Here is a teacher who knows how to use a test to maximize learning:

I was quite impressed by a certain science teacher in the Richmond School District. This science teacher teaches my client’s daughter who is in grade 8.

Why am I impressed? Well, whereas most teachers would just use a test to see how much a student has learned, this science teacher goes beyond that. Mr. Smart* actually asks his students to take the marked tests home, correct the mistakes, and then bring the corrected tests back for an “upgrade”— that is, if done right, the teacher would move the grade one notch up. If, for example, a student got a “C+” and he/she dutifully corrected all the mistakes and brought the test back to the teacher, the final grade for the test would be “B+” instead of the original “C+.”

This is very clever. By dangling a carrot before he students – promising to revise the marks for a properly corrected test— the students who didn’t do well the first time will be highly motivated to look carefully at their mistakes and to find out what the correct answer should be.

To me, that is getting maximum value from a test!

* The science teacher’s name has been changed to protect my client’s privacy.

Too little too late -- small garden hose for a big fire!

So much of what we do in special education has to do with being timely. The earlier we detect the learning problems, the earlier we can do something about it.

Unfortunately, early identification and intervention is much talked about and not practiced enough. A non-intrusive and fun screening done at our office which takes less than thirty minutes will often do the trick in detecting “at-risk” young children. This is why we offer School Readiness Screening so parents with young children entering kindergarten can have a chance to be alerted for possible learning problems.

The cost of the early screening is negligible when one considers how expensive LD intervention services can be. If parents allow learning problems to go unchecked, the cost at the end will be far greater. And I am talking about the social-emotional cost which cannot always be measured in financial terms. Many LD individuals suffer from having a low self-esteem as well as other social adjustment problems.

The earlier the LD student receives attention, the more likely the learning problems can be reduced so that they will not suffer unnecessarily.

One of the nicest and most original comments I have received recently from a Chinese client was this: she said, “You offer your services with the fluidity of water and the smoothness of silk.”

Somewhat surprised and puzzled, I asked her to elaborate on what she meant by that.

She then explained, “Well, through your consulting and strategic planning, you help us go around obstacles – just like water. Nothing can stop water; it has a way of getting through somehow. That is what you do best!”

“What about the silk part?” I asked.

My client answered, “You always smooth things out, whether it is through “diplomacy” or “networking” – you achieve goals without ruffling feathers. The process is as smooth as silk – it feels good to have problems solved discretely, without creating too much extra work for us, the parents. That is important for busy folks like ourselves.”

Needless to say, I was walking on air for the next few days, thanks to the kind words of my grateful client. I am very happy that what I tried so hard to achieve in my work can be “felt” and appreciated by my client.

The goal that I set for myself in managing our clients’ cases has always been the same: aim for excellence. We have expertise in learning disabilities in our organization; we have a “network of excellence” to draw from when it comes to finding suitable subject tutors; and we are efficient in solving the student’s learning problems. We help struggling learners reach their targets in a timely way!

Incidentally, the analogy of “water” and “silk” is very Chinese – “fluidity” has a sort of gentle dynamics to it while “smoothness” denotes grace and diplomacy.These are highly valued qualities in the Chinese culture.

An army of a thousand is easy to get;
a competent general is hard to find.

Last week, I had the pleasure of having the founder of Dojang, Mr. Robert Lynds, visit my office in Point Grey Village. The purpose of our meeting was to discuss the possibility of developing some classes for pre-school children to foster literacy and numeracy readiness through movements associated with Yoga, Tai Chi, and martial arts.

Our discussion touched on the topic of “excellence” and how to create a positive atmosphere where everyone is happy doing what they do best. The formula for “excellence” is really quite simple and yet difficult to achieve: to attract people of excellence to an organization, you have to “be” an example of “excellence”. In other words, leadership is key, …and good leaders are hard to come by.

In a recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek, Terry Gou, the founder of Foxxcon, the designated assembling outfit for i-phones, i-pods, and a host of other electronic products, is noted for one of his favorite sayings: “An army of a thousand is easy to get, one general is hard to find.” How apt this comment is in regards to leadership!

As a successful businessman, Terry Gou understands the secret to running an organization with excellence. Ironically, this successful assembler of gadgets does not come from a very educated background, unlike Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft.  Terry Gou realizes that in order to keep up with the industry, he will need to do more in the research and development end of things. Will he be able to attract high performers in the scientific field to work for him? Smart people have a mind of their own; money is not the only driving force behind their motive to work for an organization. There are other considerations. Does Terry Gou have the authority that is so essential in leading? In other words, will his “army” of scientist march to his tune? This should be an interesting challenge for Terry Gou!

Some people want to know the secret of our success in managing difficult cases involving LD and ESL children. My answer is: “We attract quality individuals to work for us”. Yes, we do pay our tutors extremely well, but then I am also happy to report that I never hire “lovers of money”—our tutors are all especially recruited for each “assignment” and they take on the “job” out of a love to help others with their knowledge and gift for teaching.

One of the reasons why we are able to attract and retain intelligent and responsible tutors is that they feel understood, appreciated, and challenged intellectually.  As leader of our organization, Dr. Winnifred Tang & Associates Learning Management Inc., I keep up with research in our field on a daily basis and I pass on new information to our crew of tutors constantly. If they encounter difficulties, I am there to help them solve problems and to support them. I also give our tutors a great deal of flexibility and “space” to express their uniqueness in their work. All our tutors are multi-talented individuals with high ideals!

People who don’t share our philosophy and approach will either not be allowed into our organization in the first place, or they won’t last very long.

