reading.

Stephanie replies with her first reaction before she really understood the ins and outs of learning to read through her children:

I know that the first time I read about homeschoolers who had kids who were so “late” in reading, I was a bit surprised too. This goes against everything that we commonly hear…reading is the key to learning. Early reading is important.

This is a common sentiment deeply entrenched in our society’s conditioned educational value system. I’m not sure how much is based on fact. For instance, one could say that “it is important to support the path to reading” as important. But, even then, one can look at history, and find slaves and other underprivileged people who desired the skill of reading but were denied. Waiting until they had the opportunity did not prevent them from learning.

So, besides holding up these sentiments to the light of Truth to test its validity in order to determine if the source is worthy enough to hold our children up to its weak premise, I have another theory to share regarding unschooling and late readers. It is my belief that many who come to unschooling do so because they have a child who is a right-brained learner and their strong learning style leads them down to this path that fits their style. Or the parent is a right-brained learner and embraces the concepts unschooling espouses that matches their learning style so beautifully. And, when one researches the right-brained learning style, it would be uncovered that traditionally, right-brainers do not begin to read until between 8-10 years of age. This has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with the timeframe of their particular brain processes. Therefore, I propose that it isn’t unschooling that produces a larger proportion of late readers, but that right-brained learners are attracted to the unschooling environment in which they thrive and they bring with them their natural inclination to later reading than our society values.

Stephanie goes on to say this:

It seems like many people (educators and the general public alike) think that learning to read is just a matter of being taught. If you “get them early” you can give them a “head start”. But some kids (especially visual-spatial kids) need more time to develop then others. They just are not ready. And no amount of teaching can change that.

Sure you can start teaching them early, but if reading has not “clicked” with them, it really is like throwing those marshmallows. Why push, why make reading something “hard”, why risk having a child start thinking that they are dumb when waiting can bring out the same (or better) result?

This is the hardest conditioned belief to break through. You cannot make a person read before he or she is ready. I believe that with all of my heart and witnessed it in my own family. So many people believe the lie that learning to read is hard. It doesn’t have to be. The process is meant to be joyful. We choose to make it difficult. I’m not saying that there aren’t rare cases out there, but the majority of humanity, if guided on their particular path to reading, can do so seamlessly. We would rather believe we can make it happen to assuage our own fears than trust that with our gentle supports and facilitation and attuned observations will lend itself to the natural unfolding process meant for each person.

Stephanie said this:

I definitely agree that a love of reading and books should be cultivated early. And this is exactly what I did with Jason. He has always had a passion for good books and good stories from a very young age. A fondness for reading and books however does not always translate to early reading.

In the years before he learned to read, Jason learned in all sorts of different manners…I read books all the time, he listened to tons of audio books, he watched lots of videos and tv shows, he played computer/video games, we performed science experiments, we played all sorts of games, we talked (a lot!). Now that he is reading we still do all of the above…reading is just one additional way that he learns. (Don’t get me wrong…reading is very important and makes a lot of things easier…but it still is only one way out of many in which kids learn).

It may or may not be true that a love of books early should be cultivated. Books are a convenient source to information, but certainly not the only source for information. I don’t have any evidence one way or another, nonetheless, it was important TO ME for my family. People have asked me how I managed to not completely freak out when my oldest didn’t read until he was 8-9 years old. It’s exactly because of what Stephanie is saying in these paragraphs . . . he had a meaningful relationship with books in his life.It will then be easy for you to overcome ED permanently. (cialis generika) http://appalachianmagazine.com/2014/02/25/mud-bogging-the-growing-sport-of-rural-america/

It would seem that reading “should have” come easily for my oldest at a young age because of his obvious high intelligence. As Stephanie mentioned, intelligence does not always equate with early skill acquisition with valued subjects. But, his intelligence was exhibited in amazing ways nonetheless. We began our collection of books before children arrived. With our firstborn came the enlarged collection of board books, then picture books, then intellectually engaging visual books like Eyewitness books, Kid’s Discover Magazine, Zoobooks, atlases, Aliki, Magic School Bus, visual experiment books, etc. I was amazed at what Eric could glean from the pictorials in these resources. When he wanted to know more, he asked for assistance. As an available parent, being a non-reader did not infringe upon his acquisition of knowledge. Educational computer software such as Encarta, Geosafari, JumpStart and other such avenues as well as educational videos were favorites. And, above all, lots and lots of discussions and conversations I think is a main staple for a highly intelligent person. Even as a reader now, Eric is what I classify as an “information reader” because he still uses heavily pictorial resources and tends to “blurb read” for the necessary additional information since his main focus continues to be drawing and design.

Stephanie concludes with a great example from her own children’s reading lives:

Now I am also not saying that you should always wait until kids are older…some kids wind up figuring it out for themselves at an earlier date. For other kids it becomes clear that they are ready earlier.

