ABA is used as an Autism Intervention, But What is ABA?

ABA or Applied Behaviour Analysis is most commonly known in Ireland as an intervention for people with autism but did you know that ABA was not designed specifically for autism?

Applied Behaviour Analysis is the science of human behaviour. The best definition available is by Baer, Wolf, & Risley in 1968: ‘Applied Behaviour Analysis is the process of systematically applying interventions based upon the principles of learning theory to improve socially significant behaviours to a meaningful degree, and to demonstrate that the interventions employed are responsible for the improvement in behaviour’.

Specifically, ABA involves the principles of learning theory. That is, the use of reinforcement and other important principles to increase behaviours,generalise learned behaviours or reduce undesirable behaviours, is fundamental to ABA.

It was not until the 1960s that researchers began exploring Applied Behaviour Analysis as a method to educate children on the autism spectrum. Behavioural analysts agree that consistency, in and out of the classroom, is key in order for children with autism to develop to their greatest potential. It is vital that teachers and parents using ABA evaluate the interventions to determine their efficacy and make changes as needed to insure consistent and ongoing progress.ABA programs and interventions should focus on outcomes for the learner that will have socially significant consequences to a meaningful degree.

There are many different teaching strategies that are used under the umbrella of Applied Behaviour Analysis. These include shaping and chaining behaviours along with specific teaching strategies such as discrete trial instruction, pivotal response training, incidental teaching, fluency based instruction and many more.

The first step in Applied Behavior Analysis is to analyse the behaviour. This is done using the ABC model:

A – Antecedent – a directive or request for the child to perform an action.

B – Behavior – a behavior, or response from the child i.e. successful performance, noncompliance, or no response.

C – Consequence – a consequence, defined as the reaction from the therapist, which can range from strong positive reinforcement (ie. a special treat, verbal praise) to a strong negative response, “No!”

The following are some of the techniques used in ABA

Chaining: the skill to be learned is broken down into the smallest units for easy learning. For example, a child learning to eat independently may start with learning to unscrew a jam jar lid. Once the child has learned this, the next step may scooping the jam out with a teaspoon, and so on.

Task Analysis: a process in which a task is analysed into its component parts so that those parts can be taught through the use of chaining: forward chaining, backward chaining and total task presentation.

Prompting: the parent or therapist provides assistance to encourage the desired response from the child. The aim is to use the least intrusive prompt possible that will still lead to the desired response. Prompts can include:

• Verbal cues ie. “Take off the lid of the jam jar “
• Visual cues ie. pointing at the jam jar
• Physical guidance ie. moving the child’s hands to unscrew the lid
• Demonstration ie. taking the lid off to show the child how it is done.

Fading: the overall goal is for a child to eventually not need prompts. This is why the least intrusive prompts are used, so the child does not become overly dependent on them when learning a new behavior or skill. Prompts are gradually faded out as the new behaviour is learned. Learning to unscrew the jam jar lid may start with physically guiding the child’s hands, to pointing at the jar of jam, then just a verbal request.

Shaping: is the gradual modification of an existing behaviour of a child into the desired behaviour. For example  a young child who only engages with their pet by hitting it. Although time consuming, the parents intervene every time the child interacts with the pet, grab their hand and turn the hit into a stroking motion. This is paired with positive reinforcement “It’s great when you are gentle with …!” and doing a favourite activity immediately afterwards as a reward.

Differential reinforcement: Reinforcement provides a response to a child’s behaviour that will most likely increase that behaviour. It is “differential” because the level of reinforcement varies depending on the child’s response. Difficult tasks may be reinforced heavily whereas easy tasks may be reinforced less heavily. The teacher must systematically change the reinforcement so that the child will eventually respond appropriately under natural schedules of reinforcement (occasional) with natural types of reinforcers (social). Reinforcement can be positive (verbal praise or a favourite activity) or negative (an emphatic ‘no’). Positive reinforcement is an incentive given to a child who complies with some request for behaviour change. The aim is to increase the chances the child will respond with the changed behaviour. Positive reinforcement is given immediately after the desired behaviour has occurred so that it will shape the child’s future behaviour.

