Wednesday, September 15, 2010
VISION, LEARNING and the LUK SYSTEM
Vision is the result of child’s ability to interpret and understand the information that comes to him through his eyes.
It is important that children described as smart in everything but school, can be helped early enough that they may become smart at school too.
OBSERVABLE VISUAL PERFORMANCES:
Eye movement skills:
This is the skill of speed and control of visual inspection and scanning of visual materials so that the child obtains the greatest amount of information with the least time and effort. If the eye movements are slow, clumsy and uncoordinated and if the eyes jump, jerk or loose their place on learning materials, the amount of information obtained by the child will be well reduced.
The improvements are notable if the child is given special action skills as well as visual and developmental experiences.
Eye teaming skills:
The human sight system is designed so that the paired eyes and muscles can team up that the two eyes perform like one. If the child does not gain the skill and unity of full eye teaming he will experience learning difficulties. The child will be clumsy and will have problems with writing and handling teaching material.
Eye hand coordination:
The ability and proficiency depends on the use, practice and integration of eyes and hands. On this skill depends the ability to make visual discrimination of size, shape and location of objects. This skill is essential for visual interpretation of words and numbers in workbooks.
The child's paperwork will show extreme lack of orientation on the page, he will have difficulties to stay within the lines. He will have problems with multiplication, division, fractions, measurement etc. His written work will lack structure and punctuation will be a challenge.
Visual form perception:
Its purpose is the immediate and accurate discrimination of visible likenesses and difference, a skill that is necessary for learning to spell, to recognise symbols such as - + x ÷ or like terms in algebra etc.
Figure ground perception:
Is the ability to focus and isolate a desired (important) image from the background. As the brain receives thousands of visual stimuli and sees many images at the same time, it has to be able to suppress some and give a “go” to some that are interesting, exciting or needed. Research and comprehension skills depend on this.
Poor focusing skills , eye teaming, eye hand coordination and figure ground are the main cause for poor attention skills, disruptive behaviour, and are the main cause of failing to achieve.
When you look at something you don’t just see with your eyes, you focus, discriminate identify and interpret information.
Children are more and more forced to deal with lengthy prolonged near visual tasks. Our vision was designed for more distant vision. The stress on visual system has produced many adverse symptoms and problems.
Vision is a complex combination of learned skills, including tracking, fixation, change of focus, binocular fusion and visualization. When all of these are well developed, children and adults can sustain attention, read and write without “careless” errors, give meaning to what they see and hear and rely less on movement to stay alert.
Visual therapy:
Enhances and develops visual skills that are poorly or inadequately developed.
If:
The child experiences headaches, some neck and upper back pain, blurred vision, is tired, itchy, or has watery eyes, the discomfort is likely related to the heavy vision load of working at near distance.
We, at Jays’ Education, are aware of the association between vision and learning. We recognise the importance of vision in the development of children.
We are aware that the vision problems that impede learning are usually not obvious to teachers and parents, and they go undetected in traditional vision screening. Visual dysfunctions are often interpreted as poor coordination, learning problems, AD(H)D, lately also as Autistic Spectrum Disorder, dyslexia etc.
Our workbooks are specifically designed to make reading, spelling and maths visually friendly. Pages are uncluttered, set out in easy to follow steps. The print is clear, the instructions are given in slow sequential steps. Each page deals with one fraction of an outcome. Each consecutive page takes the child right through the workbook so at the end of the workbook the desired outcome has been reached.
While teaching and reinforcing academic skills the program’s aim is to develop the child’s visual skills to a level that will no longer make learning so difficult. All our books deal with visual perceptual difficulties in the best way possible.
What makes the LUK system so great for the child’s development?
It is the set order in which the tasks have to be done.
1. All the tiles have to be assembled from 1 to 24 (Mini LUK 1 to 12) .
2. A page has to be selected, looked at, worked out what to do, worked out which
are the questions, which are the answers. Where are the LUK code numbers.
3. Take tile number 1, place it under or next (or above) question or problem or
picture or word, think, look for the answer, look for the code number, change the
focus from the sheet to the LUK box, find the code number. Take tile number 2,
place it under, next (above) question (problem), find the answer, look at the code
number, place the tile on that number in the LUK box. Work out all the answers
one by one in that manner.
4. When all the tiles are in the LUK box, close the lid. Turn the box over sideways
and open the box. A pattern is formed by the back of the tiles.
5. The child matches the pattern on the sheet with the pattern in the box.
Many stages of the perceptual development could be noted when working with LUK:
· Eye hand coordination, as the child handles the tiles, looks for the questions, places the tiles in the LUK box
· Focusing skills and eye teaming skill, the child has to focus and refocus and again refocus looking for tiles, for questions, answers, the tile code numbers, looking for that number in the box, placing the tiles on those numbers
· Figure ground perception, the answer (words, pictures etc.) have to stand out from the background, the little number stands out from the word, picture next to it.
When looking for a numerical answer, the child has to distinguish the code number from the answer number.
· Sequence of steps taken and then retracing the steps, take the tile, place it under the question, look for the answer, note the code number, find that number in the LUK box, place the tile on it and back to the beginning again
· Task completion, the task is completed when all the tiles are in and the pattern is displayed. The child develops continuity, planning (anticipates the pattern) endurance, resilience, satisfaction from a job well done
· Anticipation, the child anticipates a reward - a pattern that means: “Work well done.”
The LUK system is recommended for grade 1 with suitable workbooks and with workbooks all the way to year 8, higher grades use it for children with learning difficulties. Books are age appropriate for all ages. Children like the system (program), they think of it as a game, it gives them confidence and satisfaction from job well done. They can see their improvement.
Monday, August 16, 2010
LUK Workshop
Demonstrates self checking LUK program.
Is your child experiencing difficulties in learning to read and spell?
Does your child find tables too hard?
Is Math too difficult even to try?
You are invited to participate in the hands on workshop hosted
by Hana Jay at Queensland Education Resources Expo Brisbane
Convention Centre. Workshop starts at 11.15 a. m. sharp
Sunday 12th of September.
More information? Ask us by info@jayseducation.com or use http://www.educationshow.net.au/documents/A2PosterLR.pdf.
Tom Jay
http://www.jayseducation.com
Saturday, May 1, 2010
LIGN: justify; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Not all search engines are born equal. Do I hear you say I know that?
Fine, lot of people use Google, so do I, it is fast and gives excellent results BUT
the smart searcher knows to use other engines for specific searches. At http://www.jayseducation.com/RelatedLinks.html there are number of alternative links to other search engines listed.
If you are looking for a documentation, scientific quotations, research material etc, use Google
Scholar, you will not be disappointed.
If Google does not give you enough answers on first page, and that will happen time to time use meta engine as Dogpile it will give you entries from multiple search engines fast and instantly at the same time.
Looking for a specific answer to a question expressed by a sentence like: “Why does thunder make noise?” Visit Hakia.
There are number of specific search engines and information resources for example: Jewish
Encyclopaedia. A good place to start is at http://www.jayseducation.com/.