Waiting for a child to be ready also works for kids who are ready on a more “typical” timeframel. Last year when he was 5, Kyle became very interested in learning to read. He is much more of a sequential/typical learner, so I figured that we would give it a shot. After doing some lessons in 100 Easy Lessons it became apparent to me that he really was not ready. He loved the lessons but they were not sticking and I could see that he just was not totally getting it. So I stopped suggesting that we “do reading”. Kyle did not notice or remind me. We continued doing what we normally do…read and talk about reading and letters.

This fall, he again became interested in learning to read so I decided to give 100 Easy Lessons another try. The difference is incredible! He totally gets it. And remembers it. He reminds me to do his reading. It is coming very easily for him.

Now I could have spent this past year slogging through the lessons. But why risk him possibly learning that “reading is hard”? By waiting until he is ready, he is learning that “reading is easy” and reinforcing the belief that “reading is fun”.

This same scenario has played out with each and every one of my children. It’s not about preferring early; it’s not about preferring later. It’s about preferring that each child gets to pursue reading exactly when it is right for him/her and exactly in the way that works for him/her. My first, fourth, and fifth children I was able to predict through attuned observations and accurate personal indications when they were ready to learn to read and how. My second child learned on her own, so I missed that partnership, which is perfectly fine! My third child was similar to how Stephanie made an offering two different times until the third time, it was the right moment with the right process and it clicked for him. Each time I offered something to him that I thought was a good guess on what he needed, it was immediately apparent that he struggled with the ability. So, I dropped it, waited, until I felt it was time to offer again, with something different, or something similar. Again, it was immediately apparent he wasn’t ready. And yet, just as apparent as it had been that he was not ready, when he was, it was equally apparent. He took off.

As Stephanie mentioned, I could have started with my first offering, which was already around 8 years old, and continued plugging away at it. But, what would it accomplish? It would not accomplish him learning to read any faster than he had. I have heard story after story of this scenario of working away at a program for several years before it suddenly “clicked”. And yet, I believe it only “clicks” several years later because it was finally time; not that the program was “miraculous”. Stephanie’s example with her son, Kyle, is one piece of “proof” to that. The year before, the program didn’t work for him at all, and one could have chalked it up to the program, but a year later, she offered it again, and it “clicked”, because he was ready, not because the program changed.

I have heard so little of my experience being explored. Like Stephanie with Kyle, for Eli, I waited, and continued to enrich his life mainly with language, in his case. He actually spent very little time with books and did not like to be read aloud to as an obvious weakness of auditory differences interfered. I will also write a post about difference interferences beyond the learning style next. I believe the reason there is so little who follow a similar path as I have is because of the enormous pressures in our society surrounding reading. We truly believe that some people need years of work before they are ready to read, and some only need a little nudge. I have had personal experience with children that “should have” needed a little nudge but actually needed more time, children that did just need a little nudge, and children who would have been given years of “practice” but didn’t need to in our homeschool environment. Instead, each and every one of them simply needed to be given time to reach their personal readiness, and then given the nudge, to find themselves come to reading joyfully.To conclude with Stephanie’s words:

And that, for me, is the best possible outcome…a child who enjoys reading and loves books.

As said in my previous post to this, my personal goal as a person who loves to read was to have all of my children love books. As a person that reading means so much to, one would think I should have been a prime candidate for “reading panic” with her children. I reiterate, it was one of my most important goals of my homeschool adventure! And yet, I instinctively knew that if I wanted to increase my odds of meeting this lofty goal, I would need to do something different than what public schools or society espouse. So far, so good . . . five down, two to go. Find me those odds in any other household, let alone in one as unique as mine!

4 Comments

Posted in Homeschooling, Learning, My Opinions, Reading, Right-Brained/Visual-spatial Learners

Product and Process

Posted on December 2, 2006 | 2 comments

Usually when a title with product and process is involved, there is a “versus” in the middle. Product OR process is what the versus implies. I don’t think that’s how people work, and I know it’s not how I work. There is a product AND a process. There is always a product involved . . . it answers the WHY in what we are doing. Process answers the HOW.

People come to me for support, and inevitably, answers, on my Homeschooling Creatively list. I often steer them toward the process, but I feel that is shortsighted and incomplete on my part, and I want to give voice to my complete experience in order to better support others seeking the same.

I take you back to the beginning of my homeschooling journey. When people ask you why you started homeschooling, that why often answers your first “product” you were interested in pursuing on behalf of your children. I was no different. My oldest son loved to learn, and I wanted that love to continue throughout his learning journey. Fast on the heels of this proclamation came two more “products” I formulated based on my own experience and that of my hubby. Mine was that I wanted each of my children to enjoy reading. I wrote a blog post delineating this idea here. My hubby’s was that we wanted our children to be exactly who they are, supported to pursue anything they desired without society’s conditioned beliefs or expectations, whether emanating through us or society. These were some pretty hefty “products”!