Generalisation: once a skill is learned in a controlled environment (usually table-time), the skill is taught in more general settings. Perhaps the skill will be taught in the natural environment. If the student has successfully mastered learning colouring at the table, the teacher may take the student around the house or his school and then re-teach the skill in these more natural environments.

April is Autism Awareness Month.

Elaine Sparling is the CEO of the award winning Hummingbird Learning Centre®. Based in Adare, Co Limerick and Tralee, Co Kerry, she works with clients on a one to one basis and can be contacted on 087-2996054 or through this website www.hummingbirdlearning.com. We are currently developing a week long Irish Course for summer 2016.The online version of our popular workshop The Secrets to Successful Spelling™ is available through this website and on our Facebook page and we have launched our in house Study Success Program™ for second & third level students.

How to deal with Sight (Dolch) Words when Learning to Read

In 1948, Edward William Dolch PhD, of the University of Illinois, in his book ‘Problems in Reading’ identified a list of words that he believed to be essential for all students to learn first.  He had researched children’s books to determine which words were most frequently used and after careful analysis and professional judgment, he derived a list of the most common words, usually referred to as sight words.  The Dolch list of 220 words includes conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives and verbs.  He referred to these words as ‘tools’ or ‘service’ words because they are used in all writing regardless of subject matter.

Many teachers have found this to be true.  Although most of the 220 Dolch words are phonetic, children are sometimes told that they can’t be ‘sounded out’ using common sound-to-letter implicit phonics patterns and have to be learned by sight; hence the alternative term, ‘sight word’. Unfortunately, English is not a simple a phonetic language and not all words can be sounded out. So Dolch maintained that teaching children the simplicity of recognising words by sight, they stand a better chance at becoming fluent readers.

In addition to the 220 “service words”, Dolch also put together a list of 95 common nouns which appeared most frequently in children’s books at the time, some of which seem outdated today.

In my experience, the difficulty that many children have with sight words is that most sight words are abstract words and therefore it can be difficult to understand what the word means.  Think about it.  How do you explain the word ‘it’ or ‘and’ or ‘if’ or ‘but’?

It is easy to get meaning for a car or boat.  Before learning how to read, a child has already absorbed language & understands the meaning of many words, even abstract words. They understand them in context even if they are unable to accurately verbalise their meaning.

It is very important that sight words are taught in context and with meaning.  The student needs to be able to visualise and hear the meaning.  For example, for the word ‘if’ they should have a mini movie in their head as to what it means – If I eat too may sweets what will happen?  When saying the word ’if’, it should sound like a question.

Learning to spell the word first will also make reading it easier, especially if the word is not spelled phonetically.  The student will recognise the pattern of the letters, have meaning behind it and know the correct pronunciation, thus making reading the word in the future much easier.

I do not believe in using flashcards when beginning to learn the Dolch words.  They place huge stress on the student.  It is far better to use a good story which has specifically incorporated the 220 words.   Even better, why not get the students to come up with their own stories? The crazier the better!  We learn so much better and much more easily when we are enjoying ourselves.

Parental involvement is key to all learning, but especially when taking on the hundreds of sight words children need to know!  Communication is paramount here.  If you have a student who is struggling with sight words, contact the teacher and ask them specifically for help with this. Struggling with sight words does not automatically mean that there is an underlying learning difficulty.  In my experience, it can be easily and quickly resolved through the following simple strategies:

• Have meaning for the word – create a mental image for it, one that makes sense to the child
• Be able to spell the word – have a mental photograph of the entire word
• Hook the meaning and selling together
• Avoid phonics and the brain will recognise the word more readily.
• Write down the word when spelling it rather than reciting it.
• Use sentences rather than calling out lists of words. When a child writes sentences, it gives them exposure to the sight words in a meaningful way.

