BrainSTARS: New Learning

Use classroom performance, rather than global scores on intelligence and achievement testing, as your guide to instructional objectives and modifications.

All academic content areas

Use everyday activities

1. As a general rule, if your student has an IQ of 85 or lower, interventions and instruction will be most beneficial when provided in normal day–to-day environments (classroom and home) rather than in pull-out therapies or extra-curricular tutoring.

2. Reinforce and reward your student’s efforts to use strategies.

Change the environment

1. Effective interventions will be linked specifically to the cause of the error or problem. Carefully analyze student errors, and determine WHY they occur. For example, if a multiplication problem is incorrect, is it because the student cannot remember number facts, does not understand place value, cannot "carry" a number correctly, has numbers misaligned, or does not understand the procedure? Identify the problem step or steps, and teach these separately.
2. Schedule a daily study hall to review new assignments and to reinforce new learning.
3. Because of brain injury, your student will require redundancy and repetition. Increase opportunities for review and practice by:
   • team teaching, if possible
   • informing parents about school topics
   • reducing the number of topics your student is expected to master in each class
   • carrying one theme across several content areas
4. Provide a model for your student to follow (such as a sample of a subtraction problem which requires regrouping, or a sample topic sentence and two supporting details).
5. Shorten lengthy tests and homework assignments.
6. Allow extra time to complete tests and seatwork.
7. Explain the connections between new and previously learned information.
8. Grade your student on the accuracy of completed work. Do not penalize him for non-completed items.

Teach new skills

1. Encourage and teach use of appropriate compensatory tools and materials (a number line, counting blocks, calculator, number facts chart, real coins and money, a clock face with moveable hands, videotapes to introduce or reinforce textbook information, a note taking buddy, a reading buddy, spelling and grammar checking computer program).
2. Teach explicit learning strategies, such as:
   • previewing content
   • reading titles and headings
   • following a model
   • highlighting words or sections which tell who, what, where, why, when and how
   • self-checking and self-correcting after short intervals
   • reciting and rehearsing information to be learned.
3. Teach concepts through multisensory instruction: written, oral, pictorial, tactile, and kinesthetic.

Reading

Use everyday routines

1. Suggest that your student try reading material aloud, instead of silently, to see if it increases comprehension, memory and attention to task.

Change the environment

1. Provide books on tape or large print books. Textbooks on tape are available from Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic (1 800 221 4972).
2. Provide guided reading questions, outlines, and organizers.
3. Write page number to find specific answers next to each question on the worksheet.
4. Decrease amount of independent reading required.
5. Provide a competent oral reading buddy.
6. Provide your student with a set of books he can keep at home to highlight or underline.

Teach new skills

1. Teach strategies which "good readers" use, such as pre-reading, previewing, and self-questioning.
2. Teach important vocabulary before beginning a new passage or unit.
3. Teach color-coding strategies (yellow for main idea or topic sentence, green for relevant details, orange for explanations or definitions, etc.)

Math

Change the environment

1. Do not require your student to copy problems from the board.
2. Provide a model or models of correctly completed problems on worksheet.
3. Provide space on worksheet for all computations. Have your student circle her final answer at the end. Don’t use separate answer sheets.
4. Reduce quantity of required problems; emphasize concept, process, correctness, completeness, and self-checking over quantity.
5. Provide number facts table and/or number line for computation.
6. Provide list of rules, formulas, steps to follow, flow chart, and examples.
7. Use manipulatives and visuals such as blocks, abacus, number line, coins, and fractions wheels.
8. Match level of instruction to functional needs of student, for example, let a ninth grade student take Consumer Math, rather than Algebra.

Teach new skills

1. Teach the use of graph paper or vertically lined paper to enhance organization and spacing.
2. Teach use of calculator and functional math procedures (estimating amount of money needed for purchases) instead of continued focus on calculations.

Use everyday routines

1. Provide opportunities to practice math skills in natural settings by having your student:
   • figure out what time lunch period is over
   • estimate how much time she has to get to class
   • estimate the amount of money needed to purchase a snack
   • use a measuring cup to make macaroni and cheese
   • make change from a school store purchase
   • figure out how many rolls of crepe paper are needed to decorate the school gym for an upcoming event

Written language

Use everyday activities

1. Use a clipboard to stabilize paper.
2. Encourage your student to write down telephone messages, copy a short announcement, write down the results of a class vote, etc.

Change the environment

1. Decrease written language requirements: assign a “scribe” or use fill-in-the-blanks, true-false and matching formats for test questions.
2. Allow tests to be read aloud, and let student respond orally.
3. Allow student to dictate rather than write.
4. Allow alternatives for written assignments such as book reports or journals (diorama, theatrical presentation, models, illustrations).

Teach new skills

1. Provide keyboarding and word processing instruction.
2. Allow student to dictate first draft of long written assignments, which her parent or another assigned person can type onto a word processing program. The student can make revisions, future drafts, corrections, and reworking from this first draft.
3. Teach prewriting organizational structures, such as outlines, story mapping, webs, or other graphic organizers.

Note taking and test taking

Use everyday activities

1. Verify that your student understands all directions.
2. Monitor quality and accuracy of note-taking skills.
3. Provide concrete and specific study guides for tests.
4. Encourage your student to write down telephone messages or other brief lists.

Change the environment

1. Assess mastery using open book, fill-in-the-blank, or true/false formats rather than open-ended essays and compositions. Limit the number of items in multiple-choice questions to no more than three choices.
2. Provide an outline or copy of lecture notes in class.
3. Provide a note-taking buddy.
4. Give cues when essential information is being presented (such as a tap on the shoulder, holding up a colored index card, etc.
5. Allow extended time for test taking.
6. Provide alternatives to scantron answer sheets, such as allowing your student to mark the correct answers directly on the test booklet.

Teach new skills

1. Preview textbook and lecture information prior to instruction or reading assignment. Highlight key vocabulary and concepts (such as democracy, equation, photosynthesis, emancipation, etc). Identify and discuss specific examples. Have student explain key concepts in her own words.
2. Teach common abbreviations for frequently used words.

Homework

Use everyday activities

1. Establish a parent/teacher agreement regarding length of time to be spent on homework daily.
2. Create two separate assignment folders: one for work to be taken home and completed, and one for finished work to be returned to school.
3. Create a consistent time and place for homework to be done.
4. Keep all homework materials stored in a convenient location (pencils, ruler, calculator, dictionary, markers, post-it notes, etc.).
5. Make sure that there is adequate space for books, supplies and backpack in the location where your child is working.

Change the environment

1. Use a calendar and write in scheduled homework times. Divide homework schedule into shorter segments if fatigue or inattention are problems. Schedule a five-minute break halfway through the homework time.
2. Use a timer or alarm clock to make schedule and expectations concrete.
3. Schedule a particular activity or reward for the break and the end of homework time. Possibilities include: getting a glass of milk; making a phone call, checking email, shooting baskets, taking the dog outside, etc.

Teach new skills

1. Make a daily, weekly, or monthly plan that takes daily and long term assignments into account. Plot out each step of long-term projects on a big calendar. Build in "fudge" time for unanticipated interferences, such as illness or special events.
   

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