Initially, these were weakly formulated subconscious ideas. Parenting my children before the age of 5 included incorporating a learning environment that was geared toward meeting these criteria. Although poor college students, our home was rich in books. We had already instituted a non-gender-based learning environment in which we enjoyed playing basketball with him in the basement as much as dress up with Mommy’s shoes and hats.

When it came time to register Eric for kindergarten, going through the motions seemed to disconnect us with our goals for our children. It felt robotic and impersonal. Suddenly, the experiences that Eric went through in his half year of preschool previous to registration crystalized. You can read the post I created about these lessons here.

I was at a defining moment in consciously recognizing the “products” I had in mind for my children’s learning lives. I knew public school would not support them. I had to find a resource that would help me consciously and mindfully embrace a lifestyle based on my desired products. I was looking for the process! This is what other parents are looking for from me when they seek out my right-brained learner group or my autism group. Although this next step of establishing the process was so crucial, in my opinion, at getting me where I am today, I cannot neglect to recognize the “products” as my catalyst and driving force.

Homeschooling popped into my head. Ah, this would provide the open forum in which to create the process in meeting our products. I found a woman in our church who was homeschooling and very warm and engaging about sharing her wisdom in helping me get started down the path of home education. In my opinion, she was the perfect mentor, and I didn’t even know it, although felt extremely validated in the moment. I always inwardly strive to meet the standard she created with my role as a mentor, but so often fall short because of my strong opinions 🙂

Anyway, she said I first had to figure out what my style would be. Huh? Styles? She offered a book that shared blurbs about the various methods used by others in the homeschooling circles. She felt confident that I would know the style for me when I saw it. Sure enough, it was the style called unschooling. It closely matched what we had created before age 5. Coincidentally, this mentor was an unschooler. Now, here comes the important element in creating my process that I try to emulate for others.
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Unschooling 15 years ago was rare. Certainly we did not have the ability to pool together because the Internet was non-existent at that time. Homeschoolers had to gather in real life. There were usually one or two unschoolers to be found, if they chose to reveal themselves. Growing Without School (GWS) and Home Education Magazine (HEM) were our support systems. The writings of John Holt were our inspiration. My mentor gave me scads of back issues to both as well as a pile of books on the subject matter. I particularly pored over the letters in GWS and read John Holt’s works as models in forming my own unschooling environment. In those days, there was no one telling us the “do’s and don’ts” of unschooling. I don’t think there was such a thing.

My mentor supported this premise. As I hesitantly got my feet wet, I was constantly calling her, sharing my worries and my concerns about messing up my child or doing things “wrong”. She would ask me to tell her what I was up to that day or week with my child. I would relay what we were doing and she would always say, “Wow, you are doing so great! Just keep going.” She was also there to talk about “going against the grain of society” in order to buoy me up in my new process of working toward achieving my products.

John Holt’s writings and observations gave me inspiration to conduct my own observations with my own children. His questioning society’s conditioned beliefs about learning gave me confidence to pursue my own questions about the process of learning. Because I lived the conditioned experience, as did my hubby in a different way, he and I would have many conversations dissecting what was really important and what was not in our own learning experiences. All of these opportunities for discovery and new ideas meshed beautifully with our original “products” or goals for our children of instilling a love for learning, being an individual valued for one’s own path, and coming to reading joyfully.

None of these resources that were available to me at the time “told me what to do”. Each gave me a foundation of beliefs. John Holt taught me about the power of observation and the courage to question society’s valued learning beliefs. GWS taught me that as parents applied these processes of becoming an observation detective and as we question any of our concerns or worries that stem from conditioned educational values, amazing and profound information through experiences emanate from each child’s own perspective and style. And my mentor taught me that I had the power within myself and through learning at the feet of each of my children to discover our own process.

I have found myself often deflecting parents who come to me asking if something is “right” or “does this fit”? It’s because the process is so unique to the individual and family involved. It’s because no two children are alike, even when they share the same learning style or difficulty. I try to share like those parents from GWS did with me . . . how my power of observation and resisting conditioned thinking revealed the amazing process of each child I am partnering with. I want to support the foundations to the process, and encourage parents as they discover their own place with their own child. I want to share my own observations and experiences as an example of what can be learned using these foundations. I want to give courage through these examples that it really works.

One thing I may change is to share that I have products that I was striving for, and the examples from our process is toward meeting that end. If a person has another product in mind, our process may not make sense. Also, I’m thankful I had the latitude in figuring out our own process. It’s not a checklist that can be checked off. It’s about trying something and realizing it’s not working out, and going back to why (the product) we’re doing what we’re doing, and readjusting ourselves back to the correct how (the process) to get us there. The pendulum will swing back and forth for a while, until we find the right place for us and our children. This is what my Collaborative Learning Process was trying to reveal: the foundational process that is helping us reach our goals for our children’s learning lives.

It’s much tougher to explain and talk about our process than it would be to simply give some formula for a product 🙂 As I mentioned in a previous post, I can share my foundation, but each person has to build upon it for their own child and family. But, I think the process is so important, even if it seems elusive sometimes to put to words. As an example, I will try to share our process for the goal of each child enjoying reading next . . .