Sometimes, more experienced readers may skip sight words when reading aloud.  This does not necessarily mean that they are struggling with reading.  Reading aloud is slower than reading silently and very often it means that the brain is speed reading over the Dolch words. It doesn’t have to focus on them because the brain automatically fills in the words when reading silently. This is because the brain is focused on the meaning of the sentence rather than reading each individual word.

For further information contact Elaine on 087 2996054 or Elaine@hummingbirdlearning.com

6 Easy Tips for Back to School but with a Study Plan in Place!

The New Year always brings with it New Year Resolutions.  Those guilt laden promises we make to ourselves each year where we are going to do so much and do it better than before!  We tend to bite off more than we can chew though and then remonstrate ourselves when we can’t keep our resolutions.  We get totally overwhelmed and demoralised and, rather than feel like that, it is so much easier to give up.

Students facing into a new term can also feel overwhelmed.  Going back to school after Christmas, they are full of good intentions regarding their study, especially if they are in a big exam year. Elaborate study plans are drawn up, colour co-ordinated and printed out.  They are going to spend hours studying and it’s going to be so easy – until the first wobble comes. Suddenly they are overwhelmed, annoyed with themselves for not sticking to the plan and it goes by the wayside.

But it don’t have to be like that.  With a little more thought, a really successful and flexible study plan can be put in place.

Here are my 6 easy tips:

#1 Set your Objectives: There is no point on setting out on a journey without knowing where you want to arrive at! Write down the reasons why you are creating the study plan (yes, ‘because I was made to’ is a reason) and then write down the goals you want to achieve. Imagine yourself achieving those goals, feel how good you feel having achieved those goals, see yourself beaming from ear to ear and hear everyone congratulating you on your success. Make it as real as possible and ensure that your goals are true to you and what you want to achieve. Review them regularly to make sure that you are staying true to your plan.

#2 Get your Props Ready: Preparation is key so to make planning really easy gather your props in advance.  I recommend the following

• Timer / Clock
• Multi-coloured markers / pens
• Good study lamp
• Cookbook stand to prop textbooks on
• Computer / Laptop / Tablet
• Paper Diary

Study Tip No 3 use an Online Diary

#3 Online Diary: This is really important because I like to use a combination of an Online and Paper diary.  The Online Diary is for the big picture stuff while the paper diary is for the detail.  Let me explain; set up Google Calendar and block off chunks of time, using different colours e.g. Green for School. Firstly block off time for School, travel, eating, TV, breaks, Sports etc.  It is really important to schedule in downtime and sports as these help the body and brain relax, switch off and regenerate, making us more alert. After that add in the time blocks for study periods.  This visual representation will make it really easy to see how efficient you need to be with your study time. It can also be accessed on a smartphone, avoiding scheduling conflicts. Set up reminders or alerts on your phone to take breaks & when to start studying. Technology makes all of this so easy.

#4 Paper Diary:Once you have created the Big Picture, you will know how much study time you have each day. Now it’s time to get down into the detail.  I recommend breaking time down into units of 30 minutes – 25 minutes studying, 5 minutes on a break.  This optimises the concentration levels for the brain. Consider your subjects and break them down into units – e.g. one chapter = 1 unit.  Now decide how many time units each chapter unit will need.  So if your history course has 25 chapters and it takes 1 hour to study / revise each chapter then you will need 50 time units to cover the course.  This very quickly allows the student realise how much time they need per subject and how efficient they need to be with their time. As soon as they have this, they then use the paper diary to fill in the time units in their study blocks with the subjects. Writing things down adds a kinaesthetic element to the plan and studies show that we are more inclined to do things when they are written down.

#5 Spreadsheets: Set up spreadsheets to track the chapter units that you need to do. This way you know what has been covered and when you revised it.  It also quickly shows what still needs to be done and will allow you to amend your time units if needed to ensure everything gets covered/revised sufficiently.

#6 Miscellaneous: This tip is kind of a catch all but I didn’t want to have more than 6 tips, otherwise setting up the Study Plan would have been too overwhelming when in fact it is really easy. These mini-tips are short and are the icing on the cake.

