Choosing Educational Toys For Children With Learning Disability

Some children must deal with leaning difficulties, or problems with learning new information. They might struggle to master skills like throwing and catching a ball. They might grow confused trying to communicate by talking and listening to other people. Without being able to learn and retain key bits of information, these children struggle even more when they enter school and try to master reading, writing, and other content-area skills and knowledge.

Scientists aren't sure exactly what causes learning difficulties. Many theorize that the brains of children with learning disability mix up signals and have difficulty sending and receiving bits of information. Basically, as University of Nevada-Reno professors Gary Fisher and Rhoda Cummings explain in The Survival Guide for Kids with LD, "some kids just have a hard time learning."
These children are not dumb or lazy at all. They just "learn differently" (LD). Gary Fisher and Rhoda Cummings appropriately substitute the term "disability" in their book, helpful to deal with the problem not with the stigma. Children with LD have normal or even above-average intelligence and may, in fact, excel in other areas. Their brains just acquire, process, and retain information differently. As Stanley S. Lamm, M.D., and Martin L. Fisch, Ph.D. put it in Learning Disabilities Explained, a child with a learning disorder just has "a condition or a series of specific conditions that interfere with the normal learning process."

Children who learn differently can come from any ethnic or socioeconomic group. Although only about 5% of children have been formally diagnosed with an LD, some doctors and educators believe that as many as 20 percent of children have some sort of interference with the way they learn in some area. The good news is that with proper diagnosis and targeted intervention, children with LD can greatly improve their ability to learn in a weak area.

It is paramount especially for parents to recognize that children with LD learn differently and the means and resources that they should make available to help them learn. Once an LD has been identified, a team of professionals test the child and use their findings to develop an individualized education plan (IEP) for him or her. Now the child and his or her teachers and parents know the area in which the child needs extra help and can focus on developing and improving the child's learning skills there. Special classes and one-on-one tutoring can help.

So can using educational toys targeted to develop specific skills. Children who are becoming bored with dry schoolwork may find renewed excitement in learning when that learning comes in the shape of a toy. Simplifying the learning process and using unconventional methods to make learning fun can spur children with LDs to reach new levels of achievement.

Gary Fisher and Rhoda Cummings identify seven key areas in which children might learn differently: talking and listening, reading, writing, math, organizing skills, social skills, and motor skills. Here are some suggestions for toys that develop learning skills associated with each of these areas...
Talking and Listening LD

Children with Talking and Listening LD know what they want to say; they just struggle to communicate their thoughts. They may also have difficulty understanding the meaning of the words other people say to them, sometimes mistaking one meaning for another. Some good skills to foster in this area are critical thinking and the ability to make predictions, understand cause and effect, and draw conclusions. These skills can help children organize their thoughts so as to express them more coherently and to understand better what others are saying to them.
Strategy and logic games such as FoxMind Games' Zoologic or Cliko games can encourage the development of such logical thinking skills. While playing such games, parents can encourage children to think aloud to guide their reasoning. Parents can also gently ask children questions about what they think will happen next in a situation, acknowledging each response and using it as the basis for the next question.

Reading LD
Children with Reading LD may be overwhelmed by being exposed to too much text at a time. They may struggle to read the alphabet or to sound out words. They may skip lines when reading because it looks to them like the words are moving around on the page.
Educational toys such as Melissa and Doug's Opposites Puzzle Cards or the See & Spell break reading down to its essential components. Travel Read Spin and Word Spin Deluxe Family Edition made by GeoSpace are also excellent ways to turn spelling and reading skills into a fun experience. Focusing on one word/concept at a time and breaking words down into letters keeps children from being confused by walls of text. While using such products, encourage children to talk about what they are reading to check comprehension.

Writing LD
Children with Writing LD struggle with many of the same problems as children with Talking and Listening LD. They have great ideas in their heads, but have trouble expressing themselves in writing with neat handwriting and good grammar and spelling. This is a case where the simplest of toys can have the greatest effect. Take some of the pressure of writing off by having children compose their thoughts on a fun chalkboard or dry-erase board. Now children can erase and/or restart their sentences over and over until everything is exactly right.

Math LD
Children with Math LD struggle with what numbers and numerical symbols mean. They have difficulty memorizing and understanding math facts. On the most basic level, they struggle with the patterns that underlie math concepts. Playing with pattern games, shape puzzles, and blocks can give a child the experience and confidence with patterns needed to succeed in math. For example, a toy such as FoxMind Games' Logix I give a child practice with shapes and logic patterns. Again, the Travel Math Spin by GeoSpace is a fun teaching tool for basic operations, taking away what is sometimes a dreadful feeling of a child to have to learn math by him or herself. Remember, adult participation in a family setting using educational games is important in the learning process.