2 Comments

Posted in Beginnings, Collaborative Learning, Homeschooling, Right-Brained/Visual-spatial Learners

Individualization and Collaborative Learning

Posted on November 28, 2006 | 3 comments

Willa, at Every Waking Hour, talked recently about my Collaborative Learning and Unschooling. She made some great points that I would like to expound on.

. . . perhaps the collaborative learning component has something to do with the visual-spatial RB learner’s needs. The reason I’m wondering is that both Cindy and Stephanie mention that a collaborative form of unschooling has been the best suited for their family and children. Stephanie’s description of how she gives the children some structured things to do, but they consent to it though they have not suggested it themselves, is a description of how things have gone best in our household too.

I don’t think the collaborative learning process is especially a right-brained rhythm. In fact, I feel it reflects human learning rhythms of childhood. Now, I will definitely credit my strong right-brained learning firstborn son for my ability to “discover” the process that unfolded from his learning journey because he is so set in how he learns that he would be heard or we would all suffer the consequences! Once he taught me that there is a process that can be trusted, it was easier for me to offer that to each of my subsequent children, no matter their learning style. What each child shared was how individual it would look as it built upon the foundation of the learning process.

I spent all last year pretty much radically unschooling. It was a leap of faith and trust for me, and it was difficult. It taught me a lot. When I write on this blog about math books and handwriting practice, and well, “assignments”, it makes me feel a bit uneasy, because it isn’t “pure” unschooling. But I am seeing that the kids respond to it. So I like that word “collaborative”. Other unschooling friends of mine have used metaphors like “dancing”. I think sometimes of how I used to bounce Aidan on the mini-trampoline. He had sensory integration dysfunction and the bouncing really changed his mood, sometimes; it helped him organize. He did not ask for the bouncing, because he could not talk or even gesture for what he wanted — part of the source of his frustration was that lack of communication ability! but he responded to it, and it helped him.

I actually wrote a long post about radical unschooling, and decided not to publish it. But, it helped me get some thoughts out. And you touched on it here. I wonder if it is human nature to become “extreme” in order to push past our present conditioned thinking into new ideas? In other words, the basis of radical unschooling is a good thing because it can be a catalyst to push us far enough out of our comfort zone to “wake us up” to new thinking and ideas. However, the extreme practice itself doesn’t necessarily follow reason, thus, eventually one modifies it to fit their real lives, or as one practices it fully, there is a “cultish” view on “pure living”.

That said, as I adopted “unschooling” as an educational representation of my beliefs on how we live our lives, I viewed it as a foundational belief. My firstborn child showed me how that looked in practice. My putting together words to the Collaborative Learning Process was another step to sharing what the journey emerged as through my children’s lives. My definition of unschooling, and what my collaborative learning process offers, is an understanding that there are some foundational beliefs about learning, and then each family and individual builds on top of that. The foundation, therefore, is similar, but the house looks very different!

Some of the foundational points to me are that children have worth and are fully capable of being active participants in their learning journey. Another foundation is that each person learns in their own way and has unique gifts within them as well as shortcomings. Another foundation for me would be that we are all here to help each other grow into who we are meant to be. Another would be that there are stages of learning that help us in our discovery process, whether for self or for others, and we can capitalize on these moments.

I could see where it could be overdone — become a trap rather than a helpful support. In the past, I too often worked my way into a structured trap. My kids would respond to a small amount of regular academics. So I’d pile on more and more incrementally, trying to get to where I sub-consciously thought we “should” be. Of course, they would then get overloaded.

I notice a sort of joyful peace with my kids when the work they are doing is not too much, not too little, and “just right” in kind (you can tell I’ve been reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears to Paddy recently). Obviously this is not happening all the time every day. For one thing, I make mistakes — break the rhythm of the dance, step on someone’s toe, lose my concentration. But the challenge of that dance– of doing my part in that collaboration — is very invigorating.

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I believe learning comes in all shapes and sizes. Personally, as a person who liked school and did well in it, as did my hubby, when we chose an unschooling perspective, we had no intention of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”. As a left-brained learner myself, I absolutely loved workbooks and overall learning from books. To this day, if I want to learn something, I prefer to find a book versus seek someone out. My hubby being a whole-brainer, he easily soaked up lectures, didn’t need texts, and intuited abstract information from being exposed to concepts. To this day, he loves to listen to others talk as well as giving self tours with historical and architectural locations. In other words, we recognized that learning happens in books, through people, through experiences, self-guided, through formal avenues, through experiences, with activity-based materials, with lectures, in homes, in communities, in other words, in all facets! What we wanted to change in our learning environment was that each way of learning would be equally valued.

