Many parents are afraid that “labeling” a child as having a learning disability will make him feel broken, left out, or less willing to try. In fact, the opposite is true: giving your child an understanding of the nature of his learning disabilities will comfort him — and motivate him to push through his challenges.

The knowledge that he has an identifiable, common, measurable, and treatable condition often comes as great comfort to the youngster. Without this information, the child is likely to believe the taunts of his classmates and feel that he indeed is a dummy.

If a child does not have a basic understanding of the nature of his learning challenges, it is unlikely that he will be able to sustain his motivation in the classroom.

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Bullying Prevention Strategies

For Educators and School Staff

Math, history, science, and even art teachers often find themselves trying to work literacy instruction into their classrooms. After all, the ability to read, synthesize, and explain concepts and ideas in writing is essential in every subject.

Commonly used literacy strategies that ask students to pause and consider what they know about a given topic or concept can be easily modified to better suit your classroom

setting aside time to identify the skills students need to learn and use to be successful in their specific content areas.

But if you’ve ever wondered whether you’re doing and intervening too much, you’re not alone.

Many parents of students with ADHD wonder how to strike the elusive balance that offers support and encourages independent self-advocacy skills.

Enabling is doing something for someone else, without a plan to help them do it for themselves. Supporting is providing guidance and encouragement to someone as they learn to manage the task on their own in time.

I recommend asking the parent to complete the Spence Preschool Anxiety Scale for a quick, reliable measure of anxiety in young children who can’t necessarily express their feelings.

To help determine whether anxiety is impairing or interfering in children’s lives, I ask the following questions using the acronym FISH. (This can be applied to children of all ages.) Frequency — What is the frequency of the child’s anxious behaviors? Is it every day? Once a week? Once a month? Intensity — How intense is the child’s anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10? Severity — How severe is the child’s anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10? How long — How long have anxious behaviors occurred?

The following tendencies among children should send up red flags: Overestimating a threat: “I’m going to get COVID. I’m going to die.” Difficulty tolerating uncertainty: “I don’t know what’s going to happen if I go to school. What’s going to be there? I don’t know that I can handle it.” Underestimating the ability to control a situation: “I never will be able to handle all this uncertainly. It is going make me really sick to my stomach or feel like I’m going to die.” Feeling increased responsibility: “If I get sick and I get my parents sick, it’s my fault. They will never forgive me.”

Educators should strive to create supportive atmospheres and equip their students with tools to independently express their areas of EF need. Educators can use what we call the “Four Tiers of Support” to set up this system in the classroom and beyond. They include: Teaching common EF language Identifying strengths and areas of need Setting up a classroom to support all students Teaching self-advocacy skills

To help address test anxiety, researchers recommend setting aside a little time for simple writing or self-talk exercises before the test—they allow students to shore up their confidence, recall their test-taking strategies, and put the exam into perspective.

Students who study moderately should get roughly 70 to 80 percent of the questions correct. 

Don’t start a test with challenging questions; let students ease into a test. Asking difficult questions to probe for deep knowledge is important, but remember that confidence and mindset can dramatically affect outcomes—and therefore muddy the waters of your assessment.