I am often asked this question by worried parents and I would like to provide an answer in order for your child to receive a complete evaluation to provide support to help your child find a lifelong love of learning. A complete psychological evaluation for learning disabilities is paramount to address, remediate and support students with learning disabilities for several reasons. Testing and evaluation can provide the proper supports, class room accommodations and remediation strategies so that your child can access his/her education. This evaluation must be completed by a licensed child psychologist who has the credentials to test, evaluate and provide results specific learning disabilities. A complete psychological evaluation begins with a student study team (SST) meeting with stakeholders including school administration, special education staff, classroom teachers, school or private psychologist, occupational therapist, school nurse and parents. Before the meeting, parents may be asked to complete various questionnaires. During the meeting the team will discuss key information about your child, ask questions relating to pregnancy, infant developmental milestones, early childhood, current areas of struggle, strengths, weaknesses and potential concerns in order to provide a full picture of your child’s learning struggles. This meeting will provide the child psychologist key information about the type of tests and the array of testing to best understand your child’s learning struggles. A complete psychological evaluation should include a battery of tests including cognitive ability, IQ and tests that target the specific areas identified in the SST meeting. For dyslexia, testing should include phonological processing, auditory processing, rapid naming, working memory, OT evaluation to look at visual tracking and scanning, among others. These tests should take place over a span of days to provide a more accurate picture of your child’s abilities and struggles, not just a snapshot of one day of learning. These tests can be grueling for students, school administration and parents should be aware of the testing schedule in order to support emotions that come with testing.

Dyslexia is a learning disability, which primarily expresses itself as difficulty learning to read. It is a phonological processing disorder, which means some people have a hard time distinguishing and ordering letter, vowel, consonant team and vowel team sounds to form words and read fluently while comprehending. It can affect a person’s ability to speak, read and spell. Dyslexia is a prevalent learning disability, affecting 20 percent of the population. Though Dyslexia cannot be cured, this lifelong condition can be improved through structured literacy, intensive writing and spelling help from professionals like myself who use evidence-based Orton-Gillingham curriculum to remediate reading, spelling and writing skills. Some common signs of Dyslexia include: difficulty writing full name, difficulty writing ABCs in order, difficulty learning ABC song, days of the week, months of the year, difficulty learning nursery rhymes. Often puts shoes on the wrong feet and/or put clothes on backward, difficulty rhyming, mispronouncing familiar words, difficulty reading, difficulty/inability sounding out words, difficulty associating letters with sounds, letter reversals, often guesses at familiar looking words, trouble remembering dates.

Some students do well in school and are able to grasp, retain and apply new concepts after one brush of classroom instruction, while others need additional support with targeted instruction, proven strategies, breaking concepts down into smaller chunks and more practice until concepts are mastered—that’s where academic support from me at My Learning Farm comes into play. I work with students where they are and provide the support they need to understand, remember and apply new concepts in reading, writing and math. Providing support builds student confidence, understanding and helps them build a solid academic foundation. Whether your child struggles in one academic area or several; I can help to bridge gaps. Building academic skills, confidence and a love of learning are the core of what I do to support students and families. I fully understand the busy lives families lead these days and finding the time and resources to help your child at home can be challenging on many levels-distraction-free settings, consistently delivering support, parent-child relationship power struggles, work, activities, life. I have a passion for helping kids succeed and I build skills through targeted supports, trust, fun and build relationships with students and families. I would love to talk with you more and find out how I can help your child succeed. Thanks Sara Mattia www.mylearningfarm.com 916.215.1232

Structured literacy programs are explicit, systematic teaching that focuses on phonological awareness, word recognition, phonics and decoding, spelling, and syntax beginning with words and building to sentences, paragraphs and controlled text for students who struggle learning to read, decode and read fluently. Not all structured literacy programs are equal, for students who lack phonetic awareness, (the understanding of letter sounds, vowels, blends) an Orton-Gillingham structured literacy program is often touted as the gold standard. These programs are evidence-based for students with learning disabilities including Dyslexia and are most effective for struggling readers. Structured literacy programs systematically teach over 200 phonics rules in the English language and provide students with the opportunity to practice decoding, reading and applying phonics rules. This explicit instruction allows students to gradually build one rule atop another to improve reading, fluency and decoding. When students gain an understanding and application of phonics rules they can decode and improve reading. Structured literacy programs are often taught in a one-to-one setting in order to work within each student’s ability and pace. Using a professional tutor who has knowledge of and experience with explicit phonics instruction is important to ensure student success. Explicit instruction means the tutor clearly explains, models and allows the student to model, understand and practice phonics rules until mastered, improving reading and understanding of language. Quality structured literacy programs are multi-sensory and include books, word lists, phonics games and other instructional materials to immerse students in learning and applying phonics rules. Giving students the tools to understand phonics rules help them to understand and apply the rules while reading. Finding the right structured literacy program and the right tutor for your child is important to finding reading success.

Here are some of the associations that I frequently look to for new techniques and insights on what works: International Dyslexia Association NorCal Dyslexia Association What is Dyscalculia? What is Dysgraphia? What is Orton-Gillingham Phonics? ADHD Resources

-Low scores on classroom assessments, report cards, progress reports -Teacher/parent observations `-Student’s inability to read, write or solve math problems within grade standards consistently -Spending above average time to complete homework and needs constant parent support -Student reporting dislike of school, embarrassment in abilities, frustration -Reading- student unable to: identify and make alphabet sounds, struggles with sight words, lacking application of phonics rules, inability to read fluently and understand text is read left to right -Writing- student unable to: write with capitalization/lowercase, proper spacing between words, punctuation, letter reversals, inserting capital letters into the middle of words, spelling challenges, sentence structure deficits. -Math- student unable to write numbers, understand place value, work consistently within the 4 operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

The answer to this question is not one-sized-fits-all and it depends on each child’s needs. My services are best utilized when parents, students and classroom teachers notice discrepancies in certain areas of reading, writing or math. It may mean a low score on a reading assessment, skill-deficits in progress reports, report cards, parent observations and teacher-feedback. It may mean that the time the student, parent or teacher are spending a lot of time on specific areas of need, but not seeing an increase in skills and or student’s ability to apply new skills with consistency. For those students who have already been diagnosed with learning disabilities or learning challenges through an Individual Education Plan (IEP) or 504 Plan, it may mean additional targeted 1:1 consistent support to build skills using evidenced-based curriculums and programs that give students an opportunity to learn and apply new knowledge through explicit instruction. This approach also allows schools to work on other goal areas in a more focused way. So whether your child is struggling in reading, writing, math or has a diagnosed learning disability, I offer services (LINK) to best support your child to reach his/her academic potential.