Discovering ones learning style is one component to joyful growth. It shouldn’t limit, but simply create opportunity to give value to diverse ways of learning. My oldest is highly visual and enjoys creative outlets, but loves a good lecture. My daughter equates writing with breathing, but regularly finds herself in nature and studying it. My builder son understands the visual-spatial concept of connecting things together through math and music, and yet curls up with a good book these days. One preference doesn’t negate the benefit of others. I don’t think it’s all or nothing. I truly believe it’s about individual balance and rhythm.

My collaborative learning process is a foundation. It shows how to recognize in order to trust that a learning process exists and what a person can gain from each. It shares that each individual brings their own gifts and purpose to their lives and this world and it is meant to be excavated, grow, flourish and bless. It reveals how the insights, experience, and knowledge of mentors, adults, and parents can be integrated to enhance, lift, and strengthen the young or less experienced. In essence, collaboration opens the door to all the good that is available in assisting us in our individual, unique learning journey.

Although there is a foundation, each house built upon it is glorious onto itself. We are all unique creations of a loving Heavenly Father, built upon His rock. Let us guide our children’s learning lives by principle, not rules. Self before system; self above system!

3 Comments

Posted in Collaborative Learning, Homeschooling, Learning, Right-Brained/Visual-spatial Learners

Sleep

Posted on November 9, 2006 | 3 comments

Sleep has been heavy on my mind. That tends to happen when you feel you are not receiving enough of it. I know I could sacrifice some personal time to get what I need, but I find that I’m not often strong enough to discipline myself in that way. So, the big question is: How long can a 41 year old woman of seven keep on ticking with minimal sleep? 🙂

Five years ago, when my oldest son turned 14, he was eager to participate in a program through our church called early morning Seminary. High school students aged 14 to 18 are offered a scripture study class, held before school starts, to start their day off with the Spirit as well as positive fellowship as well as learning Truth to equip them with the armor of God before entering Satan’s den. Okay, so I added the last part about Satan’s den, although it is said to combat the evil influences our youth so often face on a daily basis . . . which is in the school environment . . . so I call it as I see it.

So, as inspiration would have it, I was asked to be one of the teachers when he started five years ago. I taught for two years before being asked to move on to other responsibilities. We met at 5:55 a.m. at the church building, learned together for 50 minutes, so left at 6:45 a.m. where youth from at least three school districts made their way to their daily grind after being uplifted, hopefully. That began my early morning schedule, and I’m NOT a morning person. It was an activity that was a love-hate relationship because I received enormous spiritual/emotional blessings from learning from the scriptures on a daily basis in that manner, but the physical sacrifices were palpable.

My oldest was able to do well because he could come home to sleep. Schooled youth didn’t have that privilege, and neither did I, as the other children awoke at regular intervals and needed me. However, for that timeframe, I ended up working in regular naps in the afternoon in order to survive the physical aspect. Well, last year, I was appointed again to teach Seminary. This time, it would be in my home with my two children (my second and third now, Abbey and Eli) as well as another youth who lived nearby. We arranged the time according to the schooled youth’s schedule and was able to start at 6:40 a.m. and go until 7:30 a.m. where his school started at 8:00 a.m. This has worked much better for all of us. Abbey rarely goes back to bed, although Eli regularly does. This timeframe has made it so that I rarely need a nap. By the end of the week, though, periodically, if my sleep schedule has been significantly off, I grab a nap in the later afternoon.

Alright, so if it was just this, it might not be too bad. However, not only am I a night owl, but most of the family is as well. On top of that, autism dwells here. One of the common attributes of someone with autism is that they can often have inconsistent sleep rhythms. I have recently discovered that it may be because they do not produce a sufficient level of melatonin, which is a sleep regulator. Adam is my son who is significantly affected with autism. His sleep patterns haven’t always been horrible, but different nonetheless. However, around 11-12 years old, his sleep patterns shifted as puberty approached. At one time, I decided to let him sleep as his body dictated (his autism affects his logic/awareness insomuch that he wouldn’t choose to go to sleep for health reasons justified by his mental faculties). Anyway, he actually did have a pattern . . . 18 hours awake, 12 asleep. Since this adds up to a 30 hour day, naturally, he would cycle through being awake all night if allowed to let his body dictate his sleep patterns. So, I worked together with him to see what could work for everyone. I was not comfortable having him awake without someone being aware of his activities. For a while, I found having him go to sleep at 2:00 a.m. and awake at 12:00 noon could work. I was able to stay awake until 2:00 a.m. with him and then was able to sleep until about 8:00 a.m. It was during this timeframe that I was not teaching the early morning seminary class, and the two attending were able to drive themselves.In short the inability to have intercourse by male accomplice is called erectile issue or male impotency !! There can be various purposes for the male patients & indeed it is a standard one for acquisition de viagra devensec.com jelly.

