I have some thrilling news to share with you! Learning Tools has relocated from the beloved Seattle location to a bright, sunny office in Bothell. This move marks an exciting new chapter for Learning Tools, and I can’t wait to welcome you to the new space.

Why the Move?

Seattle has been a fantastic home for Learning Tools, but I wanted a location that offers even more convenience for my clients. The new Bothell office is just off the 405, making it easily accessible for everyone on the east side and the North End. Whether you’re coming from Bellvue, Redmond, Woodinville or Mill Creek you’ll find that getting to to Learning Tools is now quicker and more straightforward.

The New Office

The new office space is a bright, sunny environment that’s perfect for learning and creativity. This is a positive and vibrant atmosphere which is crucial for effective learning, and the new location offers just that. I am confident that you’ll love the new space as much as I do.

Special Offer: 10% Discount

To celebrate the move, I am offering a special 10% discount on any first or second program you enroll in this summer or fall. Just mention this blog post when you sign up to take advantage of this limited-time offer. Whether you’re looking to enhance your reading or math skills or learning concepts for life, now is the perfect time to reach out and schedule yours or your child’s program.

Looking Forward

I are incredibly excited about this move and the opportunities it brings. My commitment to providing top-quality educational programs remains stronger than ever. The new location allows me to serve clients better and continue offering the exceptional learning experiences you’ve come to expect from a Davis Program.

Thank you for your support. I look forward to seeing you at the new Bothell office soon!

Warm regards,
Sophia Goebel
Owner & Facilitator at Learning Tools

P.S. Don’t forget to mention this blog post to receive your 10% discount on your next program!

The post Learning Tools has Moved to Bothell! appeared first on Learning Tools.

When we are able to predict what will happen in the future, we are able to plan and prepare for it.  This can help us feel more in control and less anxious.  However, when we are not able to predict what will happen, we may feel helpless and powerless.

One of the main reasons why people may not be able to predict the future is due to uncertainty.  If you are neurodivergent and you have missed key life concepts or lessons when you were young (due to being unfocused/disoriented/dreamy/inattentive) you might really struggle with prediction. That predictive ability and skill come into account daily in the choices we make.

Imagine your life without this ability, little decisions we make every day can affect how we feel throughout the day. Do I need a coat? If I go into that classroom what will happen to me? Is that person dangerous?  Why is there so much noise, will it ever stop? When will I eat again?

Learning Tools can help with prediction and thus anxiety.

In a number of the Davis Programs provided here at Learning Tools, we master the core concepts that are needed to predict.  The Davis Programs are brilliant in their simplicity and ability to get at the root cause of an issue.  The concept of consequence (something happening as a result of something else) is pivotal in one’s ability to predict.

Understanding the concept of consequence allows one to understand the potential outcomes of a particular action or decision. This understanding can then be used to make predictions about future events or situations, as one can anticipate how different actions or decisions may lead to different consequences.

For example, if a person knows that a particular decision is likely to lead to a negative effect, they can predict that this outcome will occur if that decision is made.  In this way, understanding the concept of consequence can help one make better predictions about future events, as it allows one to anticipate the potential outcome of different actions or decisions.

Consequence inherently contains the concepts of change, cause, effect, before and after; these concepts clarify the meaning of consequence.   These concepts are core to problem-solving and predicting.  The better you understand them, the easier it is to create the change (cause) that you want to take place (effect).

Predicting requires an educated guess of what will happen. Life experiences provide learning for us, but if the concept of consequence and all those it includes are not clear the learning hasn’t been able to provide an experience that can be decoded and remembered for the future.  People often feel they are victims and have no control.

Learning core developmental concepts gets at the root cause of many executive function activities and can address the issues of anxiety around confusion or not knowing how to predict.

The Davis Concepts for Life and Davis Autism Approach programs both go even further into root concepts providing 40 concepts that also look address motivation, responsibilities, and relationships.   If you want to learn more, I encourage you to give me a call or visit https://www.rdautismfoundation.org/.

The post The Power of Prediction in Relieveing Anxiety. appeared first on Learning Tools.

