Mrs. T. was worried because her son was not doing well in his new high school. His grades had dropped dramatically and no one understood why. The school was providing him with extra support, but it was not making a difference.
What could she do to help?
The Leading to Learning learning assessment showed that although her son had good physical and cognitive learning skills, his emotional learning skills were very low; he had no interest in doing his schoolwork, and no curiosity about the future.
Mrs. T. told me that there had been some changes in the family structure. I was able to relate her son’s lack of emotional skills to these changes -– he was depressed and needed medical help.
Mrs. T. was able to take action. She took her son their doctor and got him the help he needed. His attitude changed and he was quickly back on-track in school.
Sarah’s mother was desperate. She was spending hours every night trying to help her daughter do homework, and she was exhausted. Worse, her other daughter was beginning to feel ignored and upset.
It became apparent that the main reason her daughter was having trouble with homework was her inability to plan her work and use relevant learning strategies.
Once Sarah’s mother knew how to help her daughter create a work plan and chose effective strategies, she did not need to spend as much time working with Sarah, and so had more time for the rest of her family.
Sarah went from struggling to learn in school, to being accepted into the college of her choice.
“My daughter says she is too stupid to learn and is talking about committing suicide! Please tell me what I can do!” That was the plea from one distraught mother whose 12-year-old was struggling to do schoolwork.
It soon became obvious why. The Leading to Learning learning assessment showed that her daughter did not have good language skills, and that being in a French Immersion school was probably contributing to her confusion and distress. In effect, she did not understand what she was being taught, and she did not know what she was expected to do.
The mother arranged for some intensive language tutoring. This help, combined with support from home, helped lift her daughter’s anxiety. She became a better learner and was able to succeed in school.
Steven’s mother wanted to know why her normally happy son did not want to go to school. He had been doing really well until he started Grade 4; then, everything seemed to go wrong for him. His grades dropped and his stomach ached every morning before school.
The Leading to Learning learning assessment indicated that this boy had very strong Picture Smarts; that he learned best when he could use diagrams and other visual tools. Unfortunately, his teacher was Word Smart. She liked to use words to explain things and expected her students to read a lot. It wasn’t working for Steven and, as a result, he started to dread school.
Once his parents learned how to help Steven use his Picture Smarts to make learning easier, he soon regained his love of learning and lost his fear of school.
Peter’s teachers thought he might have a learning problem and wanted him assessed by the school psychologist. His mother thought differently. She knew that he was bright; however, she also knew he had problems with math and she wanted to understand why.
We discovered that Peter was both Picture Smart and Word Smart but that he lacked Number Smart skills; the skills of logical thinking that allow children to manipulate numbers and be good at math. Peter was so creative and so good with words that his teachers assumed he understood the mathematical concepts they were teaching, when in fact he did not. As a result, he was failing the math course.
Because Peter had good Word and Picture Smarts he quickly learned the logic of numbers, once they were presented to him in a way he could understand. He is now catching up to his classmates and the school has dropped the request for a psychologist’s assessment.
Mrs. S. was worried. Her daughter seemed to be having trouble learning and was not even keeping up with her younger brother.
Our learning assessment showed that her daughter had excellent Learning Smarts and Learning Skills. I wondered why this mother was anxious about her daughter’s learning. Then I assessed her brother. He was very bright, almost gifted. That is why she thought her daughter was not doing well: she was comparing her daughter’s results to those of her gifted younger brother.
A discussion about the difficulties of being a gifted learner helped this mother understand the type of support that would benefit her son, and that she had no reason to be concerned about her daughter.
The result: a much happier daughter, and a son who would get the support he needed to excel at his own level.
Jesse was in danger of being kicked out of kindergarten for bad behavior! His parents couldn’t understand it. How could their bright five-year-old be so badly behaved in class that the teacher would want him to leave?
The problem was that Jesse did not understand what the teachers were saying when they chastised him for his bad behavior, so he did not know what he was doing wrong! Jesse had a good level of social language, but no real understanding of language beyond that. This poor boy had no idea why he kept getting into trouble.
His parents told the teacher about his lack of language skills, and together they created a program that helped Jesse develop the skills he needed.
Now his parents have stopped getting those dreaded letters from the teacher and Jesse is well on the way to success.
Kate knew she was bright, but she never seemed to get marks that reflected her abilities. This was a problem, because she needed good grades in order to be accepted into university. She had no idea what she was doing wrong.
She discovered that she was very Picture Smart and, like all good Picture Smart learners, she was very good –- perhaps too good -– at jumping to the answers. The problem was that, like many Picture Smart learners, Kate had difficulty working out the steps that led her to her answer, and that is why she never got the marks she deserved for her work.
Once she realized that she had to “fill in the gaps,” and that not everyone learned the way she did, she was able to write her essays and exams using specific strategies that reflected her abilities.
Kate got the grades she needed for university entrance and is now planning the career she dreamed of having.
Mr. and Mrs. P. had just about given up on their son James. They knew he was bright, but he never seemed to do any work, and his grades were low in the subjects that mattered for college entrance. He found it difficult to sit still in class, to listen to the teacher, and to plan his work. He rarely got his assignments in on time and, as a result, he was given a poor grade. His parents were constantly nagging him to do his work and this was causing problems with their relationship.
They discovered that James had great Music Smarts, Nature Smarts and Body Smarts. The school he went to emphasized Word Smarts and Number Smarts. No wonder James didn’t enjoy learning; he wasn’t being taught the way he learned best.
Once everyone understood why learning was difficult for James, and that he was working hard but just not effectively, things got much better. His parents stopped nagging him, he learned ways to make learning easier, and his grade level started to go up.
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