Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

“What strategies can I use to help my right-brain-dominant child learn better?” Hear some suggestions on today’s Home School Heartbeat, with HSLDA President Mike Smith.

Mike Smith:
Today I’m talking with Dianne Craft, one of HSLDA’s special needs coordinators. Dianne, how can parents of right-brain-dominant children help them find success in learning?

Dianne Craft:
Mike, it’s really a fun way to work with these children to help them develop their photographic memory. They already have that capability a little more than their left-brain counterparts, but they often haven’t developed it. As a result, they are really struggling with memory, so what we do is just help them to store things in their long-term memory by adding meaning to meaningless data. For example, with spelling words, instead of just writing Saturday many times to spell it, just put the S-A-T in black, and the U-R-have somebody diving into the u because he was bored on Saturday, and make water in there. And so next time, when they want to write Saturday, instead of writing S-A-T-E-R, they'll notice they can't make it E-R, because the diver will hit his head and get brain damage. So they will change it to U-R. So we add picture and color and weird and humor and story and that helps them to remember and use their photographic memory.

Mike:
Dianne, that is tremendous insight. And until next time, I’m Mike Smith.