However, when I went back to teaching, I had to figure out this sleep pattern again. Plus, the timing eventually caught up with me from before. I finally decided to look into over the counter melatonin for Adam as well. Before, even when I got him to lay in bed at 2:00 a.m., it could take him up to two hours to fall asleep, which meant I wasn’t fully asleep until after that time. With the melatonin, he is asleep within 15 minutes! Now, I am able to get Adam to sleep around 12:30 a.m. and he gets up around 10:00-11:00 a.m. Sometimes I go to sleep, if I’m being self-disciplined, around 10:00 p.m. and set the alarm for 12:30 a.m., get Adam to sleep, go back to sleep, and wake up at 6:00 a.m. Oftentimes, it seems I just stay up until 12:30 a.m. and go to sleep when I can and get the mere five hours sleep.

Lastly, put on top of that my hubby is having to commute a minimum of one hour one way to work each day, and is not able to get home typically until 7:00 p.m., which is really different for our family, we like to get some family time as well as couple time. The other children vary in their sleep patterns as well. William and Joseph are put to bed around 8:00-9:30 a.m., whenever it works for whichever parent is doing the routine. Alex is pushing and pushing the envelope with his sleep schedule whereas he’s been known to be up until 1:00-2:00 a.m. Not good. I’m starting to wonder if he has the same sleep differences as Adam, as he also lives with autism. Eli and Abbey are actually the most “normal” of the family for self-initiated sleep schedules. Because they both attend early morning seminary, they usually go to bed at about 11:00 p.m. Sometimes, they go as early as 10:00 a.m. Eric also suffers with sleep pattern differences that are greater than your typical right-brained learner trait of being a night owl. He also may have some melatonin differences insomuch that he started to take it to help alleviate the one-two hour timeframe it takes for him to fall asleep, and that usually wasn’t until 2:00-3:00 a.m.

So, there you have it. Sleep patterns have such a huge impact on individual rhythms and family rhythms. When individuals have sleep differences and/or sleep issues, it can take its toll on the entire family. I find that when we have all worked together to figure out what can work for each person to minimize the impact on others, our family life is much more productive, inter-relative, and predictable. I’m just wondering if the best that I can work out is still going to be difficult for my poor body and mind . . .

3 Comments

Posted in Family, Right-Brained/Visual-spatial Learners

Cats and Star Wars

Posted on August 1, 2006 | 10 comments

I’m going to do a little showing off in this post 🙂 Abbey has been making awesome and creative homemade gifts for her family members the past several Christmases. This past Christmas, Abbey combined Alex’s love of our five cats, pretending they are interactive with each having their own “voices”, his love of Star Wars, as well as viewing videos over and over again into an awesome homemade movie starring our cats in a Star Wars theme. If I do say so myself, it is AWESOME.

Abbey has been working hard over the past some months to try to find a way to put her video on You Tube. Through much learning and troubleshooting the process, she has finally accomplished it by putting it in three “episodes” to view the whole thing. You can link to Episode One, Episode Two, and Episode Three.
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To give you a little backdrop to the personalities of the cats, Socks is the “old patriarch” of the home, Belle is the “pre-Madonna”, Sunflash or Sunny is the “cry baby”, Xena is the “girl warrior”, and Toby is “the rogue”. Enjoy, and stay tuned for a surprise extension of the ending (hint, “The End” isn’t completely the end :-))

10 Comments

Posted in Interests, Right-Brained/Visual-spatial Learners

Handwriting

Posted on July 5, 2006 | 2 comments

I don’t know why I don’t take a lot of interest in making sure my children learn to print and write in cursive. Maybe if I saw that you needed to use it a lot in life, I would think differently. I mean, not even my conditioning created it in me. I still have specific memories in school absolutely LOVING handwriting time. The perfectionist in me meeting in harmony with my strong left-brained tendencies found me reveling in precisely created symbolic representation on paper, and glowing from the consistent recognition received from the teacher as she strolled up and down the aisles of student desks.

It surprised me when I learned about eight years ago that there was a new diagnosis of “dysgraphia” associated with handwriting (and “dyscalculia” associated with difficulty with math . . . what will they think of next?). Those of you with children in this situation may feel I don’t understand. Well, I would say I have one child who took to handwriting easily and has great “penmanship” today. Every one of my boys . . . six of them . . . have been anywhere from “delayed” to what they would term “dysgraphia”. I put these in quotes because I’m not sure how I feel about it. I don’t know how I feel because since I didn’t really focus on handwriting, and I’m still not sure how it affects the big picture, I’m just not sure if it’s useful to have a label put on a person for the quality or quantity of their handwriting skills. And, isn’t it interesting that every one of my boys don’t take to handwriting? Is there a boy thing here? I don’t remember too many boys growing up that had good handwriting.