Organizing Skills LD
Children with Organizing Skills LD have trouble keeping track of their materials and assignments. Even keeping their rooms or desks in order can be difficult. Puzzles or other toys with pieces that can only go one way can subtly teach such children habits of organization. An organizer such as Melissa and Doug's Magnetic Responsibility Chart can encourage good habits by helping children keep track of their responsibilities and be rewarded for good habits and behaviors.

Social Skills LD
Children with Social Skills LD have trouble interacting with other people. They misread facial clues and gestures and make expressions and gestures that do not convey what they actually feel. Dramatic role-play games can let children rehearse proper social behaviors in a safe environment from which the stress of real-life consequences has been removed. Dolls and dollhouses, play sets and figurines, and dress-up clothes and props can all be vehicles for imaginative play that practices effective social interaction.

Motor Skills LD
Children with Motor Skills LD struggle with both gross motor skills such as balancing, jumping, or even running and fine motor skills like lacing strings through holes or holding a pencil correctly. Toys like jump ropes, sports equipment, and the Plasma Car can develop gross motor skills. Toys like lacing cards or art sets like Melissa and Doug's Stamp Sets and Bead Set can develop fine motor skills. Some toys, such as building blocks, develop a whole range of motor skills.

All Parents Can Benefit from Investing in Educational Toys
Educational toys can be a valuable resource for kids with and without LD. Children can grow bored with completing worksheets or dry assignments meant to teach content-area knowledge. In particular, children with LD may struggle just to understand how to complete a worksheet. Playing with an educational toy, on the other hand, can encourage children to spend longer (and more enjoyable!) amounts of time practicing and mastering new knowledge and skills. Instead of memorizing dry math information, a child can play with an educational toy and learn first-hand how to use logic and patterns to solve a problem. In fact, any parent wishing to develop his or her child's abilities in one of the above areas could benefit from investing in any of the toys discussed.

About Kids Toy Club
Kids Toy Club is an online provider of educational toys that is dedicated to adding value to the money its customers spend. Understanding that educational toy purchases are an investment in a child's future, Kids Toy Club makes the effort to provide quality products and useful information about the relationship between toys and child development.


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The Role of Toys in Your Child's Development

A kid is really a ball of energy and in order to channelize the energy of your kid, you should enrich your knowledge on various kids’ toys. Some kid toys enrich the knowledge of your kids.

Toys for toddlers must captivate them in many ways. It should be physically engrossing as well as mentally challenging. Push toys (like Corn Popper give toddlers are actually meant for the physical exercise of the kids. It is also beneficial for the development of the motor skills of the kids. The toys teach them cause and effect relationships.

The children are like sponges at this age. They take up concepts at an amazing rate, and they often do that through play. Therefore while selecting the toys, keep in mind what kind of educational benefits it will bring about rather than concentrating solely on the amusement that it will offer to your child.

Those toys which are as basic as blocks are regarded as learning toys. Actually when the kids will start playing with them, they will develop a skill and an aptitude of mathematics. While playing the game they will understand the basic principles of mathematics.

As a guardian you should always concentrate on the positive effect of the toys. The positive effects include the learning aspect of the toy, the physical and mental enrichment that it can bring about in your child and also the amusement that it will offer.

• Puzzles: There are certain toys which teach a child to solve puzzles. This is extremely nice for your kids. They can learn new tactics to solve various puzzles on various topics.
• Travel Games: The travel games give an idea of the colored keys that are required to open the boxes. Each specific box opens with a specific colored key.
• Lacing toys: The lacing toys comprise laces of various colors. The toddler is required to lace the shoes properly. A certain amount of intelligence is also required in this game. Therefore, while your kid practices this game, his IQ will go up.
• Bath Toys: consists of a number of games like “Make a Bubble” and “Swim and Swish”. Moreover, there are other games such as funny face bath and “Fashion in the Tub”. These games require a certain amount of intelligence. The kids would simply like them. The”Spin and Spray Turtle” is a great favorite among kids. They enjoy the water games while taking a bath.

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K'Nex Construction Toys

K'Nex is another set of contructive toys that you may want to consider for your kids if your kids already have building experience with LEGO. K'NEX allows you to build something 'out of the box' and even integrate with LEGO building sets.

Find out more...

Educational Toys Help Children's' Learning

We live in a day and age where children are watching TV and playing video games all of the time. Sure, it may seem as if video games and television stimulate a child's brain, but many times kids are sitting there like zombies. Unless the television show is an educational show that doesn't bore the child or the video game is something that involves a certain degree of strategy, they're not getting too much out of these two things. Most of all, they are not exactly using their imaginations in a world that requires its occupants to be imaginative in order to survive personally and occupationally.

