When Students Struggle A teacher with 30 years experience, Livia McCoy teaches science to students with language learning disabilities at The New Community School in Richmond, VA. Her students are bright, college-bound adolescents who have difficulty with reading, spelling, or other components of language. During her teaching career, Livia said she’s seen students with all types of learning differences. “I see each as an individual with great potential to learn, and my job is to help them figure out how to be successful in school.” A published author, Livia has written When Learning Is Painful: How to Help Struggling Students — A Resource for Parents and Teachers, in addition to a number of articles that have been published in education magazines. These are available at her website, struggling2learn.com. At The New Community School McCoy is also in charge of making sure that teachers at the school continue to grow professionally. And in addition to teaching school and training teachers, Livia also directs the Virginia Association of Independent School’s New Teacher Institute for one week each summer. Livia has been married for many years and has “two wonderful daughters [who] grew up playing school almost every day.” She said it’s no surprise that they’re both educators today. Her oldest daughter has three little boys, and her younger daughter has a little boy in kindergarten. In describing her blog at SchoolFamily.com, she says “I blog about the many smart students who struggle in school because of learning disabilities or attention issues. I share what I have learned helping students, parents and teachers to see how these students can experience success in school despite their learning differences.” Livia welcomes comments on her blog at SchoolFamily.com.
When children struggle in school, they are often having difficulty with many things. They may have poor ability to focus their attention, low reading and spelling skills, working memory issues, or problems with executive func... Read more
Students who struggle in school often have gifts in areas that do not relate to academics. For example, they may be amazing artists, musicians, athletes, actors or dancers. When thinking about summer plans for these students,... Read more
Ever since writing my earlier blog post about whether we really need to teach cursive handwriting, Do Children Still Need to Learn Cursive?, I have been thinking more about it. Many parents are concerned that their children a... Read more
Living in a wheelchair is difficult. Children and teens who use wheelchairs often have a hard time making friends. Yet, having at least one good friend is essential for good mental health.
Other children can be afraid of some... Read more
Libraries are supposed to be fun places. But if you are dyslexic or have a problem reading and spelling, they might not be so much fun. I work at a school for dyslexic students. We have a nice sign in the school library titl... Read more
Recently, I read Nelson Lauver’s book, Most Unlikely to Succeed. The first part of the book was difficult for me to read. When Nelson was a child, he was abused by his teachers because he couldn’t read and do math... Read more
Moving from elementary school to middle school can be especially scary for students with learning disabilities. If your child will be moving into middle school next year, it might be a good idea to think about what things wil... Read more
Many students have a hard time staying focused on a task. Much has been written about teenagers who are growing up in the media age. Most agree that they are very good at multitasking. In a report featured on NPR, the a... Read more
Parents often call me to find out what typing software I recommend they get for their child. Unfortunately, this is a really difficult question! It really isn’t so much what software to buy as it is what your child does... Read more
Language is more than the words we speak to one another. There are many parts of the language process and if all are working as expected, we give little thought to it. But if a person is struggling with language, they may hav... Read more
|
|
Popular Topics
Popular Printables
|