• Get loads of Sleep – burning the midnight oil is counter-productive. Sleep is vital.
• Eat well – avoid too many fatty and carb laden foods, they make us sluggish. Eat lots of good protein and salads

• Stay hydrated – our brain needs to be hydrated to work well so sip away on water throughout the day
• Be social – Get out and meet your friends. Schedule your meet ups, that way you won’t feel guilty when meeting them. Social interaction is really important, it brings balance and perspective.
• Treats – reward yourself when you reach your objectives – you deserve it!

 

Elaine Sparling Founder & CEO Hummingbird Learning Centre®

Elaine Sparling is the CEO of the award winning Hummingbird Learning Centre®. Based in Adare, Co Limerick and Tralee, Co Kerry, she works with clients on a one to one basis and can be contacted on 087-2996054 or through their website www.hummingbirdlearning.com. They have also launched the online version of their popular workshop The Secrets to Successful Spelling™ which is available here: The Secrets to Successful Spelling Online Course

Dyslexia & Me: Richard Branson

At Hummingbird Learning Centre we always say that dyslexia is a wonderful thing – it’s just that it needs a different strategy for reading & writing.

I remember when the Virgin Megastore opened in Ireland. I was working in Dublin in the late 80’s early 90’s and it felt so cool,modern & kind of dangerous to be in there, browsing through the records. The store had caused all kinds of outrage because they were selling condoms openly on the counter, flouting the law at the time. The radio waves were jammed with moral condemnation, probably I suspect, to the delight of its owner, the maverick entrepreneur, Richard Branson.

Early in his life, Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Media, struggled with dyslexia. “I struggled with dyslexia when I was at school, long before it was widely known—my teachers just thought I was just stupid, lazy or both. Words just looked like jumbles of letters on the blackboard to me.”

Richard Branson has made a name for himself by mixing creative passion with business ideas. His first commercial success came after he founded his dream business: a record label. That company, called Virgin Records, produced the Mike Oldfield album “Tubular Bells,” which was later used in the film The Exorcist.

But that wasn’t Branson first business.  His first was a magazine that he started while still at school. The magazine was so successful that he left school early to continue with it.  I always think that this was incredible.  Here was a guy who struggled with reading and writing, yet he started a magazine, where his trade and tools were words!

In a blog post on Virgin’s website, Branson attributed the Virgin brand’s success to his dyslexia: “However, there are still many dyslexics out there, especially young people, who feel held back by their condition. I used my dyslexia to my advantage and learned to delegate those tasks I wasn’t so good it. This freed me up to look at the bigger picture, and is one of the main reasons I have been able to expand the Virgin brand into so many different areas.”

That ability to see the ‘big picture’ is one of the many positive attributes of dyslexia.

There are many, many talented dyslexics out there,” Branson wrote. “In fact, some of the most creative people happen to have the condition.”  One of his ‘big picture’ ideas really couldn’t be any bigger – he created a company to make commercial SPACE travel a reality!

In addition, Richard Branson owns his own train company, an airline, a media group and even a Caribbean island, but it’s not all about making money.  He takes a different approach to customer care.  He advocates for looking after your staff first, then they will look after the customers. “I have always believed that the way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers, and that people flourish when they are praised.” “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

Branson also knows the value of making mistakes, something people who do dyslexia often find difficult: “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over. You learn by doing, and by falling over, and it’s because you fall over that you learn to save yourself from falling over.

He credits dyslexia with another of his signature management techniques: the habit of always taking notes. He writes in his 2014 book “The Virgin Way” that he learned as a child that if he ever had a chance at remembering anything, he’d need to jot it down. To this day, he says he carries a notebook everywhere.

The handwritten note habit has come in handy in management, negotiation, and even legal situations — he’s submitted his notebooks as evidence in lawsuits, he says.

It’s one of the “most powerful tools” in his “bag of business tricks,” Branson writes.

Dyslexia, Branson claims, actually made him a better manager, he wrote in his 2012 book “Like a Virgin,” and it became what he considers his “greatest strength.”

