PAP 136

Turning Learning Challenges Into Lifelong Achievements

with Laura Reber

ADHD creates many hurdles to academic success, most often in the way of lagging executive functioning skills. It takes an ADHD-informed caregiver, coach, or tutor to truly help a student with learning challenges that stem from ADHD. And it’s also important to know when to keep challenging and when a student needs the pressure released. In this episode of the Parenting ADHD Podcast, I’m talking with school counselor and the founder of Progress Parade, Laura Reber, about how to guide kids to turn their learning challenges into lifelong achievements. Spoiler alert! It isn’t all about academics. 


Resources in this Episode

NOTE: Some of the resources below may be affiliate links, meaning I receive a commission (at no cost to you) if you use that link to make a purchase.


Laura Reber is a school psychologist and founder of Progress Parade. At Progress Parade, they know what makes you different makes you strong. They provide 1:1 online tutoring with hand-picked specialists to students with academic needs, ADHD, learning disabilities, autism, and social-emotional challenges. Laura works with a team of school psychologists and specialized teachers to create personalized approaches for homework support, academic intervention, homeschooling, unschooling, and more. Laura holds a BS in Psychology from Truman State University and a Specialist in School Psychology (SSP) from Illinois State University.
 

Thanks for joining me!

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Laura Reber 0:03

When they're in school, we kind of hammer out the weakness. You know, like, it's like, if your student has a math disability, then they get so much time getting math support, which I understand why that's happening. But sometimes it's like man, like, Can we just, you know, focus a little more on what the students doing well and said, like every day I'm read away at the challenge. I mean, I understand what schools are wanting to do. They're wanting to have that student make progress in their challenge, but I also want to spend at least as much time focusing on what they're good at.

Penny Williams 0:34

Welcome to the parenting ADHD Podcast, where I share insights and strategies on raising kids with ADHD straight from the trenches. I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author, ADHD a Holic and mindset Mama, honored to guide you on the journey of raising your a typical kid. Let's get started.

Welcome back to the parenting ADHD Podcast. I am excited as always, to be talking to Laura rebar. Today on the podcast, we are going to talk about turning learning challenges into life changing achievements. Most of our kids are really, really struggling with learning challenges that makes it so difficult in our neurotypical school system. And I love that Laura approaches it in a way that we can flip it on its head and sort of really take that and turn it into something that is good, that is wonderful that maybe helps our kids to find and show their greatness. Thanks for being here. Laura, will you start by introducing yourself?

Laura Reber 1:47

Sure, yeah, I'm really excited to be here. I'm a school psychologist. And really, from the beginning of my training as a school psychologist, I was really excited about academic intervention is what we were calling it in graduate school. So that's always been my focus. Even when I was working in a school based studying, I really focused on the academic intervention piece helping schools find effective academic interventions and plugging them in. And so that's what's really led me to start actually two different companies, supporting students with diverse learning needs who have academic needs as well. So yeah, once Chicago Home tear that's a local company here in Chicago. But what I'm talking about today is progress parade, and progress prayed, we're serving students nationwide who have diverse learning needs. And we have a team of over 100 learning specialists and school psychologists and our focus at progress prayed is to turn learning challenges into life changing achievements, and through my teams, We've helped over 1000 students do that. So I'm really excited to be on the show and just talk about to help parents help empower parents to to help turn their child's immune challenges into life changing achievements.

Penny Williams 2:51

Yeah. And it's so needed to have tutors that get it that understand learning challenges that understand our kids. I think that it's really hard for a lot of parents to find that kind of support. And it's really hard for kids to connect with a tutor who is assuming that they're more neurotypical definitely. And so there's this big gap there, that is amazing that you're filling it. Why don't we start just by talking about some of the general learning challenges that you see most commonly in kids with ADHD? And then we can go into maybe some of the ways in which you and your staff work with kids with learning challenges in a way that's different from the way a tutor would work with a neurotypical child?