Spring News Letter 2020.

The post Spring News 2020 appeared first on Learning Tools.

My domain name has changed from Learning Tools Dyslexia to Learning Tools For Life.

I made this change for a number of reasons:

• The first reason is that I’m adding on the Davis Autism Programs and a Parenting Skills program to my services.  The “For life” addition to Learning Tools is broader and encompasses the new programs instead of just being known for Dyslexia services.
• I also feel that once you learn the “tools” in all of the programs I offer, you or your child will use them in everyday life, all the time.. and I’m going to imagine I will keep using them my whole life. 
• Lastly, one of the Davis programs for autism is called “Concepts for Life” so the “for Life” just seemed like the perfect fit. 

My email has changed as well, I am now using info@learningtoolsforlife.com, so please update your contacts/address book as needed. 

The post A Change! appeared first on Learning Tools.

I was recently asked by a parent, “why should I pay for a program for my son?”

She said she made it through school and in life without such a program and she believes she is dyslexic.  She knows grades are not everything….  she knows how smart her child is and that is all that matters.

Here was my answer to her.

1. If your son wants help and wants to improve

   If your son wants help and wants to improve, a program can offer him concrete ways to do that.

2. Helps with self-esteem

   For me, my son’s self-esteem was why I looked into doing a program.  It broke my heart to hear him call himself “stupid” and to see him compare himself with other kids. After the program, this rarely happened.  My son began to see his strengths and was proud of those, this is also what the majority of parents tell me when we do follow-up after the program.

3. Allows your child to be in control of his learning

   Being in control of your own learning so powerful! Students learn and are able to recognize when they are disoriented or confused and need to focus.

   Often students I work with are very good at concentrating, but heavy concentration without the mind focused just causes more confusion, more work, and can be painful. Dyslexics need to ensure they understand the difference of focus and concentration, when they know how to focus and stop just tyring to concentrate hard, learning becomes easier.

4. Possibilities

   When I see a student really embrace what they have learned and learn how their brain works, they get excited by all the possibilities available to them. Some might get excited about acknowledging their creative sides, or that their ability to see things from a different perspective and how this can help solve problems in the world.  They love that their imagination allows them to discover things that others don’t necessarily see and stop seeing themselves as dumb, slow, or challenged.

5. A faster result

   A Davis® program is working with thelearni ng and thinking style of the individual and teaching them to use this style to their advantage.

   With tutoring, often they are just being “retaught” material with the same methods used in school but at a slower pace.  These methods are for those who think with verbal conceptualization and taught with a lot of repetition, drill, and rote memorization.

   When tutors do teach with other methods and use multi-sensory learning it can be positive but also can often take a long time which makes for very slow progress and they end up having years and years of tutoring which ends up costing them close to the same amount or even more than having done the Davis program.

The post Why a Program and not Tutoring appeared first on Learning Tools.

Fall 2019 NewsLetter

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Spring News 2019

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Below is Jamie’s account of the day:

• Start off the morning with a check-in, how we are feeling about being there, did we sleep well, do we need a snack or to do some stretching – make sure we are set up to be successful for the day.
• Then we take time to check and make sure our focusing tools is where it needs to be and do any fine tuning if need be. This is as easy as 1,2,3, balance.
• Then we play around with koosh balls (a type of rubbery stringy ball).   From there we are really focused and ready to do some reading.
• We only read for 5-10 minutes depending on how one is feeling. When we work on reading comprehension it might be longer and a good discussion of “the movie” that we have visualized while reading.
• Next, we would do clay work to master words. We talk about the “trigger words”, look it up in a dictionary (it is amazing to see how many different meaning one of these words can have), make all kinds of sentences until that word is really clear to us, then we get to create a model of the word in clay. Creativity is welcome here, but simple models work great. So for the word “on”, while Sophia modeled a child who rode “on” the camel, I modeled a boy flew “on” the plane. This was a bit more challenging then I had thought it would be – but I was happy with the model in the end. {“on” definition used “used as a function word to indicate means of transport“}
• Then we take a break, maybe a 10 minutes break, maybe 15 – just depends on what we together think is needed. “I love how I get to help make the decisions, ‘it is your program, after all, Sophia says’.
• We end our break with koosh balls or start our work session, however, you prefer to think of it. Koosh balls help to ensure we are focused and ready for the next task at hand.
• When we get back to work, we often do another reading exercise. If not reading, we work on spelling words; we tackle another spelling word that has given me trouble in the past. Using the tools, making the word in clay, and then mastering has me spelling the word in no time! The best part is, I remember the word.
• We continue the day in this pattern. The day goes by fast actually, and while it is work, it doesn’t feel like work. The best part was each day I felt proud of the models I did and surprised by how much working with the word helped me, I don’t have problems with these words anymore when I am reading or trying to write and spell them – weird but true.