October is Dyslexia Awareness Month

Why Meaning is So Important for Spelling

When my boys were in primary school, they had an English book that was used for reading and spelling.  It was different to the type of reader that I had in school (who is old enough to remember the Maura, Seán and Rusty books).  Their English book was more of a workbook.  Along the left hand side were random words chosen simply because they were phonetically similar. Spelling homework was to learn off the words.  It was pretty easy to remember them, in the short term, because they all had the same sound.

Understanding what the word meant wasn’t really part of the process, but without meaning, learning how to spell the word is worthless.  Being able to use the word again, in the appropriate context, is an essential part of learning to spell. It is also an important aid in reading and composition. Why else would we need to do it?

In order to understand what a word means you have to either make a visual still image of it or create a contextual mini movie in your memory.  Creating this means that in the future when reading the word, for a fraction of a nano-second, that image pops back into your head and you have understanding.

This skill allows you to expand your vocabulary and comprehension.  It allows you learn new languages quickly and easily. Like all skills it must be learned and honed.  Controlling your images for spelling and comprehension is essential.  It is easy to make an image for nouns.  Imagine a dog – easy.  For abstract words it is more complicated but once mastered it too becomes easy.  This is where internal mini movies come into their own.

A good Thesaurus dictionary is a vital item in every home.  I think they are a wonderful way to connect words of similar meaning to the same internal image. If you come across a new word to spell and are unsure of the meaning, look it up in the Thesaurus.  Chances are that you already have an internal picture of another word that has a similar meaning to the new word.  Now all you do is tag the new word on to the same image.

Some skills are learned to do something that lasts for a short period of time.  Learning how to put meaning behind every word is a skill that will make spelling easy for the rest of your life.

Elaine Sparling is the creator of the Hummingbird Learning Method® and is about to launch the popular Secrets to Successful Spelling™ workshop, online, at the end of August. Based in Adare, Co Limerick, where she works with clients on a one to one basis, she can be contacted on 087-2996054 or through their website http://www.hummingbirdlearning.com

Use Your Brain For a Change

One of my favourite quotes is by Dr Richard Bandler and it is “When you want new results, it requires new thinking”.  Thinking is just something we do.  We are always thinking about something.  Even when we are asleep our brain is still working.

We are born with this amazing inbuilt computer but unfortunately it didn’t come with a set of instructions.  We have to learn how to use it as we go along and mostly we use it out of habits we have formed from watching and listening to others, so if we want to change those habits we have to think differently and to think differently we have to use our brain to get that change.

Your Brain

There is a lot of talk about people being right-brained and left-brained.  You might have taken one of those quizzes online to determine which you are.  The assumption is that a person who is ‘left-brained’ is more logical, analytical and objective and suitable for jobs such as accountant, solicitor or programmer.  The ‘right-brained’ person is said to be more creative, intuitive, thoughtful and subjective and might want to be an actor, graphic designer or therapist.

The reality is that people are not one or the other, they are not ‘right-brained’ or ‘left-brained’.  The theory grew out of the work of Nobel Prize winner Roger W Sperry.  He discovered that cutting the corpus callosum, the structure that connects the two hemispheres of the brain, reduced or eliminated seizures in people with epilepsy.

However, patients who had undergone the procedure also had new symptoms after the communication pathway between the two sides of the brain was cut. Some patients found that they could no longer name objects that were processed by the right side of the brain, yet they could still name objects processed by the left side of the brain. This led Sperry to suggest that language was controlled by the left side of the brain.

However, later research has shown that the brain is not nearly as neatly divided as this. The brain actually works best when both sides of the brain are engaged at the same time. Neuroscientists have found that the two sides of the brain work together to perform a wide variety of tasks and the two sides communicate through the corpus callosum.