Laura Reber 3:38

Sure, yeah. So some common learning challenges in students with ADHD are definitely the executive functioning challenges. That's something we work with a lot. So I'm guessing your readers or listeners have different amounts of knowledge of executive functioning, coaching, but it's something that probably there's some familiarity with at least, but we work a lot with students who are having trouble turning assignments in on time we hear from schools all the time. This is students so smart, why aren't they turning things in? You know, a lot of times they expect more than the student can really deliver with their you know, executive function skills, even though they are really bright and have high vocabularies or high IQ or cognitive skills. A lot of times, they still do struggle to turn assignments in, we hear a lot that they're procrastinating or terrible at managing their time, or super disorganized. So those are all things that we can work on, through tutoring, specifically executive functioning, coaching in that case. So that's something that's super common in our students with ADHD on a kind of related piece. We hear from a lot of parents that their students struggle with writing and particularly one that's a really big challenge. It's closely related to executive function skills for for those of us who are neurotypical or for students who are neurotypical, it can seem like, Oh, it's just the writing process, whatever. But for a student with ADHD, it's a huge process of planning, of brainstorming of them, making sure that You have some kind of organization system, whether it's an outline, or some kind of visual organizer, then actually doing the writing and for some students handwriting as a huge, laborious task. So yeah, sometimes that's typing as a better solution, and then having to go back and edit, so that it's just to produce quality writing, it's a big process. And that can be really overwhelming for students with ADHD. Sure. And then on the math route, when we get a lot is just missing really small details, math, it's really important, especially on the calculations to have some kind of organization system to make sure that you're not making small mistakes, even if you understand the concept. So just kind of, again, it's related to that executive function piece. But we hear a lot that they need support, coming up with kind of organization systems for their math to make sure that they're tracking the steps and not forgetting part of a word problem or not forgetting part of a computation. So yeah, those are some of the common things we see,

Penny Williams 5:56

I think we take for granted how much goes into daily functioning, and writing and calculating a math problem when you start to really think about the executive functioning skills, and the different steps that there really are in someone's brain for those processes. It's monumental, there's so much that goes into it. And so if your neurology isn't sort of designed to automatically be able to do that, or to be able to hold information in your working memory, or to be able to sequence very well, all of these things, then create problems for writing and math, just as you were saying,

Laura Reber 6:39

definitely, definitely, yeah, I think it is easy to take for granted, if it's something that you're just kind of doing naturally. But it is a ton of information to take in, to learn to keep organized, and to get that output out to that people are wanting.

Penny Williams 6:55

Yeah, I see a lot of kids with ADHD who really struggle with output. My son is one of those. He's, he's super smart, gifted, highly intelligent, very verbally fluent. But output is so hard because of the dysgraphia and the writing and losing his place and calculating math problems. You know, all this stuff that you're talking about. It's really, really common with ADHD.

Laura Reber 7:20

Definitely, yeah. And then one thing I didn't mention that's also common with ADHD is oftentimes students with ADHD also have learning disabilities, sometimes those diagnoses go together. And so sometimes, they just need a different way of learning, reading sometimes the traditional phonics method that many school districts use doesn't work, there might be some learning disabilities as well. And so sometimes we need a specialized approach for reading as well. That's something that we hear from our parents, too.

Penny Williams 7:47

Yeah, I think it's so incredibly valuable that your staff, your tutors, understand executive functioning challenges, because so much of it boils down to that, and that is really one of the core pieces of ADHD is struggle and lagging skill in that area. Can we talk a little bit about some of the components of sort of turning these challenges into life changing achievements? How do you help a child sort of they have to shift their mindset about their struggles?