As convenient as television and video games are at keeping the kids busy and behaved, it is time for parents to rebel. The revolt begins as the child develops by using such things as educational toys. Adults use puzzles, brain teasers, and other things that require thought to keep their minds sharp. It has been shown that adults who stay on top of their game with activities that make them think are taking an active measure toward preventing Alzheimer's. By incorporating such things into a child's life and keeping those activities as part of their life, a parent is taking an active role in ensuring that their child's mind stays sharp. It is also important to emphasize to that child how important such activities are as an adult so that they can take a preventive measure toward diseases such as Alzheimer's and dementia.

Educational toys

Educational toys come in many different types and are available for children as soon as they learn how to grab things. They can be something as simple as a puppet or matching shapes. The child is forced to think and the colorful pieces that come with these toys make the activity interesting. What makes these activities even more interesting is when the parent is involved and praising the child when the child is successful.

Starting these activities early means that the child is going to get a developmental head start and will be using strategy easily by the time he or she begins kindergarten. Your child will have the mental maturity needed to make it through the world if you start stimulating their brains early and making it fun to learn. When kids don't have fun learning is when they have learning difficulties throughout their entire lives. This isn't always the case, but it has been known to happen. Many children loathe learning for one reason or another, so using educational toys can make it fun and rewarding.

Keeping it up

There are educational toys for children of all ages, so it is good to always make sure there are fun educational toys around the house that are age or intelligence appropriate. And yes, there are some wonderful brain teasers and other educational games on video game systems and computers. When the child reaches a certain age, using these as learning tools can be great. There are also great television programs that make a child think and make learning fun. It is just a matter of placing restrictions on how much time is spent using these electronic tools and making sure there is plenty of time that you and your child are doing fun learning activities together. By taking a time out and doing these activities with your child, you are not only stimulating their brain, but you are actually stimulating your own. The two of you are also spending quality time together in a world that makes quality time very difficult. So it is easy to see how educational toys can benefit you and your child in more ways than just learning.

Mastermind Toys offers a wide range of children's toys and educational toys for kids of all ages.

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Educational Toys That Are For Developing the Imagination

The main point to having educational toys is to develop the imagination and curiosity. Some old-fashioned items still have the capacity to learn something good, something that will help in the future. Parents control the play so that it remains on an educational course, requires greater concentration and solving problems. These problems to solve are ones that need to encourage them to use their imagination. For example, a toy that is open-ended and teaches concepts.

By developing their imagination, understand that different objects have different properties, and learn how to combine them to create other interesting objects and learning specific. Learning thru play is a reality developing on their strengths and learning style. The skills our children need to further develop and strengthen. Having endless possibilities with the play of these toys are what encourages their imagination.

By taking a closer look at learning styles early, we can help our children develop and learn through play. There is real learning experience and an environment that is fun and conducive to learning vital skills. There are combinations of fun and learning. Sensory materials, such as finger painting, are great ways to develop. This is a hands-on motor skill that gets carried through school years.

Children need a balance of toys from each of these groups to ensure their whole development. Sensory attraction and self-expression where they've reached a level of personal satisfaction. Research shows that many disabilities and learning disorders in young children can be avoided by providing them with appropriate cognitive stimulation as early as possible.

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Interactive Toys For Learning

It's unfortunate that more people don't know this, but toys and playing are absolutely vital for a person's development. This isn't only true for babies and children, it's just as true for adults. Yes, even adults need to take some time to goof off and indulge their curiosities now and then if they hope to continue growing and changing as human beings (or have you never spent hours and hours researching random topics on the internet, just for fun?).

With the right developmental toys, playtime can be a whole lot more than something kids do for amusement. With the right toys, playtime can be a productive learning process. Every toy a child might become interested in has some potential to teach, as the child experiments and, well, toys around with it, but some of the best toys are the ones that capitalize on a child's tendency to experiment and aim to teach valuable life skills.

Most obviously, we all recognize on sight such educational wooden toys for babies and toddlers as the ring tower, which uses circular, wooden rings of various colours and sizes to teach children about, well, colours and sizes. These toys are excellent for babies and young toddlers still learning how to interpret and interact with the world around them on the most basic levels. There are also the traditional wooden shape blocks which can be dropped into a box through the corresponding holes, and various other classic toys used to teach basic interaction skills.

If you're looking for baby learning toys or toddler learning toys, you may also want to look into baby walking toys to encourage, well, learning to walk. Bath toys are another excellent form of educational baby toys to encourage basic life skills.

For the slightly older child, these kinds of toys are, of course, kind of boring. Once a child becomes interested in learning mathematics or learning to read, it's kind of hard to find tiny wooden blocks all that amusing anymore.

