Learn Smarter Podcast

Executive Function (EF) We talk about executive functioning so frequently because it affects everything that a child (or adult) does all day, every day. We have a few disclaimers that we would like you to know when it comes to executive functioning. The first is don’t get overwhelmed. We are going to continue to break down the topic and go further into it later down the road. Our second disclaimer is that this is our list of executive function (EF) traits and how we see our students impacted by their own executive functioning. For now, we will give an overview of all the elements of executive functioning that impact our ability to function in either a positive way (using good EF skills) or a negative way (lacking in EF skills). So what is executive function? Our definition of executive function is the ability to plan, manage, organize, and “do” your life. In other words, it is the ability to prioritize and execute. Executive functioning is not only linked to school but it can be linked to the concept of adulting, which children tend to learn about and work on as they go through school. For example, when a child is trying to memorize the periodic table of elements for a class, they are not necessarily memorizing the information because they are going into a science profession or because they are going to be using the elements for the rest of their lives.  During their process of memorizing, they are working on building skills that they will continue to use throughout their lives. Therefore, it is not all about what the material is but rather about HOW you are approaching it. The processes students go through in school, such as turning in homework and studying for tests, can be related to the adult equivalent of those process, such as paying bills and going to work. Life is all about hoop jumping. If you have a good strategy for how you are going to approach the hoop jumping then you are going to do much better off long term. We have identified executive functioning as having seven major key points. The Seven Key Points of Executive Functioning: 1. Organization, planning, and prioritizing: This means organizing your time and things, as well as deciding how to approach a task and in what order you are going to do things. Let’s look at how school is impacted in this key point. There are various things you need to know such as when there is a test, what needs to be studied for the test, reading all parts of an assignment as well as all parts of questions, getting assignments turned in, getting to your classes on time, managing multiple assignments simultaneously, homework: what is most important and what to start with, calendar, where your materials are, and even backpack organization. 2. Time: This involves time management and the ability to start a task, also referred to as task initiation. Getting the ball rolling can be very challenging for some students. A lot of parents will come to us and say, “My kid is lazy and they are a procrastinator.” This can be a trigger for us because children inherently want to please and do well--“laziness” is a result of something else.  We re-frame the language and make it about task initiation rather than procrastination/laziness. The student is not putting off work because they know how to do it; they are putting it off because they do not know where to start. School is impacted by time management and task initiation because it impacts how you start anything. Students struggle with task initiation in all the aspects of an assignment; writing, staying on task, not getting distracted or their own ability to recognize that they are distracted, their ability to calendar, and how they manage non preferred tasks. 3. Memory: There are three different types of memory that you should know. There is short-term memory, working memory, and long-term memory. Overall, memory is really all about repeated exposure to the same ideas. Short-term and long-term memory are slightly more familiar to...

The most important part of studying actually occurs before you even start to relearn (or learn) the material. Today, we break down how to create a study plan that is mindful, achievable, and flexible.  We will also explore the reasons why a study plan might fail and what to do. This may seem aspirational for some of you. Your students may inform you of about a test the night before; maybe you don’t know until after your child has taken it.  Conversely, your child's teacher may not be giving you notice.  That student isn’t quite ready for creating a study plan yet. That student should still be working with their family and team on learning how to take control of their time and their calendar. Once the student is successful in these areas, there will be no more academic blindsides. For help and advice on how to get your student ready for this episode refer to Episode 02 of the podcast or our blog from May 15, 2018, where we talk about using a calendar and managing time. There are several steps for a student to take before they actually embark on studying. In this blog, we will outline the five steps for creating an appropriate study plan. Just so you are aware, most students skip steps one through four. This is why it is really important to understand that it is not about the time spent on studying, it is about the way in which the studying is being done. Quality over quantity. The five steps students should take when building a study plan: Find out when a test is and put it into your calendar: Your calendar should always be booked with any and all commitments. This means afterschool sports, religious programs, clubs, tutoring, etc. This makes it easier to create an appropriate and achievable study plan. As soon as you know out about a test, take stock of what you know and what you do not know: This is a very important step for most students since they tend to spend time studying what they already know. To help with this step, we like to use what we call the “red right/green light” technique. For this strategy, you use different colored highlighters to categorize information. You use a green highlighter to highlight the material you already know and feel confident about. You do not need to spend a ton of time on anything you already know (highlighted in green). A yellow highlighter can be used for information that is somewhat understood, but is not yet a strength. Then, a red or pink highlighter is used for the material that you do not know and really need to spend time with so that they can be turned into greens. The information that is highlighted in red can be broken down into what the student does not quite understand versus what they just do not know at all. Before step two is complete, students should go through their study guide and write and label how many greens, how many yellows, and how many reds they have. Therefore, when they are done with this step, they are able to tally up how many of each color they have. Chunking: Chunking means breaking the big whole into tiny, small, easy parts, making it much more manageable and doable. Which will, in turn, make the work a lot less aggravating.  Dividing the greens, yellows, and reds from step 2 by how many actual days you have to study is crucial. Calendaring the plan: To be clear, at this point, the student has not yet begun actually studying any material. These are the actions that must take place before that starts. In this step, you must ALWAYS start with the day of the test and work your way backwards. For example, let's say there is a test that is ten days out. For day nine, which is the day before the test, you calendar nothing. This is a Buffer/Review day. No new information should be learned on this day. This means that all the material by this day should be greens. Now, we have eight actual days to study and review. For the sake of making things simple, let's say that after completing steps two and three,

