A recent article in USA Today reports that home schooling has been on a steady rise for the last five years. There are now 1.5 million children being home schooled, up 74% since 1999. A desire for religious or moral instruction, formerly the number one reason to choose homeschooling, is now the second most popular reason. The first reason is safety and avoidance of peer pressure and exposure to drugs. Third is the dissatisfaction with academic instruction and fourth is interest in nontraditiona

Arapahoe, a small eastern North Carolina town with a population approximately 450, is located six minutes north of Minnesott Beach and 16 miles from Havelock. Greenville and Raleigh, the state capital, are 60 and 133 miles away, respectively. The only school in this rural town for kindergarten through eighth grade is Arapahoe Charter School, led by administrative director Tom McCarthy, who doesn't hesitate to say that in five years his school "will be the most successful ch

DISCUSSION OF A BRAIN-BASED REMEDIAL APROACH WITH ADHD AND EXECUTIVE FUNCTION IMPAIRMENTS “Overt Self Regulation 101”   By Robert DePaolo        A quick glance at the evolution of human culture would seem to suggest that new inventions, discoveries and progress itself typically arise from serendipitous mergers between previously disparate ideas. Whether it be Einstein imagining himself at a train station, stumbling upon Relativity Theory, Freud engaging in i

  Experience and the Autistic Mind   Robert DePaolo   In a prior essay, I discussed autism in terms of a brain wave computation process - a neuro-functional “maestro” that normally orchestrates a fluid shift between excitation and inhibition. I thought it might be interesting to extrapolate from that and speculate on the actual experiences of an autistic individual. This article might not pertain to some adults and children on the spectrum because as an increasing nu

 The Symptom Letter and number reversals are a major handicap for a large number of students.  Those reversals make reading, writing and math much more difficult.  I have devised a simple but invaluable tool – Dot Patterns – that has an amazing effect on correcting these letter and number reversals.  Its success is one of the foundational principles that motivated me to create the Teach All Kids website to share this idea with others. The Discovery

by James Baker The essential meaning of Applied behavior analysis is to consistently observing resulting behavior to determine whether new skills are being taught by a given instruction, request or direction. ABA is primarily applied at school, but it is a proven technique that you can use at home. I work best with real-world examples. Here goes; Dad: Hi Joey! How was school today? Joey: (no response) Dad: Did you have fun? Joey: yes. Dad: What did you do? Joey: (no resp

by Adam Caller Heated debates in the media about dyslexia are nothing new. Whether it centres around how best to diagnose and help dyslexic children, or whether the learning difficulty even exists, dyslexia continues to be an emotive topic. When Labour backbencher Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley in north west England, stated that the condition is a 'cruel fiction', the debate was re-ignited.     As an expert in teaching children with dyslexia, I follow these debates with great interes

by Courtney Kowalczyk, M.Ed. Summer is quickly coming to an end, and school has begun for many children. School buses are busily picking up students and dropping them off during the morning and evening commutes. With the beginning of a new school year, I thought it would be helpful to look into the realm of education and the way our students think and learn. For most students in the general education population today, the focus of education is on their ability to think and use problem solving sk

by Courtney Kowalczyk, M.Ed. School has been in session for over a month now, and students are busily working on their studies. Teachers have dug into the content of their curriculum for the year, and everyone has had time to adjust to the new routine. As a former teacher, curriculum was an integral part of my day; and working with students with special needs could be very challenging, especially when trying to pull from so many different pieces of curriculum. I did my best to look at each chil

by Courtney Kowalczyk, M.Ed. Fall is well underway here in Michigan, and the beautiful fall colors can be seen for miles around. It is such a wonderful sight to see children, young and old, out and about enjoying the wonderful scenery. My young son has become increasingly aware of the seasons, and it has been amazing for me to watch him make discoveries about the changes in his world. During this time of change, I continue to think about the mindfulness that is so important for every child. Wat