The Open Door Blog

Welcome to our blog! Here is where you can read articles by our Open Door admin, tutors, and guest writers too. You’ll find tips and tricks, event and book reviews, inspirational stories, and the occasional exciting announcement too!

The Open Door Blog

5 Simple Ways to Motivate your Child

If you're having trouble motivating your child, you're not alone. Sometimes, we all need a little help to get through those tedious tasks. If you find yourself struggling to motivate your child, here are five simple strategies that you can try: TIP 1: Break it...

This holiday season, are you ready to become a happiness investigator?

Many Christmases ago, when I was living in Newfoundland, far away from my family and friends, my best friend—and budding filmmaker—in Toronto, sent me a photo memory scrapbook she had created for me. Those were the days before Amazon, Instagram, and the iPhone when,...

Is your child seeing diversity in their storybooks?

It’s a challenge finding Canadian children’s books that reflect diversity, inclusion, and disability in the lead characters and story lines. Thanks to Canadian readers demanding change—and librarians leading the charge—the children’s book publishing industry is slowly starting to take note. Yes, Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are a-Changin.”

Do you have any homework tonight?

The usefulness of homework has been studied and debated by scholars, educators, parents and students for many decades. For some students, homework is a cinch. For others, especially children with learning disabilities, homework can be hard to organize, manage, start and complete on their own.

Are you listening to your child with your full attention?

It’s been a stressful school year for families; juggling your kids’ in-person and virtual learning with your work schedules, while isolating from friends and extended family. Perhaps the summer is the prime time to reduce screen time and increase your one-on-one time by engaging in active listening and dynamic conversations together.

Your child’s classroom accommodations—which ones are helping?

If your child has dyslexia and they have an IEP (Individual Education Plan), you know how important their accommodations are in helping them to learn in the classroom. Do you know however, which ones are being consistently applied and which ones are truly helping your child access the curriculum?

Teaching kids how to write—is the writing on the wall?

Have you ever played MadLibs? It’s the word game where one opponent asks the other for random nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs to fill in the blanks in a pre-written story neither opponent has read before. The final outcome is silly and hilarious because the...

Are you learning the power of… YET?

Mindset can profoundly affect how students think about their own abilities and talents and significantly impact their success in life.

Get to know your tutors: Jordyn Tremblay

Every other month you can find a new “Get to know our tutors” video right here on our blog. This month we get to know Jordyn Tremblay. Not only is she a great reading and spelling remediation tutor, she is also a learning strategist. Transcript: Hi I'm Heather...