Ready to Understand What Your Child Needs?

Dyscalculia is a learning disability that makes it difficult for a student to understand and work with numbers and mathematics. It is not simply being “bad at math,” and it isn't caused by laziness or a lack of effort. A child with dyscalculia may have persistent difficulty with things such as: understanding quantity — knowing that 8 means a collection of eight things recognizing numbers and connecting numerals to quantities understanding place value — what the 3 means in 32

ADHD is a neuro-developmental condition that can affect a child's attention, impulse control, activity level, and ability to manage everyday tasks. It is not simply a child who is distracted, energetic, forgetful, or doesn't listen. A child with ADHD may have difficulty with things such as: staying focused on tasks following through on instructions remembering what they have been asked to do getting started without repeated reminders organizing their belongings or schoolwork

Dyslexia is a learning disability that primarily affects reading and language-related skills. A child with dyslexia may have difficulty learning how sounds in spoken language connect to letters and written words. This can make learning to read, spell, and write difficult. Sometimes the signs show up before a child even starts school. If your child is in preschool, you aren't necessarily going to see them struggling to read. Instead, you might notice difficulties with things

If you are concerned about your child's reading development, a checklist can be a useful starting point for observation. The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) provides dyslexia checklists for learners at different stages, including a Foundation Stage Checklist for younger children. These checklists are not diagnostic tools. The BDA is clear that they cannot tell you whether a child is dyslexic. What they can do is help parents and educators look more closely at a child's str

If a parent has a significant history of reading difficulties, their child may have a higher risk of developing a reading disability. The International Dyslexia Association provides information about a parent questionnaire called the Adult Reading History Questionnaire (ARHQ). The questionnaire was originally developed to identify the risk of reading disability in adults. It can also be used to help estimate a preschool child's risk of later reading difficulties by looking a

One reason that Japanese parents send their children to international schools is to learn English. Parents often ask me. “International schools in Tokyo are expensive. Is it worth it if my child is only speaking Japanese at school?” Honestly, this a fair question. I think these conversations with your child's school are best approached from a place of partnership rather than assuming that something is wrong with the school teaching approach or with your child. It is easy to

On a consultation call recently, a parent whose child attends an international preschool in Tokyo asked me: "Kinota, my child knows the alphabet song by heart, but when I ask them to read a word like CAT, they can't read it. Are they falling behind? I'm very worried." No, they are not falling behind. Singing the alphabet song is a wonderful starting point for kids. It builds memory, introduces letter names, teaches the sequence of letters, and gets kids comfortable with lette

Want to help your child get ready for international school? Here is a tip I used to tell parents when I worked at the International School of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo. Read to your child. Two books a day. Yes, it can be the same book. If your child likes the story, keep reading it. I recommend starting when your child is a baby and reading two books a day. Let's say you keep it up for five years. There are 52 weeks in a year. That's 14 books a week. Let me pull out my calcu