Eric, my oldest at 19 today, never did take to coloring when he was a boy. Is that a precursor to writing? He also never “dabbled” with a pencil or pen, making little marks in “practice” to real writing. He first picked up a pen at 3.5 years old and drew a picture. It goes right along his path, in retrospect, to how he learns in a right-brained fashion: observe first, then do . . . the first time. From that early drawing, he only increased his picture making talents . . . but no words. When I read aloud to him, he was looking at the pictures, not the words. To re-enact the stories, it was through pictures, not words. Eventually, he started putting words to his pictures, comic book style, around 7-8 years old. He always asked how to spell words, and I always simply spelled it for him . . . no “lessons”. He’s a great speller today, unlike many right-brained, visual-spatial learners. One possible reason was that early question/answer time period of spelling everything for him as he asked before he wrote. It seems that visual-spatial learners have a fantastic visualization skill, almost photographic, which makes them struggle to “delete” information, or “redo” anything that was incorrect. Thus, invented spelling often is not a useful tool for them long-term. It was pure luck that I read in a John Holt book to simply spell words, or read words, when asked, without the lesson. It happened to work out in this instance for Eric’s benefit.

I did notice, though, that he was reversing a lot of letters. I remember reading another idea in a John Holt book about letter reversals possibly being misconstrued. I took that original doubt and applied it to the idea that Eric loved to draw. When you draw a horse, it can be facing one way or the other, so why not letters? So, one day, I nonchalantly asked Eric why he drew his letter “E” the way he had it at that moment, reversed. He stopped, thought about it, and then slowly asked, “Why?” I replied, “Because most people make their “E” this way,” and I wrote an “E” in the correct direction. Eric asked again, “Why?” Good question! Why? Hhhmmm. It came to me as, “Well, maybe it’s because if everyone writes their letters in the same direction, then it will be easier to read quickly.” Hey, sounded good! He thought so, too, and so he began to write most of his letters in the “correct” direction. I had continued the former conversation by verifying his reasoning for reversing letters: “Is it because you can draw animals or people anyway you want, so you thought letters were the same?” “Yeah.”

He continued to reverse his “s” and “J” until 9 to 10 years old. In this way, it could be that it had been formed in his memory that way and he just didn’t ever come to the realization that it would be important to correct it. That is, until a situation occurred with his friend who lived next door. Eric was waiting for him to come out and play, but his friend had to finish his homework first. Eric naively stated that he could help him finish more quickly if he did some of the work for him. His friend declined the invitation, and when Eric pressed as to why, he said, “Because you still reverse your “s” and “J”.” Eric said that was the catalyst that helped him become cognizant enough to stop those last two reversals.

Before we move forward from here, because I didn’t “teach” him printing, Eric figured it out by himself. So did Abbey. Both of them print from the bottom up, instead of from the top down. When people watch them write, it can freak them out! And you should see Abbey write her name in cursive . . . that is even freakier! And she’s the one with fantastic printing ability. She just got her driver’s license where you have to sign your name, which she did. However, she had her full name printed on the driver’s license, thus, she had to sign her full name as well. She mumbled to herself, “I don’t know how to write Abigale in cursive . . . oh, well, I’ll figure it out.” And she did just that, and it looked fine. Interestingly, she had a season where she wanted to figure out how to read cursive writing, and I think she can do so haltingly. Yet, she has created entire new alphabets for her fantasy writing and can read and write it fluently!Diabetes can damage them that appalachianmagazine.com levitra samples may ultimately lead to total baldness in men.

Anyway, I discovered that when I asked Eric to write something for me, he would slop it on the page. When he was writing something for himself, it was quite legible, sometimes even neat. At 11 years old, his two friends were coming over to stay with us for two weeks after having moved from the area, and Eric wanted to make another movie with them. In order to save time, he handwrote a 100 page script that I felt was quite legible. Through his teen years, most of his writing tends to be in creating lists. These lists mostly comprise of categorizations within his role playing game arena that constitutes pages and pages of information.

In his early teen years, he wanted to become more proficient at the keyboard, so he worked with the Mavis Beacon typing program until he reached a fluidity that pleased him. He uses this skill for his IMing, MySpace, e-mails, and other on-line venues. His sister has yet to decide to conquer this skill, but probably surpasses his speed with her hunt and peck method, and she is a budding author, spending hours on the computer typing her book! So far, how each child uses or does not use handwriting skills has not hindered their progress in life. Eric did take two computer programming classes at the local community college without negative effect. Time will tell . . .

Of the six boys, Eric has the best ability in the handwriting department, and as shown, it wasn’t an early or straight path to where he is. Alex, Adam, and William have more serious issues due to the low muscle tone and motor planning elements that often accompanies autism and developmental disabilities. And yet, their handwriting path continues on a path that will eventually lead them to a sufficient ability for their lives when coupled with the alternative writing sources such as keyboarding, audio, and video.

To summarize, I guess I just don’t see the point, as I mentioned before, of labeling handwriting differences. To me, it joins the masses that focus on a weakness-based education and a problem-based paradigm. I lean toward a strength-based lens. This is not to say that I don’t recognize that my children’s path to handwriting isn’t different than their schooled peers’ path of expected academic achievement, or that it might even be a “weak area” for them. But, when our energy and focus and lens is on their strengths: oral story-telling, character development, plot intricacies, descriptions, visualizations, producing/directing, to name some of Eric’s . . . not only does handwriting pale in comparison, but it eventually became a means to an end . . . writing out that script, adding commentary to the comic strip, detailed lists . . . it improved with maturity, time, and personalized need interspersed with equally valued alternative expressions through video, audio, and computers.