Studying isn’t what you think it should be. So, what does studying actually look like? Today we explain the do’s and don’ts of studying as well as ways in which to transform the “don’ts” into positive, helpful strategies. These thoughts and tips are applicable to students of all ages. Let’s first address the purpose of studying. The purpose of studying is to be able to recall information on demand, in a classroom setting. The reason why we word it this way is to really give students the context of why studying is important. As adults, we do not sit down to study. This is because we are usually seeking information for pleasure. Students on the the other hand, sit down to study because they have a goal. This is something to be mindful of when thinking about studying. Students are studying with the intention of earning a grade. It should also be noted that it is a non-preferred task for students. Students might have to seek information on a topic that is not particularly interesting to them, whereas adults tend to seek information when they are interested. Throughout this episode we are going to refer to the do’s and don’ts of studying as active and passive studying, respectively. During active studying, the student is seeking out information and doing something with it. During passive studying the student is really just having the information come to them. Passive studying is more “traditional” side and is actually what most students tend to do. It is definitely what you “think studying should look like”. We are going to address six inherently passive studying tips and explain how they can be turned into active studying exercises. Study Do’s and Don’ts: 1.Highlighting: What are the challenges with highlighting? For starters, most students don’t know how to highlight correctly. Often times students will highlight entire paragraphs or even pages. This does nothing to help them. Essentially, the only thing they really did is color the page. So, how can highlighting be used as an active studying tactic? The main goal when highlighting should be to shorten, chunk, and summarize the information the student is trying to learn. This means identifying the key points and not just identifying vocabulary words (that are usually in bold print anyways). If a student does highlight an entire page, they should go back through and identify the four W’s: who, what, where, and when. This is fact seeking in its most literal form. Once this is done, the student should address why they think this information is important. This is what creates an active studying technique. As the student answers these questions they are taking information in and processing it. This form of mental engagement will allow the student to remember the information more easily. 2. Reading or re-reading a text: Students might think that if they are re-reading material they are freshening their mind on what they already read. The problem with this technique is that it tricks their brain into thinking they know the information because they have seen it before and they then tend to skip over information. This is when the four W’s exercise becomes meaningful once more. Ultimately, students need to be doing something with the information they read in order for them to remember it. In other words, there needs to be an action step. 3. Rewriting notes: Think about a time when you have experienced a major event in your life and you’ve had to write hundreds of thank you notes. The one thing you probably don’t remember is the little details of who got you what. This is because this is an entirely passive exercise. All you are doing is rewriting the same sentences on every note with minor changes such as the name of the person and what they got you. Rewriting is not active. However, you can make it active by categorizing, summarizing, or rewriting the notes from memory and then going back to see if you were correct.