Laura Reber 8:21

Yes, definitely. Yeah, I've thought about like what do we really do at progress create that helps turn learning challenges into life changing achievements, and I have a few things. And you know, as your listeners hear this, I don't want them to think like, Oh, I have to do all of these things to do learning challenges and to life changing achievements. I think the list I'm about ready to talk about is more just different components that tend to help but you know, no situation is ever like 100% the ideal. So I think that we try to do the best we can with getting as many of these components in and that'll be good enough. Yeah. And that especially applies to my first one. Because I think if you can catch a learning challenge early, that's most ideal. If somebody's listening, and they say, Well, I didn't catch this early, then I don't I don't want them to think that it's over for them. There's definitely other components that are important, too. Yeah. But yeah, I think catching early is an important component. I think it's too bad when I'm in the schools. And I hear you know, teachers say, well, let's just like wait and see they might catch up. I hear that one specifically reading a lot. And I couldn't disagree more with that. I think students tend to compile negative experiences. So yes, similar negative experiences you have with something, the more you're likely to internalize that story about yourself. So the earlier we can catch it, the smaller the problems are, and the less kind of story the student has about being bad at something, for example,

Penny Williams 9:43

right? Right. That is such a huge issue though, because they get so many messages day in and day out, especially at school just because it's not designed for learners who learn differently. They're constantly getting these messages or things that they interpret to mean right that they're bad or broken or can't do something and they do totally compound they take over their, their self, you know how they see themselves?

Laura Reber 10:12

Definitely. Yeah, I mean, those stories are so young. I mean, I feel like earlier and earlier I've been talking to parents who have kindergarteners, first graders who just don't want to make mistakes, they don't want to try something and make a mistake. And I just think that's so sad. Yeah, I think we're kind of setting our kids up to want to be perfectionist or wanting to make sure something's perfect before it comes out of their mouth or comes out of their pen. And that's not what we want. We want to build that confidence early, we want students to feel able to try their best and have that be good enough. And I think one of the best ways to do that is to support early before they have those negative self stories. And before the problems have gotten bigger, too.

Penny Williams 10:51

Yeah. And we'll talk in a minute about what to do if you didn't have that early intervention, or if your child is older. And that really is the story that they tell themselves about themselves. We'll, we'll swing back around to that toward the latter part of the episode, because I want to be sure to address that to you and get your insights on that.

Laura Reber 11:09

Yeah, definitely, we definitely should cover that, aside from starting early on. Another one that's important, I think, is choosing the right task to focus on. So we want to focus on a task that's not too hard and not too easy for choosing something that's too hard. For example, some parents, like I want my kid to be at grade level, it's like, well, that might not be the first place to start on an academic challenge. And that's way above where they're at right now. We want to start at the right spot. So grade level might be too hard. We also don't want it to be too easy. I think kids are so smart, they can spot an insincere compliment from a mile away, yeah, so we don't want to just give them something easy and say, Oh, look, what you did, we want to make it, we really want to turn find the right level of difficulty, we don't want them to be bored either. So this is where something called zone of proximal development comes into play. The godsey is the person who's done a lot of work on this. And we can dig into that a little bit if you want to. But essentially, it means that the zone of proximal development is the zone of your challenge that you can do with support. So it's trying to find that area of challenge where you can do it with support, but you're not quite there independently. And that's kind of the perfect place to start turning that challenge which they're not able to do by themselves into an achievement that they can then do by themselves. So trying to find something that's kind of just above what they're doing independently is a great place to start.

Penny Williams 12:29

Yeah, I always think of the zone of proximal development as the sweet spot. Yeah, it's that spot in between something is so hard that they absolutely can't do it, it's not doable. And between something is easily doable, and has no challenge for them. And we really want to challenge in small increments, because they need to see an experience and believe that they can do it.

Laura Reber 12:53

Right, exactly, we want to start with something that's just above where they're at right now. So that they it's really as doable with some support, so that they can see that success. Rather than trying to jump way ahead. I have a great example of this with a parent, I was talking to whose student got way behind in class completion in high school. And so they signed up for even classes in the summer. And I had to say like, Okay, I understand what you're trying to do here your student needs to catch up. But that's going to be way too much. And it's just going to contribute some more feelings of failure. So we need to figure out what's actually doable for this summer, and make a plan that's achievable, and then build from there. So we're not continuing to compile failures. You know, that's the last thing that we want to do.