In a study of over 1000 participants by the University of Utah, it was revealed that while activity was sometimes higher on one side or the other in certain critical regions, on average both sides of the brain were essentially equal in their activity. Dr Jeff Anderson, the study’s lead researcher explains “It’s absolutely true that some brain functions occur in one or other side of the brain. Language tends to be on the left, attention more to the right, but people don’t tend to have a stronger left or right sided brain network.  It seems to be determined more connection by connection”.

This makes the corpus callosum key in using our brain to evoke and strengthen new thinking.  Mid line exercises help to make those connections.  We need both sides of our brain working together to create strong neuropathways, making focus and recall much better and easier.

So the next time you take one of those quizzes, know that it’s just a bit of fun. Now I must go and check my horoscope.

So, what is Fluent Reading?

A while ago I was on a course and the trainer told us a story about the time that he was dead late for a course he was due to give. He rang the hotel to ask them to pass on the message that he was on his way & would be there as fast as he could.  The receptionist asked him where exactly he was & when he told her, her reply was “you can drive as fast as like, but it won’t make any difference when you’re going in the wrong direction”.

Like everything, reading with fluency takes practice, however there is no point in practicing & practicing unless you are practicing the right thing. Reading aloud is right up there with public speaking as one of the biggest fears people have.  It’s easy to see why. In many ways they are one and the same thing.  Making a mistake while reading aloud in a class full of your friends (& mortal enemies too), is every child’s nightmare. Nobody wants to be laughed or sniggered at.

Reading Tips from Hummingbird Learning Centre

So what exactly is ‘fluent reading’?  Fluent Reading is the ability to read smoothly and automatically with expression and attention to punctuation.  The speed at which you read is called the ‘Pace’.  The goal is to read at just the right pace, I call it the Goldilocks pace, not too fast, not too slow, just right!

‘Phrasing’ is chunking words together into meaningful phrases rather than reading, each, word, at, a time.

When reading aloud, it is important to make it interesting for the listener, to engage them, and this is done using your voice. Reading with feeling, changing your voice to match a character, adding excitement or other emotion by moving your voice up and down, or making it louder or softer, adds expression to text.  Using intonation and expression adds to reading fluency. In a nutshell, you should read as you would speak.

Finally, punctuation is there for a reason!  When reading pay attention to the punctuation.  It is there to help you to read aloud with meaning.  It is an aid to fluent reading because it tells you where to pause, where to breathe, where to stop, where to change voices and add dramatic effect.  You stop for a second at every full stop (period). You have an intake of breath at a comma.  Your voice goes up for a question mark. You add excitement when you see an exclamation mark!!! (You read that with excitement, didn’t you?).  You can change your voice for a character when you see “inverted commas”.

I think it is really important that before you read aloud, you read the text silently to yourself first.  You may only have time to scan it but this gives your brain a chance to see what the text is about.  Then when you actually read it aloud, it will feel more familiar and this helps to create fluent reading.  If you are helping your child with homework, give them time to read silently first, that way if there are any new or unfamiliar words they can ask about them in advance, rather than getting stuck on them mid-sentence.  Stopping to sound out a word while reading interrupts the reading fluency, so a little bit of preparation goes a very long way.

When I was a teenager I used to read at mass and one Sunday I was to read the second reading.  Unfortunately, the person was doing the first reading didn’t show up and I got an elbow from my dad for me to go up to the altar and do both readings. Panic!  I had only practiced the second one! Panic turned into sheer horror when I started to read.  The second paragraph had lists of names and places and tribes that were just about pronounceable had I practiced them, but now were double Dutch!! I stumbled through the first five or six, feeling my face go redder and redder and then I got some divine inspiration – I just skipped the rest!  A quick glance down the page got me onto the final straight and it was over.  Thankfully I was able to read the second lesson with ease, because I had practiced it.  I thought my dad would be livid with me but I later realised that nobody (except perhaps the priest, although I couldn’t even be sure about him), noticed that I had left out a huge chunk from the first reading.  I think that if I had tried to continue to read that difficult passage I would probably never have read in public again.

So, give your child a chance.  Allow them to scan and silently read the piece before they read aloud.  It will definitely help them to become more fluent readers.