Spelling word “apologize” learned during the Dyslexia Reading Program.

Clay model showing the meaning of “always” (at all times) done during the Dyslexia Correction Program.

The post A Typical Day with My Dyslexia Tutor appeared first on Learning Tools.

English class has always been a nightmare for me, I was hopeless at writing text, or at least coherent paragraphs.  In grade school, it was spelling and grammar that I hated. Then middle school we were writing about books we read, and while that wasn’t quite as bad (because I could use sentences from books) it was the sequence and organization of what I wrote that challenged me. In high school, I soon had to formulate words to express my own feelings about what we were reading. Writing spilled over into other subjects and whenever I had to write an essay I felt sick. In college, we are supposed to be experts and remember all those things from English class to write intelligent thought-provoking papers for all classes.

For me writing was excruciating, it was also a barrier to my goal, graduating from college. I was at a small liberal arts college and I don’t’ know if we didn’t have tutors, or if I was just too humiliated to find out. But, because I was determined, I faced the humiliation of asking friends to help me correct my papers. Wow, what a blow to one’s self-esteem after you have rewritten a paper two, something three, times before you show it to someone and then have it come back to you a red marked up mess. I remember fearing what my classmates me thought of me, I had only a trusted few I would ask for help. Now that I am well into my 40’s, I am not quite so vulnerable, my skin has been thickened over the years.   Now it is easier to tell my stories and explain what a nightmare writing can before some, just like reading late can be for others.

Dyslexia: not just a Reading Problem

For me, my dyslexia didn’t show up as much with my reading, I was able to get by, I was really good at asking others what they thought, for listening to others and discuss topics. Understanding what I read could be hidden. What I couldn’t hide was my struggle with writing coherent sentences. I still struggle at times when I feel rushed or do not have a clear picture of what I want to say. When I was young I would procrastinate on the writing portion of homework, but it was because I would not know how to begin. I don’t know how many times I was told by teachers and friends to just start writing and then go back and correct it and make it readable. So much easier said than done. I tried out this method, and since I didn’t have a better solution, I used it, but it was not an efficient method for me.

Writing down anything that came to me actually gave me too many words to deal with. The problem with just putting whatever down on paper is I can ramble and ramble. The sequence of thought and/or the organization of ideas can be all over the place, but beyond that was getting the right words. I have really struggled with getting the right words for what I want to say, I say it so many times and in so many different ways that I confuse myself and my thoughts become muddied OR I don’t’ say enough of the right things because it is too obvious to me and I assume the reader would see it as being obvious as well.

I remember in college struggling and telling a friend that the words are just in a jumbled up in the sky and I can’t seem to pull the ones I want to use down to explain something. I understand this better now, I wasn’t seeing the words jumbled up, I was seeing what I wanted to express as a picture. Ever heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words?” There can be so much to see in a picture, especially one that is evolving and complex. Without a good understanding of the meaning of prepositions, adjectives, and adverbs describing those pictures I felt stumped. I just told my teachers I was stymied, their suggestion was to just write everything I thought and then clean it up – stream of consciousness writing.

Now I understand what the issue was with this method — I am not a verbal conceptualizer, I am not thinking with the sound of words, and this method was trying to help me get the words out. The actual issue I was having was not knowing which word to use because I didn’t have the meaning of high-frequency sight words that make up 75% of the words we use.