Penny Williams 13:36

Yeah, yeah. And you'll get there eventually, right? There's, there's something I talked to parents so often about is that we're just sliding expectations, to a place where they're doable for our child. So if my son can't do x right now, even though if he was neurotypical, maybe that's the expectation. It's still a goal. It's still an expectation, but we're just going to slide it back a little bit. Yeah, to where we can get him to it. When it's doable for him.

Laura Reber 14:07

Definitely. Yeah, that's the key is that our kids might not be on a neurotypical pace, but they can still achieve just little by little, but yeah, trying to get there too fast is just gonna defeat the purpose, it's gonna become contrary to what we're wanting. So yeah, create that next goal, get there on their schedule, and then the next one, the next one, and, and they will reach the goal eventually, with some patience and consistency, which is actually the next thing on my list of perfect opponents to turn, like learning challenges into life changing achievements, but consistency is really important. I think it's also a really important skill to teach our kids is like, anything worth achieving does usually take some time and some consistency and some grit, it's something that people talk about a lot, but with executive functioning, coaching, we have parents that we have a couple sessions, and they're like, Well, why, they're still not turning in all their assignments. And it's like, well, this is a skill. It's, executive function coaching in particular is a sort of behavioral skill, right? It's not a standard what we think of as like academic tutoring skill. So it's just really important that we have that consistent practice over times, because behaviors take time to change, it takes time to learn what works for each student, it takes time to get into new habits. I mean, anybody that's tried to change a habit will tell you, yes, doesn't happen overnight. So the consistency over time is another really important component to helping turning learning challenges into life changing achievements.

Penny Williams 15:32

And I think our kids are automatically building bad habits, because we're not teaching them these lagging skills, so often, we don't recognize that we need to teach that and we need to support it, until they're really, really struggling. And they've already started to build that negative story about themselves, right. And so it can really be a challenge to turn that around, it can take a lot of time and consistency that you

Laura Reber 15:55

can take a lot of time and consistency and outside supports, which is kind of my final component here. I think sometimes you need outside supports, whether that's tutoring or whether it's therapy, sometimes self talk gets really negative, and the therapist is going to be a great resource to help turn some of that negative self talk around. Sometimes it's speech therapy, or, support at school, there's just so many different types of support that are available. And sometimes we do need some outside support to really, to really kind of make the difference.

Penny Williams 16:29

So it can be so valuable to especially for teens, when it comes from someone other than your parent. Right? You can get that neutral other party who's also saying, Hey, it'd be great if you used a calendar and turned on some alerts and your phone or Yeah, you and they're rolling your eyes at you as the parent, but suddenly, they're really cool tutor said that, and now they're totally going to do it. So yes, can be so valuable in that way too.

Laura Reber 16:55

Definitely. Yeah, we get that all the time that parents are like, that's what I've been saying. But it worked with you. It's like, Yeah, well we're not the parent. So that's one thing that we can never train parents to be not the parent, yeah. Right. It's just a different relationship. And students do often respond totally differently to outside support as they do to their own parents. So yeah,

Penny Williams 17:18

totally natural. Yeah. And let's circle back then and talk about kids who have already developed a really negative image of themselves, at least around school and their capability at school, they may have even had early intervention, my own son had such a negative image of himself around school, and he just learned helplessness. And he gave up when he graduated this year, earlier this year, which was amazing that we got him to the finish line, but he just kept getting so many messages that he wasn't doing his best, no matter what I did, how much I advocated how much I supported him at home, he was still interpreting what he was hearing and his level of success or, or not success as him just not being capable of doing it. And so he gave up, he just really gave up, which is so sad. And people are sometimes really surprised to hear that. My kid, I'm coaching parents, but my kid, didn't have a good school experience. And it wasn't for lack of trying. It was because I couldn't control that seven hours a day, I did my best to get people on the same page. And so we've been spending the six months so far since he's graduated and not in school anymore, trying to sort of unprogrammed not thinking to get him to really see that he has so many wonderful qualities. And he is totally capable, even if school didn't come naturally or easily for him. Right. But I'm wondering like, what can we do when we start to see that? And then what do we do when it's kind of taken over?

