Empower your child...

At the beginning of the school year, "dyslexia guru" - the wonderful woman I work with & I always discuss with our dyslexic students about how their brain works. We end each lesson with them listing their strengths & desires for the future. We want to empower these precious children to embrace the way they were created. Knowing that they are dyslexic is a gift. They do have strengths and they need to focus on building these, thus building their self-worth and passions. If you have teenagers, you know that those two things are very important in a young person's life.

We have been discussing the brain this week and today I want to share some of the main points we cover during one of our "brain" lessons:

This is your brain on dyslexia...

The brain has two cerebral hemispheres:

The Left Hemisphere

controls language and information that comes in

or goes out a particular sequence or order.

It likes to work quickly.

The Right Hemisphere

controls visual patterns and information,

like parts of someone's face,

that comes in all at once. It works a bit slower

than the left hemisphere.

There are 4 major lobes that the two hemispheres are divided into:

Lobes of the Brain:

frontal lobes: right behind your forehead. They are the "orchestra leaders" of the brain. They help you concentrate, "light up" the part of your brain that figures out language with someone is talking to you, and control your behavior and your emotions.

parietal lobes: contains the sensory cortex --the part of the brain that receives information from all of your sensory organs, like your eyes, ears, skin, and sense of smell. Getting your muscles to move takes place right in front of the parietal lobe in the motor cortex. Something interesting about the motor cortex is that the right hemisphere controls the muscles on the left side of your body and the left hemisphere controls the muscles on the right side of your body.

occipital lobes: just behind the parietal lobes. It helps you understand information taken in through your eyes. These lobes help you catch a ball and do other similar things with your eyes.

temporal lobes: these are located right beneath the parietal lobes. This area has a lot to do with information such as language that comes in through your ears. These lobes are also needed for memory; however, memory is scattered everywhere throughout your brain. There are many different kinds of memory - memory for faces, vocabulary words, spelling, and smells.

Now, that is a very quick snapshot of the brain, but easy enough for a child to understand. I encourage all parents out there with a child who has a learning difference, to empower them with knowledge about their difference, their strengths, & with the understanding that they can become/do anything they put their wonderfully created mind to doing! Once a student understands what they are and how they work, life will be a whole bunch easier.

*information from: Keeping A Head in School, Dr. Mel Levine