Meaning Based Program

The Davis methods are meaning based programs, they use symbol mastery to give meaning to words that cause dyslexics trouble – exactly what I needed.   I remember a moment during the program seeing what made up the trigger words list. I had an “ah ha” moment, I remembered being in German class in high school, getting a test back that was of German prepositions. I was looking at the test where you match a word with a picture. I had done poorly on it and I was confused as to why I got so many of them wrong because I knew the English equivalent. Back then I couldn’t figure it out, now it is clear as day to me, I didn’t have the right meanings of the English preposition to match with the picture on the test.

The Davis Dyslexia Correction Program has helped me move beyond my fears of words. I now understand the meaning of words at a much deeper level. I also have the ability to be focused enough to see my errors. I can clean up my writing to a place where I can be pretty sure it is understandable to others. Before I really thought I was broken when it came to expressing myself, now I see it for what it is.

Writing Text: My Method

My method to write text is a combination of methods.  I use outlining, mind mapping, as well as stream of consciousness depending on what I am writing.  Email start with bullet points.   This writing I started with bullets as well, he is what I had down:

• English class nightmare- Writing hard
• Experience
• Method not helpful
• Why – picture thinker
• Trigger words
• What Davis did

I put this on my page and then wrote a bit under each bullet.   I tried a bit of stream of consciousness, but I am constantly coming back to my bullets to be sure that this is what I wanted to express.  For this writing, I ended up deleting quite a bit because it wasn’t relevant. I then reread it very slowly making sure that each sentence is the picture I want to present. I then put it away until the next day, look at it with fresh eyes.  I still like to have someone else look at it to find things I might have missed.

This method isn’t too different then what some teachers tell you to do, but what is different is me, the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding I have gained through mastering trigger words allows me to see it, reread it, and be present to words in a way that wasn’t possible for me before.

The post My Dyslexic Challenge: Writing Text appeared first on Learning Tools.

The definition of focus when used as a verb means to direct one’s attention or efforts.  

How do you feel when you are unable to focus?

Have you ever felt that you were:

• all “in your head” or so fuzzy and dizzy you just were not able to say what you wanted to say?
• or maybe you just want to concentrate and read the book that you had in front of you because you were exhausted from a busy day? But there’s so much going on that you couldn’t read, instead you heard the birds outside and then the train passed and then kids are playing and screaming and your dog got upset and started barking so there was just no way you could read?
• or how about you have an important paper to write and you know the information but you just couldn’t write what you wanted to write?

Each additional noise, or distraction increases the inability to focus and concentrate. Being able to focus is a skill; a skill that most of us take for granted.

Dyslexics have a low threshold for confusion, so they have a more difficult time focusing. To add to this low threshold of confusion thy have a unique ability of perception that allows them to see and experience things that aren’t common for those who use verbal conceptualization or “words” as their main means of thinking. A dyslexic’s perceptual ability actually creates what we call disorientation as in the senses are not aligned. When in disorientation, the ability to focus can feel unobtainable and usually takes removing oneself from the situation to refocus again.

For me, before I was given specific tools to get myself into a focused state, I needed to feel grounded and then I could focus, but without the feeling of being grounded, my ability to focus was severely handicapped. I would try to focus and remember my mind racing in class to find the words or answers I needed. I would make errors or be confused or was unsure of what I read and the harder I would try, the more frustrated and stupid I felt.

Without specific tools to get focused, one might have to get up and walk away from what they are doing, take a walk, try meditating, or listening to music.   It just depends on the person, but when they are a kid in school, they have to try to concentrate harder, which is exhausting and often doesn’t work. If they look out the window or start doodling on their page, they are given all sorts of labels, like lazy, unmotivated, or ADD/ADHD.

Not being able to focus means not being able to learn. So I believe good focusing tools are the key to success. The Davis® methods do a fabulous job of giving students a quick and easy way to focus. The intensive program is the perfect way to be in a safe place with a facilitator who is an expert on detecting disorientation. The facilitator can point out and help guide the student to times they need to use their focusing tool so they master their ability to focus quickly, easily, and at will.

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