What is Dr. Winnifred Tang & Associates Learning Management Inc.? We are about quality and excellence: those associated with my practice are highly educated individuals with a proven record of achievement in their fields. We are about using the best of science to inform our diagnosis and treatment of learning disabilities, and at the same time, we design intervention design and delivery it to our clients with artistry. We are both scientists and artists at the same time!

It was a very cozy and pleasant gathering. We had the talk (without the slide projector due to technical difficulties!) and a very stimulating discussion afterwards. Of course, there was the delicious Black Forrest cake and pastries and tea too. In short, we all enjoyed ourselves very much. Even my co-workers felt the same way despite of the huge amount of planning and work that went into putting on an event like this. We really do wish that more educators could join us for tea and “shop talk” at Hycroft. It was just so much fun! However, we do know that this is a tense time in our public education system and teachers are overworked and they really do not have that much time to spare. For this reason, we felt really honored to have the number of guests that we had.

So, here is the slide show that was actually not shown on the day of the talk. Yes, “yours truly” (me) brought the wrong projector for the occasion and my guests had to listen to me speak without the slides. In fact, I was so flustered about the absence of the slide projector that I must have been incoherent when I spoke! So, I hope the slides will make up for my performance that evening.

(Please click “HERE“ for the slides.)

The message we want to get across is simply this: LD children do not necessarily have to be in a special school where all the students have LD. With proper support, they can do very well in a regular school setting. The school-based team, working together with an intermediary special education service such as us, can produce some very encouraging results.

Summer is a good time to jump-start LD intervention. Teachers should encourage parents to take advantage of this time to help their children move ahead!

We are having Tea & Talk @ Hycroft for Chinese-speaking parents on May 26^th, 2010. Chinese-speaking parents who find it hard to access special education services due to language barriers should make it a priority to attend this event!

Email us @: events@Learn2ManageLD.com to RSVP.

Dr. Winnifred Tang & Associates Learning Management Inc. is organizing a talk for Chinese-speaking parents which will take place on Wednesday, May 26^th, 2010, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Hycroft, home of The University Womens’ Club of Vancouver. There will be a tea reception afterwards so parents will have a chance to chat with all of us from the office of Dr. Winnifred Tang.

Tea & Talk @ Hycroft for Chinese-Speaking parents is intended to be a cozy and leisurely event. We want parents to feel comfortable talking to us about their children’s learning problems. The beautiful setting at Hycroft, hopefully, will help us to achieve this purpose!

Interested parents should contact us as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. All the information is on the flyer.

We have opened an account at HSBC specifically for Tea & Talk @ Hycroft. Parents can go to HSBC directly and make a payment for their tickets. Before they do so, they should email us at events@Learn2ManageLD.com to ensure that the seats are still available. We will send out the HSBC account information upon confirming seat availability.

The registration procedures were designed to reduce unnecessary paper work and communication. We hope you will find this method of registering simple and convenient.

See you at Tea & Talk @ Hycroft on May 26^th at 7:00 p.m.!

Our clients are often pleasantly surprised by how quickly their children begin to experience the sweet taste of success once we begin working with them. Our secret? We take an “uncluttered” approach to our work and we keep things simple and direct. And that can only be done if one truly knows what he or she is doing!

I like to tell clients that we prefer not to have them spend unnecessary time and money if we can help it. For example, most psycho-educational assessments take six to eight hours and that is very stressful for the children, especially for the younger ones. With us, we can have a high quality psycho-educational assessment done by an experienced and respected psychologist for much less time and cost. And here, I am talking about an assessment that can stand up to the scrutiny of scientists working in the forefront of research in our field.

How do we do that? Well, we make it a priority to establish a professional network of excellence. We have a good working relationship with professionals in related fields who share our philosophy of simplicity and directness. These professionals will not sell unnecessary services. They are happy to help you when you need them, but only if you really need them. Why? Because they have better things to do with their lives than trying to waste your time and theirs!

Working with quality individuals is our secret to success.

The creation of CHARD is indeed a step forward by the British Columbia Medical Association, the Ministry of Health Services and HealthLink BC. For the longest time, one of the major challenges facing GPs and other health providers in the province has been a lack of information when it comes to referring patients to the right professionals to get timely and appropriate intervention for children with learning disabilities. Learning disabilities are learning problems related to academic learning; the most common ones are reading disability (dyslexia) and arithmetic disability (dyscalculia).

Many times, I have sighed and shaken my head at the fragmented service delivery for those with learning disabilities. For example, we have clients coming into our office with assessments from medical professionals such as pediatricians or psychiatrists; when we look at the date of these reports, we cannot help wondering why there is such a big time lapse from the time the client was suspected to have learning issues to the time they finally found their way to our office on their own. There is no intermediary service linking the diagnosis to appropriate special educational services. Medical professionals and special education professionals must work more closely to bridge the gaps in service delivery so client’s interests are best served.

Hopefully, with CHARD, gone are the days of parents having to rely on the “grapevine” for information when it comes to finding appropriate special education services for their children with learning disabilities! Sometimes it just takes too long for clients to find their way to our office and precious time is lost.

And so I say, “Bravo to BCMA, Ministry of Health Services and HealthLink BC!!!” It is high time medical professionals and special education professionals join together to serve patients more effectively. There has to be a way for parents to access evidence-based interventions for their children that are founded on sound scientific research.

Let’s drink to the CHARD initiative which is enabling the formation of this very desirable and productive union between the medical profession and the special education profession!

Happy New Year!!!