2 Comments

Posted in Homeschooling, Learning, Right-Brained/Visual-spatial Learners

Learning Differences

Posted on June 26, 2006 | 1 comment

I thought when I started my blog that my first focus would be the topic centered around my Homeschooling Creatively yahoo group. However, I wanted my blog to evolve naturally, so this is the first opportunity I have taken to really discuss this particular passion of mine. I was prompted to put some of my thoughts about learning differences from some comments on my post entitled, “When Waiting Isn’t Enough”.

I said:

As it pertains to the plethora of “school-created labels” such as ADD, ADHD, gifted, LD, etc., I think the biggest problem with school is that they blame the child instead of the system that doesn’t account for the child’s learning timeframe nor their learning style.

Steph of momof3feistykids at A Room of My Own said:

However, I feel that issues like learning disabilities and ADD are very real, and create challenges for a child whether he is in school or not.

First, I’m not saying things like inattentiveness, hyperactivity, high intelligence, and learning differences don’t exist. They do. What I’m saying is that these things can be part and parcel to someone’s personality and/or learning style type that bring great assets as well as challenges from time to time, particularly when the environment and expectations do not match these traits.

I am particularly passionate about the right-brained, visual-spatial, creative learner. What I have discovered about this learner are:

1) their learning style is not valued in our society (it values left-brained traits, which is the style of learning conducted in school for which we have all been conditioned to value as well),

2) they are one of the two most labeled children in schools (ADD, gifted, LD, and dyslexic are some of the school-created labels; Asperger’s Syndrome, high functioning autism, and sensory integration disorder are some “disorders” that often strongly resemble the traits of this learner),

3) they develop certain (left-brained valued) subjects later such as reading, handwriting, writing, spelling, and math computation (they are bested suited to learn these topics between the ages of 8-10 years of age),

4) they have a core attraction to one of the following: drawing, music, theater, dance, building things (like Legos), computers, or video games, and

5) they are misunderstood by school personnel and parents by having things said of them such as “they are smart, but lazy” and “they are not living up to their potential;” and in homeschools, they often resist your teaching and they are also apt to say, “this is stupid” to everything you suggest.AT&T’s campaign to reach out and touch someone made me reach out for a tissue – not a phone. try this link levitra no prescription

Inattentiveness is a strong component of this learning style when they are placed in an environment that does not enhance their strengths for attentiveness: toward things that interest them . . . particularly highly creative outlets! I believe strongly that dyslexia would all but disappear (mostly) if these learners were allowed to wait until 8-10 years old to begin to learn to read, and are started with a sight word program with pictures. Learning disabilities could not exist if these learners were allowed to pursue their strengths and gifts, which are not valued in our society. They need to be able to pursue their creative outlet at a young age, and also be exposed to pictures longer as they develop their extensive pictorial library of images that will be an asset to them as they tackle the symbolic nature of the left-brained tasks of reading or writing later.

Steph goes on to say:

Also, while the issues that go along with a diagnosis like Asperger’s Syndrome are not the same as those that accompany autism, they are pervasive and significant and require more intervention than simply creating an enriching environment and respecting the child’s inner timetable.

Well, let me give you two sides to this coin. Once a parent can recognize the learning style of their child with Asperger’s, which is highly likely to be this creative learner, and you provide that enriching environment that respects the child’s inner timetable and learning style, then I think the learning/academic part is a breeze!

Now, the flip side of this coin is the “living with” portion of this “high maintenance child”. They have strong social, behavioral, emotional, and sensorial needs that should be addressed in order to help their futures be bright. The beauty of homeschool is that we can create a holistic facilitation environment that not only tackles the academics, but includes these other all-important arenas. I call it a success-based, mentor-supported, skill-developing environment.

Now, an important aspect of facilitating in these areas is to recognize the two sides of the coin. For instance, it is common for a creative learner to be highly sensitive. I find these creative learners either meltdown (cry and fall in a heap) or burst out (anger and lash out). It is because they feel so deeply. This is essential to their creative expressions! To dance in a way that moves someone is to feel deeply and express it through dance. To paint something that stirs another is to feel deeply and it shows through the art. However, with this same asset comes places where it interferes with one’s life. This is where we need to help our children develop skills that manages this two-sided trait of strong emotion.

There is SOOOO much I could write about this learning style that two of my children in particular have taught me extensively about for which I have shared with others. For now, I will create a page with my outlines that I follow when I present workshops about this learner. One is about how they learn: “Understanding the Right-Brained Learner” and the other is about living with them: “Living with the Right-Brained Learner”.

I hope to talk about this learner many times on my blog 🙂