Calendaring is hated by so many of the students we work with--and it’s the first thing we do with them. It is so critical and so important. If you do not keep track of what is going on in your life, nothing else can get done. Having a calendar is the starting point that greatly reduces anxiety in students because once you are in control of your time, you are in control of your life. You cannot get into a car and start driving unless you know where you are going--it is the same with calendaring. You cannot start reaching goals and milestones within educational therapy without knowing what they are in the first place. We encounter a lot of resistance when it comes to calendaring, but we have learned to challenge that resistance. Many students rely on online portals and memorization to keep track of their assignments and commitments. To counteract this resistance, we challenge our students to find an adult that does not have a calendar. All adults have calendars (or some sort of way of keeping track of their tasks). Like many things, it is difficult to start calendaring and there is a lot of upfront work, but as soon as the process becomes automated and habitual, you will see results.  The benefits far outweigh the uncomfortable beginning of starting. One of the reasons students don’t want to calendar is because of their online portal. We have a love/hate--but mostly hate--relationship with the online portal because it teaches students learned helplessness. The online portal teaches students to rely on whattheir teachers are posting to tell them what to do everyday. Often the online portal is used differently by different teachers, sending students off on a wild goose chase to source their responsibilities.  The online portal does not allow for forward planning--it is nearly impossible to manage a long-term project simply by using an online calendar. To help you and your child start calendaring we have compiled the… Seven Big Rules of Calendaring. Everything needs to be in one place. Students need to have one point of action everyday, which is, “I am going to check my calendar.” Decide AND COMMIT between digital and paper.  The advantages and disadvantages of the two depend on age and preference. If you tend to lose papers but not your phone, the digital calendar may work best. We don’t want to pretend like we prefer a paper calendar--the ability to quickly automate, reconcile and access it is simply not an option with a paper calendar. Sometimes it’s unavoidable and ourclients have to use a paper calendar, but we undoubtedly prefer the digital calendar. (BONUS: You can have an all-family calendar and communicate and schedule with your child.) Automate, automate, automate. Automating is both learning smarter and working smarter. Put weekly commitments into your calendar once as a repeating event and have it always be there. Front-load. Put in all dates for all tasks as soon as you learn of them. This means, when you have the same class, every Monday at 8AM for the entire year...put that on your calendar at the beginning of the year. Layering. Digital calendars allow you to create specific calendars for the different facets of your life. We recommend that each student have two: school and personal calendars. Color code your different calendars to allow you to see how your time is being spent. Because each calendar is a different color, it allows students to visually see what is actually happening every day. The “to-do list” is an all day event. Listing your one time tasks on the same calendar as an all day event keeps everything you need in one place. Our Seven Big Rules of Calendaring are some guidelines  for you to be mindful of when calendaring with your student.  Now, what goes on your calendar? We have created a universal list to help guide your planning. School Entire School Academic Calendar (Days Off, Progress Report Days, Late Start, School-wide events, Class Schedule) All Day vs.

It’s a narrative we hear all too often. A parent will call us regarding their child’s learning difficulty and low self-esteem in school--and the parent is unsure of how to help. Parents often feel isolated because there is no sense of community when they are going through these challenges with their learners in the academic setting. One of our main objectives when creating this community was to help and serve these parents and teachers. Wherever you may be on your journey with your different learners, there are three important points we want every family to know: It is challenging to parent any child who is atypical (regardless of a diagnosis).  It is not what parents expect.  It is critical for parents to acknowledge how challenging this can be. Comparison is truly evil. This boils down to comparing your children against each other or comparing your child against other students in the classroom. While we aim to provide resources for families with different learners, we think a lot of what we say will ring true for all types of parents and kids. You are running your own race with your family. Your child is running their own race, and you are running your own race as a parent. There will always be another person more attractive, affluent, and privileged than you. It is not useful to compare yourself or your child to anyone. Instead, try looking at your own comparisons. What was your child like 3 months ago? What were YOU like 3 months ago? These are comparisons that will actually serve you and allow you to see the growth and progress in your own family. One of our greatest mindset tricks is to add on yet to any statement about your child. For example, “my child hates math” becomes “my child doesn’t like math yet.” Adding “yet” into almost any sentence turns it into a hopeful one. Reframing any complaint you have about your child can turn it into a goal and an opportunity. Our practices are in very different locations in California, and we serve different types of clients. After sitting down and discussing this topic, we noticed that there are Seven Common Characteristics of Parents. Parents have had their school identify that there is something going on with their student. There has been a formal assessment by a neuropsychologist or clinical psychologist, and the family has already experienced a lot of heartbreak. Parents want help. They want school to feel better for their child and themselves, everyone wants to struggle less, and parents are hoping that at least one person will have some answers to start the process of making progress. Parents wish they had known that their child had a different learning style sooner. It is important to note that once you know who your child is in the classroom setting, you can move forward. There is often this underlying guilt for not knowing sooner but, remember, you know now so you can begin to deal with it now. Parents are disagreeing about what “to do”. This includes anything from medication to seeing an educational therapist to deciding when to let the child fail or when to jump in. Parents are fighting with their child about homework. This fighting is a vital sign that something is going on. When children can do something, they will. If they are avoiding something, it is because it is hard. Remember that your child is trying, but they are discouraged because the work is difficult. Parents are at the end of their rope. We hear you and  we get it. It is an exhausting experience and the best thing you can do to help your different learner is to promote new and different strategies. If you are not in a place where an educational therapist is readily available, we are here for you. E-mail us! Parents are dealing with a child who is starting to resent school or is already refusing to go to school. It is actually a healthy impulse if your child is separating emotionally from school--they have tried and tried and are not getting the results they would hope for.

Learn Smarter: the Educational Therapy Podcast is your go-to resource for the parents and teachers of students with different learning needs. Rachel & Stephanie are two educational therapists who are committed to helping parents and educators find easy, simple and FUN ways of supporting learners. This podcast will be covering how learning impacts the whole child: we’ll talk about everything from executive functioning to games to tricks of the trade. Join us on this journey to support your complex and diverse kids. Follow us on Instagram