Fantastic Workshop!

What a fantastic evening! Last Wednesday nine teachers, parents and learning support assistants from a variety of schools joined Alex and Lisa for a professional learning evening devoted to sounds, syllables and spelling. There was much enthusiasm, laughter and deep and meaningful ‘AHA! ‘ moments. The main outcome of the evening was a greater understanding of how to help children who require assistance with phonological awareness, and their understanding and use of spelling rules. It was just such a fantastic evening for parents, teachers and learning support assistants who all worked together so well.

We are so fortunate in the calibre of the people who facilitated the PD as well. Alex is a very experienced Speech Pathologist, with a passion for assisting children, and sometimes we, as teachers, overlook how much speech pathology can offer educators! Lisa, who also presented, is one of the most knowledgeable teachers around, in terms of her professional approach, and developing effective strategies and programs for children with learning delays. Thanks also to Rochelle. Her professional support and her wonderful catering contributed immensely to the success of the workshop. What a fabulous evening of learning, laughter and fun!

*** Come and join the next workshop on perceptual motor development with Alex, Melinda (another super star with dual degrees in education and occupational therapy) and Lisa. The three day workshop covering the ten domains underpinning learning and use of the FILTA has been scheduled for September 2008 and January, 2009. We look forward to your joining us for more fun-filled and interactive workshops!

Parents are such clever people

I was recently out shopping when a child who used to be in my class, shouted my name across the vegetables. I waved, but in an instant, child and her parent came across to talk to me. One of the joys of being a teacher is watching children we know well, growing up and succeeding.

In the meantime, after the usual courtesies and chat, Mandy, the mother, came to the point. Her good friend Belinda had a child who was not doing well at school, and was at her wit’s end trying to find the right help for her child. I asked the usual question about what the issues were and what followed was a detailed and highly descriptive learning journey for this child. This was a mother who KNEW her child very well: she had observed her child at work, watched her play, noted her child’s confusion, particularly with making sense of instructions and following through. If a television was playing in the background, it was pretty certain that Belinda’s daughter was unable to complete tasks.

I thought then, as I have thought many times over the years, that parents have such valuable information about their children. With that detailed information, a good speech pathologist would be so far ahead in identifying the issues preventing Belinda’s daughter from learning effectively. I guess the message from today was that Belinda was wise to be concerned, and wise to be asking around for help. That is one of the reasons we started 5energies©: we are a one-stop shop with an experienced speech pathologist, occupational therapist, educational psychologist and educators and a variety of strategies to help children.

That is also why we love parents as astute and observant as Belinda – parents are such clever people.

Memories of Childhood

Memories… Can you hear background humming of that song from the musical Cats?

I was visiting a friend yesterday and was watching her grandchild playing quietly on the floor while we had our coffee. The four year old, working intently on a puzzle, had tipped the puzzle pieces out of the puzzle, so they were all upside down. He looked at the pieces for awhile, mulling the problem. He tried different strategies. First he turned them over with his fingers (hand-eye coordination and manipulation skills). He started at the outside, using the smooth shape of the outside border to try to find the right pieces (logic and visual discrimination). He ‘asked’ his grandmother for her help by just looking up at her (non-verbal language) and she immediately leaned over to play with a piece to put it in the right spot to get him started.

They both smiled at each other (love and trust). He then put the pieces where they belonged, actively selecting and matching the colours and shapes this time (visual discrimination). Then, he showed his grandmother the completed puzzle (independence and perseverance) before racing off (as four year olds tend to do) to see what grandpa was doing. What memories will this little boy take away from his day? What skills has he practised? What a wealth of information this young man gave me, as an interested observer of his developmental achievements.

Contrast that with a child who does not have the well-developed manipulation skills to turn the puzzle pieces over, or the logic skills to determine that starting from the outside of the puzzle is a good strategy. This is likely to be a child who loses interest in puzzles very quickly, but also has troubles even putting the darned thing away. Who cares? It is only a puzzle, isn’t it? Well, yes but it is a also a tried and true school activity which encourages visual perception, independence, logic and the ability to take risks when choosing strategies. What memories would a child with delays in these areas take away? What behaviours would this child show, when faced with the same activity? How frustrated would this child be? Imagine a childhood where the overwhelming memories are of frustration, anger or confusion…

Parents have such a wealth of information about their children. It is these simple daily tasks that soon add up to an overall picture of a child’s abilities. Our aim is to create wonderful childhood memories, ones that bring feelings of satisfaction and success. If a parent is concerned about his or her child’s progress, how fortunate that we live in a time where help and advice are available from a general practitioner, occupational therapist, speech pathologist or from 5energies©! What do you think?

Welcome to 5energies!

Oh my goodness, here we go… The first-ever 5energies© blog. So, take a deep breath, slow down, and pick the most important thing to talk about.

Let’s start with children.

In Australia today, there are many children struggling to learn. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2007, there were 1, 969, 303 primary aged children within Australia. At a rough estimate, within each school, there are likely to be a minimum of 15% of children who are struggling to learn. These children may have learning delays in visual or auditory discrimination or processing, for example, or have delayed receptive or expressive language skills. Perhaps their fine motor skills are preventing them from the full range of manipulative skills required for concrete learning in the early stages of schooling.

For whatever reason, that 15% of children with learning challenges translates to an astonishing 295, 395 primary school children across this country who may – or may not – achieve functional literacy and numeracy skills as they struggle to make sense of daily school routines, tasks and ways of operating that their peers take for granted. These children usually have normal cognitive function, so it is not that they don’t WANT to learn – they often have delays in one or more of the ten key domains that underpin learning and learning just does not come together easily for these children.

This is why we love helping these children. We welcome the opportunity to introduce them to the best team in the country, a team that consists of an experienced speech pathologist, occupational therapist, educational psychologist and senior educators. Our mission is to screen them across ten key domains, and find out exactly why they are not learning. We so enjoy seeing the looks of satisfaction on children’s faces when they succeed and develop strategies to help them make sense of their world. We relish the chance to share information with parents in workshops where we explain the activities and model them for parents to use at home. Our vision is to share our approach further, extending the number of schools who have already attended the three-day professional development, and are now working in an integrated 5energies© way.

So welcome to 5energies©. While there is lots of information on the website itself, this blog will be where we can discuss issues of importance as we value the children in our midst, and value the opportunities to create new beginnings, new partnerships and new synergies, as we help our children to learn.

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