Laura Reber 18:56

Yes, totally. Well, kind of stepping back a little bit from that story. I think it's I'm not sure what the answer is to this part. Exactly. But I think a lot of parents have the experience of when they're in school, you kind of hammer out the weakness, like, it's like, if your student has a math disability, then they get so much time getting math support, which I understand why that's happening. But sometimes it's like man, like, Can we just focus a little more on what the students doing? Well, instead, yeah, I can remember going away at the challenge. I mean, that's something that frustrates me sometimes I understand what schools are wanting to do, they're wanting to have that student make progress in their challenge, but I also want to spend at least as much time focusing on what they're good at. Yeah, it's like, when you have an IEP for specific goals, we do focus just so much on like getting that goal caught up, that it can be really overwhelming and it can also make the student feel like it's all we're talking about, yeah. And I think that can be frustrating.

Penny Williams 19:53

We really need a section in the IEP for, for supporting and fostering and nurturing what their strengths are, and we don't have That we only look at what they need to work on and where they are behind grade level and those sort of things. And when you said that, it just struck me that we need that counterbalance in our IEP process.

Laura Reber 20:12

Yes. You know, because listen, a student who struggles a lot with math, are they going to probably go into a math related field? That probably not, so why don't we prepare them? Why don't we spend some time both further long term skills and further story for themselves and for how they feel about school, focusing on what they're good at? You know, we just the whole idea, right is about the struggles. And yeah, there's a strength section in there. But I swear, half the IPS I read, they can't just talk about the strength, like, that is strong at this. But there's like, yeah, in the strikes, I'm like, get that out. Like, why are we? You know, let's give at least just one paragraph to disgrace. And I get why they're doing that, because I hate the bots. Yeah. And against everything that came before it. You might as well not have you know, those Yeah, kids focus. Yeah. But for sure, I understand that schools are so focused on the, trying to get caught up what's behind, but the real reality is that there needs to be goals, developing their strengths, and there needs to be a real student strength session. That's not just like, oh, the students, some surface level strength. I think that's kind of how IEPs are often often written, it's too bad. It's not servicing this whole issue about the negative self stories, I will give some more actionable advice. But that's just kind of a, an aside about your sad story about so many students stories that when they're at school, the negative is what's really getting attention.

Penny Williams 21:39

Yeah. And it's interesting, because if we were focusing more on the positive and building them up in those areas, they would have much more in their tank, to tackle what is hard, it would be much more willing to try it, you sit with uncomfortable hard things, and keep doing it instead of giving up

