Is Your Right Brained Child Struggling in School?

By Melanie West, Educational PsychologistCopyright2010

If yours is a family heavily involved with your child’s schoolwork, or your child is getting poor grades and poor test performance and your household is totally distressed, take a deep breath and relax because help is on the way. With years of experience focusing on the child that has trouble learning, I know how challenging this can be on the family dynamic, but I also know that you can apply a whole new strategy that will help your child learn for success both in and out of school.
Redesigning How your Child Approaches Learning
For a number of years, I have been focusing my attention on children that have learning disabilities. In my travels, I discovered that many of the children I work with struggle with the learning process because they are right brained learners. Keeping that in mind, I unplugged from the traditional school model and designed a program that guides parents in effectively supporting learners that have dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalculia. Through a very unique program, I’ve redesigned the way children tackle the learning process so that they can build the foundation required for future school success.
New Approaches to Learning

To provide some examples as to how to work with right brain learners, you can actually see the strategies I’ve developed come to life in some of my programs featured online. The “Picture First Sight Words Reading Program” is an adult-guided program designed to support a Right-Brained Thinker. Achieved through the process of building pictures for the top 40 sight words in the English language, it is a revolutionary approach that uses a visual, kinesthetic, and auditory approach to mastering reading. Also available is a simple, step-by-step guide that helps you and your child understand right-brained learning. Filled with powerful learning tools, your child can use it to immediately improve school performance. To learn more about the programs, please take a look at http://www.therightsideoflearning.com/store.html where you’ll make some amazing discoveries about right brained learners. Here’s what a few happy parents had to say about these unique programs:

“I struggled with patience night after night trying to force my son to finish his homework. In February, the school warned that he was in danger of not meeting 3rd grade standards in reading. I was devastated. I learned about Melanie's work after speaking to a friend, and the theory of right-brained dominance was suggested. My son is right-brained in a left-brained world! Melanie West was amazing. She put a name to the issue, and gave us the tools and the knowledge to understand his way of reading, comprehension, and learning effective ways to adapt to left-brained modalities. My son now uses the tools he learned and brought back a final report card that blew us away. Working with Melanie has forever shaped and changed his life." M.F., Parent 5th Grade Boy
“We have worked with Melanie for over two years. She has guided us through uncharted waters and made them feel calm. My daughter loves her one-on-one time with Melanie- it's work time, but Melanie has such a beautiful way with children, they come and go with a smile. Melanie has helped our family understand that all children learn differently guiding us to understanding what turns the learning light on, and give meaning to the matter. There is no WRONG way of seeing things....only "left" or "right". Melanie always says, in the big picture- it is all good. Our entire family has been blessed by Melanie's understanding.” S.A., Parent 3rd Grade Girl
"Melanie West has been our son's educational savior for the past 3 years! Starting with Melanie's one-on-one workshops, our son was able to begin a journey of understanding how his brain really learned and apply those ideas into his everyday school work. Melanie also taught him relaxation techniques and other ways to calm his brain. Beyond this, I was fortunate enough to take one of Melanie's parent workshops. A thoroughly enjoyable experience that brought full circle what my son was working on and ways for me to better understand and help him in the process. Through Melanie, we were connected with an amazing tutor that works with our son with homework and so much more. I can't say enough great things about Melanie's services! E.S., Parent 7th Grade Boy
Work with your Child in the Right Way
If your life is consumed with your child’s school life or if your child is struggling with the learning process, the root of the problem very likely resides in the area of language processing. Plain and simple, he or she is probably a right-brained thinker, a thinker that has difficulties learning and retaining new concepts because his or her brain processes information differently. And while this child has trouble learning, there is a way to train yourself or your tutor to work with your child in the “Right Way.” When right brain learning is addressed correctly, life becomes simpler for you and your child and learning becomes an enjoyable experience for the whole household.