Elaine Sparling is the CEO of the Hummingbird Learning Centre who help adults and children maximise their learning potential.  Based in Adare, Co Limerick, she can be contacted on 087-2996054, through their website www.hummingbirdlearning.com or on their Facebook Page

The Hummingbird Learning Method® and Me – How I used it at an interview

The Hummingbird Learning Method® certainly works for what we could collectively call ‘schoolwork’ but did you know that you can use all of our essential skills in your everyday life? I use them all the time, in fact I use the Hummingbird Learning Method® so innately now that I had to sit back & break down into bite sized pieces how I used them last week in preparing for, during and after my interview for the 2015 Dairymaster Rural Innovation Awards.

The Dairymaster Rural Innovation Awards are an all-Ireland, all-island Award for innovations that can make a real difference on farms which have a commercial application, innovations in any rural business as it is a key economic driver for farm families right across Ireland and innovations that make society a better place, ensuring a vibrant forward-looking community.

Our local Leader company, West Limerick Resources, suggested that we apply to the awards and as you can imagine, we were thrilled here at Hummingbird Learning Centre to have gotten through to the interview stage of the competition.  And so began the preparation for the interview and the trip down to Fermoy in Co Cork where it was taking place.

Glanworth Co Cork on my way to Fermoy

I have only been to Fermoy about 5 times in my life and while I had the address, I was unsure as to where exactly the building I was to go to was.  So I ran the movie in my head of my previous trips to Fermoy.  I recalled in as much detail as I could the towns & villages that I would pass through.  I imagined it in glorious sunshine and pouring rain. I chose the music that I would play on the journey and imagined myself listening to it.  I imagined all of the country smells that I might get on the way down, that particular smell when caught behind a tractor with a slurry tank, the smell of freshly cut grass, that peculiar Irish smell of a sunny spring day that holds the potential to turn into a long hot summer. I imagined my frustration if stuck in traffic and imagined how I would deal with it.

In vivid detail I saw myself leaving the Teagasc building in Fermoy, with a huge smile after the interview going really well.  I asked myself what would have had to have happened for me to have that feeling and I allowed my mind to fill in the blanks.  I focused in on that feeling and made it really strong.

I then began to mind map what I wanted to say during the interview.  We weren’t given any guidelines as to what we would be asked about so I went through the application form, the website and details of former winners in order to glean the buzzwords around which to build my mind map.  Once I had that I was able to add my Hummingbird Learning buzzwords and now I had a framework around which I could practice my presentation.  I knew exactly what I wanted to say and how to say it.

Before the interview I arrived early and left all electronic devices behind me in the car.  This allowed me to get grounded before I met the interviewers. I chatted to the receptionist as she brought me down to the waiting room and then I read the Teagasc report on the table and when through my own notes again.  All the time I made sure that I stayed grounded with both feet were on the floor – at the same time!

During the interview, I kept my feet on the floor and projected my mind map onto the wall behind the interviews (figuratively speaking of course). Naturally, there were questions that I hadn’t anticipated but by knowing my buzzwords I was able to get through them fine.  The interviewers were also very supportive and offered advice on how to grow Hummingbird Learning Centre.

As I write, the short list for the final stage of the competition has not been issued.  Of course I would love to progress but even if I don’t it was a fantastic achievement for us to have gotten this far in such a prestigious competition.  For me though, something I’m really proud of is that by using the Hummingbird Learning Method® I had that huge smile on my face and that wonderful feeling that I had only imagined when preparing for the interview, was with me all the way home in the car as I sang in the glorious sunshine of a rural Irish spring day.

Exam Weather Tips

As I write the sun is streaming in the window onto my back and it feels wonderful.  On days like today all seems good with the world.  My mum calls it ‘exam weather’; the freaky good weather we get just before the state examinations start.

But Elaine you say, the exams don’t start until June!  Ah yes, the written examinations are a few months away yet, but this exam weather arrived just in time for the oral language exams starting next week.  It does seem unfair that they begin just after the Easter holidays but c’est la vie (see what I did there?).

