Everyone is good at something. Real life experiences in areas of strength help to balance the feeling of failure. Encouraging and developing other areas of interest offer another way to motivate during difficult tasks or when working in difficult areas. The love of a computer or football, can be used to help make task bearable.
Author Archives: Kai Long
Summer break
I’m off for the summer. Please come visit in September when I will start again.
Break it down
Positive comments and small successes can begin to repair motivation, but motivation can not be maintained if the tasks required are not felt to be achievable. For many students with language-based learning disabilities, repeated failures have destroyed motivation and undermined competence. Small encouragements may not be enough, so breaking down challenging task into manageable pieces …
Great website
Today I just thought I would post this great website about social thinking. There is a lot of useful information.
How to motivate?
Just as negative comments and experiences destroy motivation, positive comments and a series of little successes can begin to repair motivation. Encouraging words like “Wow, you put a lot of effort into your work” or “I like the way you worked on that” regularly will go a long way to acknowledge the strengths and build …
Creating an environment of success
There is motivation that comes from within and motivation generated from external rewards. Working for money is an example of external motivation. Volunteering is an example of internal motivation. We all are motivated in a variety of ways. When working with a young adult with a learning disability motivation is often a primary issue. After …
One size fits all
First, remember that no one chooses failure. As adults, we choose to work and do things in areas of competency, but as children, we are asked to be good in many different areas. Children do not have choices. We want them to read, write, do computations, and prepare for college. Our schools do not teach …
Motivation: The Circle Part I
If a young adult is not motivated in school because of prior academic experiences, who is responsible for motivating them? Should the child be responsible for self-motivating or is it the teachers’ or parents responsibility to motivate them? Day after day, some students with language based disabilities meet academic failure,”F’s” and “D’s” on assignments, demeaning …
Reading: Video games, DVDs’, and books
What about video games and videos? I loved the Leap Pad “Letter Factory” series and other DVD’s by Leap Frog, but I did not see any benefit in my child’s reading ability or knowledge that was a result of her watching those DVD’s. Although the series is well done, she did not automatically apply what …
Pushing
My biggest lesson I learned from my continued reading journey with my daughter is that I need to calm down and relax. She is reading. She has a great imagination and can visualize what is happening in a story without pictures. Visualization is an important skill that is necessary for good reading comprehension. Most of …