For the child who has surpassed the need for such basic learning toys, there are, of course, toys like Intellective toy laptops, which teach a variety of reading and mathematic skills, and of course, the classic puzzles and kids games, creative toys, such as Lego sets (check out the Star Wars lego toys if your kid's a real space nut), Duplos, Mega Bloks, and build-it-yourself castle and doll house play sets. Sorry for the run on sentence, but the list really does go on and on.

For the yet MORE advanced child, who might consider all that stuff to be children's toys, between the ages of say, 8 and 12 (though each child advances at his own age, so use your own judgment), there are more advanced toys, like model kits and remote control cars toys. Such toys aren't generally seen as being educational, but they do require a degree of construction and maintenance (which can encourage the kind of habits most of us wish we had when we bought our first used car as a teenager).

It's important to know what kind of interactive learning toys are right for your child, based on their level of development and their own personal interests. Most toys will have a suggested age group, but that's all that that really is: A suggestion. Nobody knows your child like you do, so look to provide them with the toys that seem custom built to their specific needs, and remember that, as helpful as playing can be, the best way to nurture a child's growth is by taking time to help them learn basic life skills and indulging their curiosities.

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The Rationale Behind Childrens Educational Toys

Children have this natural character to learn. They have this ability to absorb new information and react to a stimulus almost like a sponge. Daily experiences, for instance, are excellent avenued in which children can learn. In this regard, games and play, and consequently the toys that they play with, are very helpful for this purpose. Children's educational toys therefore, are critical in every child's learning and development.

This almost insatiable hunger for learning in children, expressed in their natural propensity to play, should not be wasted on toyd without much relevance to their educational development.

While it is true, as some child experts would assert, that any play will serve its purpose in developing the child's brain and total development, it is equally unassailable that maximizing this natural learning process, is not a bad idea. In fact, it is now an accepted maxim that children's educational toys should be considered by any couple or individual contemplating of raising a kid.

Regular play will not only give the children their needed physical activities, as would the need of adults to have a daily chore or regular work, but also a venue to develop their personality, emotional capability, and even overall traits, that will help them in coping with the world that they live in as they grow. It is also during play that children develop their creativity, imagination, speech, reading, thinking, problem solving, and even their motor skills.

But children's educational toys come with a specific purpose, at least in terms of a child's age. Children up to the age of three will benefit greatly from creative play. Make-believe games are very common in this age-group, so it is best to provide appropriate educational toys. Costumes of their favorite cartoons heroes or heroines should be an opportunity to use as accompaniment for their educational toys.

Educational toys for this purpose can take the forms of teddy bears and other stuff toys, dolls, toys that reinforce arts and craft materials. Toys and other articles that somehow imitate the children's environment are also beneficial.

Children within the range of four to five years age are more cognitive and need toys that would help in the development of their thinking, problem solving skills, and decision making capability. Educational toys that would serve best this need are arts and crafts with considerable difficulty, like Lego and other construction toys. Puzzles also belong to this group of educational toys.

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Kids Still Love Lego

One of the most popular of all the kids’ toys in their toy box, Lego continues to be a hit with children of all ages. If you think of Lego as the old standard sets, you may need to reconsider. No longer just a plain set of interlocking blocks, Lego now offers a wide variety of standard sets as well as theme packages. Racing cars, dinosaurs, Star Wars and city building are just a few of the theme sets available. These sets combine the fun of building with the imagination of children and adults alike to provide entertainment for the whole family. Parents and children enjoy working together to create imaginative buildings, projects and just spending time together doing something fun.

Pictures and directions are included in the theme and standard Lego sets to help children get started with projects. Blocks, figurines and other accessories are also included, and this varies from set to set. If your child is between the ages of 1 month to 18 months, 1 year to 3 years or 2 to 6 years Lego has a customized set of preschool toys that have larger blocks and more figures to help with small hands and developing imaginations.

Help Stimulate Creativity with Lego Toys

Creativity is the key to Lego. Children and adults alike can use their imaginations to design whatever they can picture. The easy to manipulate and interlock blocks allow for easy construction of projects. The sets can all be interchanged, so it is possible to use parts and pieces with one set in combination with another. This will really allow the imagination of both adults and children to be able to create some unique projects and designs.

Lego Resources Online

The Lego online club is free for children to join. It is a place where kids can exchange information and pictures on projects, as well as download cool stickers and coloring pages of Lego characters and designs. There are message boards that allow children all over the world to discuss their Lego projects and get new ideas. A newsletter is also part of the site and children are encouraged to send in pictures and Lego ideas.

Many parents feel that children spend too much time with high tech items, and are forgetting about the fun toys. Lego is able to allow your children to develop creativity, imagination as well as motor skills in building and constructing their ideas and projects. Children of all ages love Lego, and with the new theme packages even older children will enjoy playing. The easy way in which pieces of Lego can be interchanged between sets leads to interesting and one of a kind projects.

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