Students are more likely to succeed in a place where they feel known and cared about I realize there are people whose impulse is to sneer when talk turns to how kids feel, and who dismiss as “soft” or “faddish” anything other than old-fashioned instruction of academic skills. But even these hard-liners, when pressed, are unable to deny the relationship between feeling and thinking, between a child’s comfort level and his or her capacity to learn. Here, too, there are loads of supporting data. As one group of researchers put it, “In order to promote students’ academic performance in the classroom, educators should also promote their social and emotional adjustment.” And yet, broadly speaking, we don’t. Teachers and schools are evaluated almost exclusively on academic achievement measures (which, to make matters worse, mostly consist of standardized test scores). If we took seriously the need for kids to feel known and cared about, our discussions about the distinguishing features of a “good school” would sound very different. Likewise, our view of discipline and classroom management would be turned inside-out, seeing as how the primary goals of most such strategies are obedience and order, often with the result that kids feel less cared about -- or even bullied -- by adults.

Below are some other examples of nonlinguistic representation as well as some online or software resources: Using graphic organizers Inspiration Webspiration http://www.mywebspiration.com/ Bubbl.us https://bubbl.us/beta/ Mind Meister http://www.mindmeister.com/ Generating mental pictures Photostory Animoto http://www.animoto.com Windows Movie Maker Presentation Programs Prezi http://www.prezi.com Google Presentations http://docs.google.com SlideRocket http://www.sliderocket.com Drawing Pictures and Pictographs Draw.to http://www.draw.to Dabble Board http://dabbleboard.com/ Gliffy http://www.gliffy.com/ Mug Tug http://mugtug.com/sketchpad/ Drawing tools in Microsoft Paint Engaging in kinesthetic activities and Making physical models – Video – record students using Flip cameras Windows Movie Maker Jaycut http://jaycut.com/ – online video editor Manipulatives in SMART Notebook