More and more families are seeking help for their children to function better emotionally, behaviorally as well as academically.  Many are having long term memory problems where they seem to know something one day and not the next. One reason for this is the link between hand, eye and ear dominance.  You can learn more about this aspect of long term memory here and in podcast #23. This week, the Brain Coach will also include some activities you can do to help with visualization.  This is NOT like sitting for hours visualizing world peace!  This skill is seeing in pictures which is one way the brain stores information.  The other important skill in boosting long term memory is the ability to conceptualize.  Conceptualization helps your brain store information in words.  Many people are either visualizers OR conceptualizers but are not good in both.  Just like being good at all the learning styles because information coming into the brain has a preferred sensory channel to come in through to be most efficient, the same applies to visualization and conceptualization.  There is a preferred way to store different information.  Many learning struggles and inefficiencies come from either not storing information in the correct place for easy retrieval or not storing it in the most efficient way as either a picture or in words. Take spelling struggles for example. When you don’t think in pictures in your mind’s eye, you don’t take a “picture” of the word to store for comparison.  When you write a word that is spelled wrong, you don’t realize the mistake as there are many ways to spell certain sounds in English but only one right way to spell a word.  If you can visualize the word from a picture in your head, you are able to recognize that it is spelled incorrectly because it doesn’t match the picture in your head.  What does this mean to you as a teacher?  You don’t need another spelling curriculum.  You need to build the skill of visualization which is what Dr. Jan teaches you in this episode of Brain Coach Tips.  Building conceptualization skills is also discussed this week. Don’t miss the handout attached here with key products to help visualization as well as discounts.