Laura Reber 22:00

Yes, definitely. And that's actually one thing of my actionable list here of what we can do. If your child does already have a really negative self story, something called behavioral momentum is so real behavioral momentum basically says, if you do one thing, and it's easy, you're more likely to do something harder. Yeah, so. And that's like a real thing that applies to learning challenges. So, so I guess kind of, to what we just talked about in backing up a little bit, if you're not able to work directly on that skill, try working on another skill, try working on something that's easier, maybe slightly related to what they're struggling with. If you get that done, then see if they can do the new skill, that behavioral momentum does really help if you can kind of ride the success of a different challenge. Yeah, back and bring it back to the bigger challenge. You know, that's a real thing. And I think that really does speak to what you were saying is when they do have successes, there is more in their tank to face the challenges. Another thing that we can, that you can do, if your child does already have a negative story, if it's a kind of mild negative story, sometimes you see, like, we have parents contact us that say, everyone else at school is smarter than me. And that's just heartbreaking to hear that, I feel I'm stupider than everybody else in my class, but they still really want to try, so they already have a negative self story, but they're not shut down, they're still eager to get help. I think that's a perfect time to find outside help, to get that outside help, because like you said, students respond totally differently to outside help than they do to their own parents. So a lot of times that outside help can help push them over the hump that hump to have negative self story to say, like, oh, wow, like, I actually did this, now I am reading like, now I am able to kind of give answers in class and feel like not totally scared about it, so sometimes, if they're not totally shut down, sometimes outside help can help get them over that hump. So another tip is the behavioral momentum, see if you can focus on something else that's not directly related to the negative story. So maybe they're really shut down around writing. So we're not going to write it all. But maybe you can get them to make progress with reading, and kind of show them like, hey, look, what you did with reading and like, let's go back and try that writing. Because reading and writing are really related. So maybe your strong reading skills are going to help, he was writing to so trying to kind of get in like a back door. Yeah, kind of thing like side door. And then sometimes, just give him a break, too. Sometimes, it's just not the right time to work on something. And I think that, in schools and at home, we can when possible, depending on kind of your unique situation. It's good to just kind of take a break and say, let's focus on what you can do for a while, we don't have to kind of keep trying if something's really a struggle right now. Maybe it's just not the right time.

Penny Williams 24:42

Yeah, that's such an important lesson for parents too. Yeah. And I'm a type a parent, so I just want to fix it all right away. I can't wait. Yeah, yeah. And it totally doesn't work for a kid with neurological differences at all. Because so often he needs to wait and sort of be filibustering. Couldn't be able to tackle something or try something again, that was so hard or that he had a bad experience with before. And so that can be a really tough thing for parents to say, okay, the school is pushing me to get my child on grade level with math, yeah. But I can see that my child just really needs a break and needs to focus on something that helps them feel good to feel better. And then maybe we can go back to the math and not knowing I think a lot of times, how much of that? Can we sort of push for with the school? How much leeway Do they have just say, Okay, well, we're not going to focus on math for three weeks, and then we'll come back to it, it's just so structured, right? And so rigid, most of the time that it can be really hard for parents to figure out that and to navigate that as well.

Laura Reber 25:47

Yeah, I've seen, so many creative things that aren't, they're not going to be possible for everybody. But I've seen parents say, push back and say, Well, I'm gonna just take over math instruction, or for a while, because home, homeschooling is always in your right. So that's something I've seen people do is say, we're gonna homeschool math for the next semester, kind of give them a break, or, or to work on in a different way. I mean, I think, and again, I know that that's not going to be possible for everybody. But, or even if you can't, if you can't do that, then just saying, Well, what, level up and focus on it at school, but at home, we're just not worried about it for a while, because at least then they get a break when they're at home from the negative math story. You know, yeah. But yeah, it's so challenging, it's so challenging with how rigid the schools are. And depending on the school, everybody has such different experiences to for sure, some schools are really gonna work with the parents and stuff, not so much. But I think to the extent that, if you're finding that, outside supports, not helping your students kind of get over or through it. And if you're finding that there's no way to kind of work on it through the side, like, if there's no related skill that you can work on, and then use that as kind of a lesson that they can, overcome learning challenges, and then kind of use that positive momentum to come back to what they're struggling on, then give him a break to the extent that you can, I mean, it's, each situation is going to be individual. But I think that that can be a good thing to work in there and just kind of focus. And at that time, during the break, it's not like we're taking a break from making progress. It's just we're focusing on what they're good at for a while, and seeing some great progress in that area.

Penny Williams 27:25

Yeah, it's so important. Yeah, it's so important to take the pressure off sometimes, yeah, just doing that can really alleviate a lot. And giving a kid you know, a week or two of just no pressure at all about math or whatever their challenges. Yes, you have to try to do your assignments. And you know, you have to go to class, you have to pay attention, but we're not going to talk about math, we're not gonna push you to write about math, we're just gonna let it sort of be, can be really valuable too.

