Coaching

Coaching As I See It

I remember a time when I was between jobs and wasn’t working outside the home. At a cocktail party I was asked the defining question, “So, what do you do?” In all seriousness, I reached for some business cards my husband had printed for me which stated, “Domestic Goddess.” You can imagine the lively conversation which followed. Now my business card says, “Learning Coach” and it promotes conversation as well, because most people don’t quite know what that means.

Simply put, I work with clients on a 1 to 1 basis with the aim of ultimately helping them improve their professional, scholastic or personal life. Some clients need help with changing some behaviors, improving self-perception and/or increasing achievement by learning some new skills.

A good coach helps the client to identify areas which need working on and then set goals for himself. We also discuss former roadblocks to progress and barriers to his learning. This is important because the last thing a coach wants to do is present the client with the same strategies which obviously didn’t work in the past.

A Learning Coach must design a plan for the client to help him achieve better results in such a way which compliments him. Every client or student doesn’t learn in the same way so identifying the learning style of the client and basing strategies from that vantage point, gives you the greatest chance of maximizing his learning potential.

In the case of a client wanting to improve upon or learn a new skill, I approach it from a “Constructivist” point of view. Constructivism applied to learning theory states that learners learn best when they construct knowledge for themselves. As a coach, I guide and facilitate the process by providing the client with activities to participate in. He is no longer a passive recipient of information but a creative explorer. The client engages in hands on learning where he can test his ideas and draw his own conclusions.

Taking a Constructivist approach taps into the client’s natural curiosity and helps to keep him engaged and motivated. In the end what I’ve really done is help the client learn how to learn.

Elements of a Language Based Learning Disability

In the most simple terms, a Language Disorder is identified when a person has trouble understanding others (receptive language) or sharing his thoughts, ideas or feeling completely (expressive language). My clients with Language Based Learning Differences not only have trouble processing the meaning of words spoken to them but, they have difficulty comprehending what they read. My job is to help my clients identify which words cause them trouble and find a way to clear up the confusion.

The first challenge for a client of mine would be to accurately identify each word he is reading. The child must have accurate visual-perceptual skills to correctly identify the abstract words in language and for example, read "where" and not say "were". When key words within the sentence are misidentified, comprehension will suffer. My job is to give my client a tool to help him correct his misperception of these abstract, non-picture words and thereby aid in his overall comprehension.

The next challenge for a client of mine would be to correctly identify individual word meaning. Understanding the abstract words and how they affect language as well as the vocabulary words within the passage is neccessary for comprehension. In the book The Gift of Dyslexia written by Ron Davis, the abstract words are called "trigger words" because they can begin a reaction of confusion for the reader. Consider the word "otherwise" as an example of a trigger word as it is one which we can't picture and most of us can't define. One meaning for "otherwise" is "or else" . This word should not be glossed over as it implies possible consequence to follow. When a visual learner with a receptive language disability is reading the word "otherwise" he needs both the accurate meaning and picture of whatever he is reading. We can't assume that if a child can decode the word, he also understands the meaning of the word.

Processing the entire passage hinges on being able to accurately decode each word, identify individual word meaning and understand how each word builds on each other to formulate meaning as a whole. The reader must lay down accurate meaning, sentence by sentence as one does frame by frame with movie film. Also the client must bring meaning to what is read by applying background information plus exposure, plus experience to the reading passage. The reader must have accurate eye-tracking and eye-teaming skills to include every word in the passage and not skip over words or lines.

Following a reading passage, language processing continues when a child must answer a corresponding reading comprehension question. Look at this example sentence, "Who was the first President of the USA?" Each word must be processed like this...
Who...(meaning a person)
was...(indicating the past)
the...(trigger word, can't picture it, what does it mean?)
first...(indicating a position in a sequence)
President...(vocabulary word meaning "the leader of the country")
of...(trigger word, can't picture it and what does it mean?)
the...(trigger word, can't picture it, what does it mean)
USA...(abbreviation for a location)

Finally the child must process the language needed for the individual answer. He will need to retrieve the correct words in the correct sequence in order to formulate an answer within his head and then originate it in written form. In the case of a standardized test, the client must then seek to fit his formulated answer into the formatted answers of the standardized test and look for a match. For a child with a Language based Learning Disability, reading and writing is no simple task.