6 Auditory Processing Activities Improve Reading Skills Without Spending a Dime
Posted by admin in Special Education on July 9, 2011
Auditory processing skills come into play when becoming a proficient reader. Think about this for a minute. In order to read you need to decode words (the ability to sound out printed words) as well as encode words (the ability to put letters to the sounds that make up a word).
Many students that struggle with reading struggle because they have auditory processing difficulties. There are actually nine areas of auditory processing that affect learning. Problems with any one or more of those areas can make learning difficult. The cause of the auditory processing difficulties may be due to CAPD, ADD, dyslexia, a learning disability, a learning difficulty or autism.
If you are a parent working with your own child, or tutoring a student, or homeschooling or a teacher, there are specific things you can do to make a difference in your child’s learning life.
Here are 6 activities you can use to strengthen auditory processing. These auditory processing activities use things you typically have around the house or in the classroom. Read the rest of this entry »
AP Calculus and/or AP English Language: How To Choose Your AP Exams
Posted by admin in Online Education on July 9, 2011
Many high school students choose to enroll in Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses because they believe that taking more rigorous courses will help them get into their top-choice universities. This is definitely true (though the student also needs to do very well in those rigorous courses to be a competitive applicant for the most selective campuses), but oftentimes high school students don’t even realize the full benefits of having taken AP courses and their corresponding exams until after they’ve begun college.
Depending on the score they receive on the AP exams, students can test out of a lot of general education requirements, saving themselves time and money. Many universities have math and writing requirements for all students, regardless of major, and a score of 3, 4, or 5 on the right AP Exams can help a student bypass some (or all) of those subject requirements, allowing him or her to dive right into the classes he or she is interested in.
For a science or engineering student, taking a course like AP Calculus can seem like a no-brainer. Clearly the student already has an aptitude for math and science and has probably been taking advanced math classes of all of his or her life. But by getting a high enough score on the AP Calculus exam, that student can satisfy a significant portion of his or her major’s math requirements, making his or her time to degree that much faster. So many students are unable to complete their degrees in the standard four years because they can’t get enrolled into their required courses in time, so having some requirements taken care of before they even arrive on campus can help eliminate that problem. Read the rest of this entry »