By now you will be ready for your test, with all of your revision done.  Now all you have to do is get through the short exam, so here are a few tips:

1. Remember that the examiner is your friend. They want you to do as well as you can.  If they ask you anything tricky it’s because up to that point they felt that you were doing really well and they wanted to develop that further with you. They are not there to make life difficult for you.
2. It’s ok to be nervous.  The examiner is trained to expect it and will do everything they can to ensure that you get off to the best possible start.  Once you get going you’ll be great.  Smile and tell yourself that you are relaxed.  Remember, fake it till you make it.
3. Breathe.  In through your nose, deep into your lower tummy and slowly out through your mouth.
4. Practice listening to yourself.  Use your phone to record yourself speaking in the language you are being tested in and replay it.  Listen to your diction, are you clear when you speak?  When alone in the room with the examiner, sometimes people become self-conscious as they hear themselves speak aloud in a very quiet room.  Practicing hearing yourself speak will make that experience a lot easier.
5. Know exactly what you want to say, so that even if you are temporarily thrown off guard you can easily bring the conversation back on track again.
6. Listen to your tempo.  The conservation should flow naturally. If you have learned off certain set pieces, practice them so that they seem unrehearsed and natural.  Use your phone here too.
7. Imagine yourself 2 minutes after leaving the exam room and everything had gone even better than you had hoped.  See yourself telling everyone how well it went, listen to the words you’re using like easy, brilliant, so nice, everything I practised came up.  Feel the smile on your face as you do.  Now see yourself float up over that happy excited person and turn and look back down your timeline to where you are sitting reading this now.  As you look become aware now of what you are doing now in the future to get to that happy place.  Float back along your timeline, taking in all of those learnings and float back into your body here and now, preserving all of the positive learnings.
8. Believe in yourself.  You have the work done.  Now just do it!

Time to Ditch the Highlighter

Highlighters, they come is such pretty colours; yellow, pink, blue, green, orange. And they’re so handy aren’t they?  Instead of underlining the important part of a text, you can simply highlight it and it pops out of the page making it so easy for revision – or at least that’s the theory.

In reality, almost the entire sentence gets highlighted. Everything seems important and it’s easier just to highlight every word.  Next the entire paragraph is highlighted and before you know it almost the entire chapter is highlighted.  In order to break it up a bit, you use different coloured highlighters for different sections. The overall result is that every word in the entire chapter now is important, must be learned and that can be overwhelming.

Instead of being an aid to study, highlighting creates stress and can actually become an impediment to studying.  In a report by the Association for Psychological Science, the authors, led by Kent State University professor John Dunlosky, examined 10 learning strategies and found that highlighting was one of the most ineffective methods.

Studies showed that they offer no benefit beyond simply reading the text. Some research even indicated that highlighting can get in the way of learning; because it draws attention to individual facts, it may hamper the process of making connections and drawing inferences.

When students highlight, they tend to highlight the entire sentence because they need to read every word in order for it to make sense to them. If they were to focus on the meaning, making mental images & movies, then the main ideas would be easier to recall.

I teach our hummingbirds to create mental images that make it easy to recall information.   Once these images have been created and are clear and strong, then we break them down into keywords or buzzwords as we call them.  These single word buzzwords are so strong that they allow the student to recall all of the detail that goes with those single words.

When coupled with a good note taking technique, the list of buzzwords makes revision really easy.   Instead of being faced with page after page of highlighted words and being overwhelmed by them, the student simply has a list of single words, all of which easily bring to mind the information required.  Study becomes much easier and less time consuming, meaning that the student can revise more often, ensuring that the information goes from the short term memory into the long term memory.

Perhaps it’s time to ditch the highlighter.

Elaine Sparling is the founder & CEO of the award winning Hummingbird Learning Centre, based in Adare Co Limerick.  She can be contacted at elaine@hummingbirdlearning.com , 087-2996054 or through her website http://www.hummingbirdlearning.com