Laura Reber 27:53

Definitely. And I think sharing that with them. Well, I see that this is really frustrating for you. And I understand you've been working so hard on math and spending so much time and it's still a challenge. And that stinks. You know, I and you have to do it at school. There's nothing I can do about that. But I am going to give you a break at home. So, is one week enough is two weeks enough of a break, we will have to try this again. But let's take a break at home and just kind of having a conversation like that I think can really help them feel heard and help them feel like Yeah, okay. They really see how hard this is. And they're really hearing me.

Penny Williams 28:29

Yeah, they feel seen and heard then, which is Yeah, also valuable as well. Yeah, they thought maybe we could wrap up with talking a little bit about some tools that parents can use at home. Sure. We know that outside support is great. We know that getting somebody involved, that isn't your parent is also great. Sometimes the parents, of course don't want to support Yeah, and be able to help in a way that's really helpful. So what kind of things can we do as parents?

Yeah, so I would say just to kind of talk about some specifics, a reading program we love is called sound partners. It's a great scripted reading intervention. It's got a lot of great organization and sequence that's research based, it's actually been, there's been a lot of research on it. So sound partners, if they want to look up that you can Google it, and by that program, that's one that we use a lot in our tutoring because it is a phonics based program. Read works is another great reading organization that's out there that you can find at readworks.org and it's just a free tool that gives daily reading practice. There's like packets you can download. You can look at reading by like different types of reading by different levels of reading. by different reading comprehension practice. And daily reading practice is something that I always always recommend. So read works, that word can be a great way to help parents get in that daily reading practice. Unite for literacy. Calm is another great free website with free reading books, so they can find a lot of different free books again to help get some of that daily reading practice done on the executive function. France, which I think is so important, as we discussed for students with ADHD, I think a lot of times we overthink executive functioning, we think it has to be planners and schedules and organizers, but the summer is a great time to just practice planning something like Can Can your student plan a tournament with the neighbors? And can you sit down with your student and come up with all the steps that need to be in the tournament? And what kind of timeline though tournament steps need to be completed on? Or can you plant a garden together? You know, there's a lot of components that go into a garden about like, what kind of light did the plants need and things like that. So anything that you can plan together and kind of break apart the steps, and practice that at home is going to be really helpful. And then I just have a couple for math as well. Extra math.org is a great math fluency practice website, it's just x the letter X extra math.org. And it's just you know, a lot of our students with ADHD need practice with math fluency, because especially as the math gets more complex, it's really important to kind of know those facts. So that's a great free tool for that. And then we've heard a lot of great feedback about the website, prodigy, which is prodigy game calm, which is, like, turns math into a Pokemon style, like wizards game, you know. That's, that's one that that people like a lot, too. So those are some ways to get started. I just wanted to share some and kind of all the different, reading, writing, math and executive functioning. So hopefully, those are some good tools to get your listeners out there looking around at what's out there.

Yeah, and I think some of that's really great for the summer. Yeah, things more fun and enjoyable, and definitely lighter, I think really helps for for summer learning, for sure, and not learning loss during the summer. And I will link all of those resources up on the show notes, as well as Laura's websites and other ways that you might connect with her. And I definitely encourage you to do that. Take advantage of their great knowledge of kids who have learning challenges and what that's like for them and how to help them. Those Show Notes for this episode are found at parenting ADHDandautism.com/136 for Episode 136, thanks so much again, Laura, for being here and sharing some of your wisdom. And I know that our audience got so much out of it. And I hope that though, they'll connect with you as well. Thank you so much. It's been a huge pleasure to be here. With that we'll end the episode. I will see everyone next time. Thanks for joining me on the parenting ADHD podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share. And don't forget to check out my online courses, parent coaching and Mama retreats at parenting, ADHD and autism.com

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