SUMMER GAME BOX CAN IMPROVE YOUR CHILD'S BRAIN

• Speed Stack Cups
• Memory Match
• Deck of Playing Cards
• Stopwatch
• How-to-Draw Books
• Simon and/or Bop-It
• Letter Tiles (Scrabble)

Other toys you can include:

• Chess
• Stratego
• Checkers
• Tangrams
• Set
• Uno
• Where’s Waldo?

Letter Tiles

Sound tiles or letter blocks are essential for building auditory processing skills at a very young age. Studies show that weak phonemic awareness skills are to blame for 88 percent of all reading problems. Parents can use these types of tiles to train that skill and give kids the tools they need to become great readers.

The key is to forget about the names of the letters, and focus on the sounds they make: blending, segmenting and analyzing; basically helping the kids put the individual sounds together in the words.

For example: the word me. Analyzing it would be figuring out that it has two sounds, /m/ and /e/. Segmenting would be having your child take it apart and say the sounds individually /m/ and /ee/ and blending would be having them blend it into the word /me/.

It may sound simple, but this type of training, on an intense level, is one of the tools we use at LearningRx Leesburg that achieves astounding results. Struggling readers jump three to nine grade levels in reading skills and become fluid, avid lovers of reading. These methods can be used to prevent reading problems in 90 percent of kids.

Stop Watch

With a stopwatch you can turn any game or activity into a fun exercise that builds cognitive skills. The options are endless. For example, if a child is playing a memory game, give them a time challenge, such as “get three matches in two minutes.” That speeds up their thinking speed, builds their attention skills and works on memory too.

Then challenge them to do it faster.

Stopwatches are small and cheap so you can take them with you to build brain skills anywhere. You can do something as simple as naming 10 boys’ names in 15 seconds. When you add a speed element to any thinking activity, it will build processing speed-- basically helping kids become faster thinkers.

How-To-Draw Books

Help kids pay attention to details, develop better visual skills, and grow logic & reasoning skills too.

Speed Stack Cups

Great for speed, planning, hand-eye coordination, memory, attention and so much fun! Have your child do it to your his favorite song in rhythm!

Memory Match

First sort the cards to match for this game. For younger kids, start with 4 rows of 4 cards, and let them match colors. Later they can match colors and number or face cards. Get the older kids to try to match with 6 rows of 6 cards, then have them match 3 or even 4 cards on a single play. Builds short term memory, plus visual processing skills. (Go Fish! is good for working memory improvement, too.)

Deck of Playing Cards 

Excellent for building divided attention and processing speed. Here’s how it works:  Time your child simply sorting the cards into red and black piles, then challenge them to do it in a shorter time. Then make it harder by having them sort into three piles: red, black and face cards. Keep raising the level of intensity by making them do it faster and by adding challenges, such as having them count by twos or threes while they’re sorting. 

Simon and Bop-It

The electronic handheld game Simon develops auditory processing, visual processing, and memory. The electronic game uses different tones in sequence and the child tries to remember and match the sequence.

Make it an adventure!

A great way to get away from electronic games is with something you may already own. Bring a large gift bag for the games (add your kid's names or give them pirate sounding nicknames) with colored markers or hide a small suitcase outside and surprise your kids with hunt for the treasure. At the end of the search you can hide the key to the small suitcase and let them open it to discover the toys and games.

What is the real treasure?

A Summer Vacation Game Box includes fun games and toys that build all major learning skills, the underlying cognitive skills that we all use to think and learn - skills like logic & reasoning, memory, attention and auditory and visual processing. A Summer Vacation Game Box will include things that focus on building all of those skills.

Studies show that learning disabilities and reading struggles can be prevented, with the right kind of training that strengthens key cognitive skills. That’s something we do every day at LearningRx Leesburg. We test to see which of those skills are weak in a child, we use intense, but fun exercises that are a lot like the games you see here, and we build up those weak skills—essentially making kids smarter. After training they do better in school, have more confidence, and learning struggles can disappear. We can even use exercises similar to this to build attention to the point that kids no longer need medicine for ADHD. So, our trainers will focus on growing those skills, to give kids the best possible start to school, and possibly prevent learning struggles.

These toys make it fun and fast-paced, that way kids won’t even realize that they’re actually working their brains to get smarter. At LearningRx Leesburg, our brain training sessions give kids a serious mental workout, but they have so much fun doing it with our game-like exercises, that they don’t even think of it as work that’s helping them get smarter. Parents can develop that same intensity with their kids at home, if they make it fun and fast and move on to another game when their child loses focus.

Call us today to have you or your child's brain skills assessed at a special discount! LearningRx Leesburg 571-465-2277.