wanted to learn how to take notes her
way. 1
Middle School Students
When I taught Twice Exceptional (“
Gifted with a Glitch”) middle schoolers in
my Resource Room, their teachers told
me that they could never pass their Social Studies tests even though they studied the material. To help them with this,
I set up a class to teach them Right Brain
Study Skills using their Social Studies lessons as the content. Since I had a group of
them, I used my overhead projector. As
we read the chapter together, we stopped
at intervals and talked about what we had
just learned. Then I drew sketches (
mostly stick figures) about the material we
wanted to remember. For example, when
we were studying the Fertile Crescent
and the Phoenician trade, I drew a picture of a crescent moon with fertile written on it. For the trade I drew the boats,
etc. It was a fun and interesting way to
learn the material and digest it.
Each day we would add the pertinent
notes in picture form to our transparencies, being sure to use colored markers
since pictures, color, story and emotion
engage the right brain where our long
term memory is stored. By the end of the
chapter, we generally were at the end of
the transparency. Then we took a “mental
picture” of the whole transparency. When
the test came, they could easily pull up
the pictures in which we had imbedded
the data that needed to be memorized.
This embedding of picture and data is the
key to effortless retrieval of information.
Eventually, by training their photographic memory using this studying process, many of them were even able to take
a picture of an entire page in their book,
and retrieve the facts when they needed
them. 2
2. Test Preparation
Does your child really need the accommodation of more testing time, or does
he or she just need to learn how to take
a test?
Josh was a high school sophomore.
His tester said that he tested so low in
end of the year tests over the years that
he needed an IEP that would allow him
to take double the time for his tests. He
was also given remedial reading com-
prehension skills books to work on. In
an Educational Consultation, I gave his
mom a learning plan that I felt would
enable him to pass his end of the year
test. Rather than work on the compre-
hension skills workbooks, I had her use
three class periods a week devoted to
learning how to take tests. We called this
elective class “Test Study Skills.” This is
a very trainable skill, but it takes guided
practice for a student to learn how to use
his brain in this way. It is important for
these students to practice their skills on
actual tests. Josh’s mom ordered practice
tests at his grade level online. 3
For right-brain learners, the common
study strategy of reading the questions
first and then reading the passage does
not work well. Rather, we model how
to truly “engage” in the reading passage
by reading this aloud together, stopping
often and making a “movie” together of
just what is happening in the passage.
Talk about the movie. Strategize how
to make the pictures dynamic so they
stick. Add emotion and weirdness to
help make them memorable. When you
have studied the passage together in this
manner, you each independently answer
the questions for that passage. Then
compare notes. Have the student explain his answer choice using the picture
or movie he had. If it is wrong, re-read it,
and have him see where his movie failed
him. He will soon learn to make much
more detailed movies. Even though this
process takes time to train, at the end of
this training, students do it very quickly
as they are reading. Trust me. This really
does happen.
In Josh’s case, at the end of the year, this
previously “poor test taker” tested with
scores way above grade level in his end of
the year achievement test, except in spelling. In fact, his scores were two and three
grades above grade level. His mom had
given him double the time, which was
www.TheOldSchoolhouse.com
The
of Dianne Craft Products
Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Math Issues,
Memory Problems, Auditory
Processing Problems, Speech Issues,
ADD/ADHD, Sensory Processing
Problems, Autism/Aspergers
for Kids/Teens with:
HELP
Is your child or teen working
too hard to learn?
Make this the
Remove Blocked Learning
Gates using this highly
successful THREE PRONGED
APPROACH!
Does your child really
need more testing
time, or does he just
need to learn how to
take a test?
