11 Steps to Writing an Outstanding College Essay

Wouldn’t you love to hear from a college admission's counselor that they thought your college admissions essay was great?  Perhaps it was the deciding factor that got you into your number one college.  I have heard this story a number of times from my students, and I wanted to share some strategies that can help you to also achieve this goal.

1: Take your time.  This is one of the most important essays you will ever write, so give yourself the attention and resources to make it one of your best compositions.

2: Allow others to help you throughout the process.  Share your thoughts, ideas and written work with your peers, parents, counselors, and teachers for feedback and ideas.

3: Make sure that you find the best college for you.  Many students select a college based on reputation or peer influence, but reviewing the college website and marketing materials as well as talking with their students, admissions counselors and alumni is important to assure that it is the right place for you! 

4: Make it clear that you are the type of student that the college wants.  Look back through their website and marketing materials and note key words that resonate with you.  Next, write down any buzzwords that reflect the qualities they are searching for in prospective students.  You may want to use some of these words in your essay.

5: Read sample college essays from books or online resources. Make a list of ideas as you read through the essays and start a list of what works and what doesn’t work.

6: Find a topic or passion that will communicate your essence.  Make sure that you select a subject that tells the college about your strengths and unique qualities in a creative and engaging way.

7: Make sure you enjoy writing about the topic you select.  If you select a focus that excites and empowers you, this energy is often reflected in your writing.

8: Find a creative way to write your essay.  Selecting an imaginative strategy and tone is imperative. College counselors read thousands of essays and you want yours to be unique and memorable. 

9: Write a catchy opener and introduction.  It is extremely important that the beginning of your essay grabs the readers attention and makes them want to learn more about you. 

10:  Make sure the introduction and body of your essay addresses the question.  Many colleges ask prospective students to write an essay on a particular topic or theme.  As you write, make sure that you stay within the parameters of the question.

11: Edit, edit, did I mention editing?  Throughout the process, revise your work for content, mechanics, and spelling. 

If you would like more guidance and materials that will walk you through the process, with checklists, forms, and detailed handouts consider purchasing - Writing The College Essay Workshop.  

I hope you found this helpful!  If you have any questions or thoughts, please share them.

Cheers, Dr. Erica Warren
Dr. Erica Warren is the author, illustrator and publisher of multisensory educational materials at Good Sensory Learning and Dyslexia Materials.  She is also the director of Learning to Learn, in Ossining, NY.  To learn more about her products and services, you can go to www.goodsensorylearning.com  www.dyslexiamaterials.com and  www.learningtolearn.biz 

Using Beach Balls for Comprehension

I just love to use balls for teaching students.  It's a great way to accommodate and engage your kinesthetic and tactile learners, and it always brings the fun factor into your lesson!  I often purchase beach balls at the dollar store and use permanent markers to write down different, reading, writing, grammar, and math concepts.  

Here are a few things that I use balls for:

• parts of speech
• multiplication
• touch math
• vowel combinations
• types of sentences
• letters
• blending
• writing prompts

But for those of you who would like to buy ready made options, I just came across these nifty products on Amazon.  I included the links below.  

If you use balls for other lessons, please share your ideas.

Cheers, Erica

Dr. Erica Warren is the author, illustrator and publisher of multisensory educational materials at Good Sensory Learning and Dyslexia Materials.  She is also the director of Learning to Learn, in Ossining, NY.  To learn more about her products and services, you can go to www.goodsensorylearning.com  www.dyslexiamaterials.com and  www.learningtolearn.biz 

Free Reading and Spelling Game for the TCH or CH, DGE or GE, CK or K Rules

The English language is packed with confusing rules that can make decoding and reading difficult tasks to master.  What's more, many of the workbooks and activities are boring, and even if students complete the lesson, it doesn't mean that they can apply the content in a different learning situation.  However, presenting the same content in a game-like format can make a lesson memorable and engaging even for struggling learners.

Here is a fun game that my students love to play.  It's great for literacy centers or reading centers, and it will also assist students with spelling.

Materials:

• 1.5 -2.0 hole punch or round object that can be traced
• Craft paper
• Laminating sheets and laminator or 
• Round wooden discs from the craft store and glue
• Playing cards:  You can purchase blank playing cards on Amazon:  see link at the bottom, or use laminated craft paper and then write the letters on the blank side with a permanent marker.

How to make the game - using TCH and CH:

• Place the word beginnings onto playing cards.  I make a stack of at least forty cards.  Twenty cards should illustrate the beginning of TCH words such as MA, WI, DU, and STI. The other twenty cards should illustrate the beginning of CH words such as MUN, HUN, BEA, and BEL.  Many lists can be found on the internet.
• Make the spinning disc with the two word ending options on either side.  You can glue craft paper and colorful letters onto wooden discs, or glue two, thick, round pieces of craft paper together and laminate.

Instruction:

• Teach the students the spelling rule:  TCH is usually used after a short vowel sound, and CH comes after a consonant or long vowel sound.
• Teach the students the spelling rule:  DGE is usually used after a short vowel sound, and GE comes after a consonant or long vowel sound.
• Teach the students the spelling rule:  CK is usually used after a short vowel sound, and K comes after a consonant or long vowel sound.

How to play:

• At the beginning of each turn, the player spins the round disc with the word endings on them.  Hold the disc with one finger as illustrated and flick the edge with another finger.   
• When the disc falls to the table, select a card with the word beginning.
• Put the word beginning and word ending together to see if it forms a word with the correct spelling.  
• If it does, the player gets to keep the card.  If not, the card is returned to the bottom of the stack. 
• The winner is the first player to collect 10 cards.

If you would like to learn about some of my other popular reading games, go to: http://goodsensorylearning.com/reading-games.html  There, you can even download another fun, free game for learning the short vowels! 

I hope you enjoy this game.  I would love to hear you thoughts.

Cheers, Erica

Dr. Erica Warren is the author, illustrator and publisher of multisensory educational materials at Good Sensory Learning and Dyslexia Materials.  She is also the director of Learning to Learn, in Ossining, NY.  To learn more about her products and services, you can go to www.goodsensorylearning.com  www.dyslexiamaterials.com and  www.learningtolearn.biz 

Sight Word Jewelry

As the saying goes, "Out of sight out of mind."  Well, now tricky sight words can remain "in sight" and tailored to each individual student's needs.

Kids love to make and wear their own jewelry.  So, here is a fun project that your students will be sure to enjoy that will also help them to master difficult sight words.    Links can be added or subtracted as they come across new, challenging words and master others.


Here is the process:

Materials:  

• contact paper
• permanent markers
• paper clips

Step one: Cut the contact paper into small strips.

Step two: Write the difficult sight words onto the contact paper.

Step three: Peal of the backing and wrap the contact paper around one of the paper clips.

Step four: Link another paper clip onto the first and then wrap your next sight word onto the new link.

Step five: Continue the process until it is long enough for a bracelet or necklace. 

I hope you enjoy this project.

I would love to hear your thoughts!!

Cheers, Erica

Building Self Confidence and Combating Stress for Struggling Readers

Image courtesy of photostock @ freedigitalimages.net

Learning to read can be one of life's most stressful events for a child. For some children, picking up phonics and spelling seems like second nature. For others, the reading process sparks long-lasting low confidence and a chronic distaste for schoolwork. There are several critical issues that can block a child's reading, which we have written about, but an important one for most struggling readers is confidence and stress. Parents often find it difficult to know how to build up self-confidence in a child while also correcting their mistakes. Pairing praise and criticism is not an easy job, so we have a special rule that helps to keep the two in balance.

We recommend something called The Rule of 5. The Rule of 5 states that for every one time you have to correct your child, you have to praise her five times.

This formula comes from a simple idea that I'm sure every parent would acknowledge: even children with good self-worth take corrections as criticisms. For a struggling learner, the very act of trying to read exposes him to lots of public failure - in front of a teacher, peer or just a parent. A word of correction, even gently spoken, can further lead to despair if it's not balanced with praise for little achievements as well. Getting into a pattern of praising success re-routes that negativity and confidence grows.

We call it The Rule of 5 simply to make this general praise-first model more tangible. You could decide to implement a Rule of 4 or even a Rule of 9! The point is to give yourself a challenge which you can then measure yourself against. As humans, we are better at performing to a specific task than a general one.

Especially if your child struggles with school and has fragile self-esteem, The Rule of 5 not only increases confidence but also will usually improve academic performance. Stress can be a main cause of reading difficulty, because your body responds to stress by shutting down the learning centers in the brain. This is a part of the "fight or flight" response. The body focuses all of its energy on responding to the threat, at the expense of non-essential functioning like digestion and learning. So once some of that school-related stress has been alleviated, the brain is much better prepared for the learning environment.

Give this a try and let us know what you find. I doubt a single reader will be disappointed!

By guest blogger, David Morgan

David Morgan is the founder of Morgan Learning Solutions and creator of the Easyread System. Easyread is a computer-based program that helps children with dyslexia, auditory processing disorder and highly visual learning styles improve their reading and spelling through Guided Phonetic Reading techniques.

David Morgan is also the founder of the not-for-profit site: www.HelpingEveryChildtoRead.com

Free Money Game Idea

Integrating games into academic lessons ignites the fun factor, makes instruction multisensory and grabs the attention of even the most discouraged learners.   I, too, enjoy the creative process and love pulling out my craft and scrapbook materials, so the new game of the week brings excitement and wonder into the classroom.  This week, I created the Fun House Money Game to help students develop their skills identifying and adding pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. 

Items needed:

  1) small box

  2) craft or scrapbook paper

  3) glue

  4) scissors

  5) long table or a melamine shelf

  6) marbles or shuffle board pieces (I purchased the shuffle board pieces on Amazon and included the link below.)

  7) play money or real change in a small basket or plastic bin

Process:

  1) Remove the bottom of the box with scissors.

  2) Cover the box with colorful craft paper.

  3) Cut four doorways/holes in the side as illustrated.

  4) Label the doorways: pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.  You can also use this same game for fractions, or other numerical denominations.

How to play:

Place the colorful box at the end of a table or melamine shelf.  Then, give each player twelve marbles or shuffle board pieces.  Next, decide who goes first, and take turns trying to get the marbles/shuffle board pieces into the doorways of the box.  When a marble enters the box, have that player select the correct change from the change basket. Once one of the players has rolled all their marbles into the box the game is over and all the players add up their change.   The winner is the player with the highest total.  

I hope you enjoy this idea!  I would love to hear your thoughts!!

Cheers, Erica

Dr. Erica Warren is the author, illustrator and publisher of multisensory educational materials at Good Sensory Learning and Dyslexia Materials.  She is also the director of Learning to Learn, in Ossining, NY.  To learn more about her products and services, you can go to www.goodsensorylearning.com  www.dyslexiamaterials.com and  www.learningtolearn.biz 

Academic Support for Students with Learning Disabilities: Affordable Options

Just today, I wrote a post on my community blog that addresses the question, How Can I Afford Academic Support for My Child with Learning Disabilities?  Click on the title above or on the image, so you too can benefit from the information.  I would love to hear your thoughts!!

Cheers, Erica