About Leading to Learning

Biography

As a bright but distracted learner, Dr. Patricia Porter understood some of the complexities of learning differences at a young age. From her grade school perspective she intuitively knew that students were being labeled and streamed.

The concept of learning difficulties and observing fellow students who were underachievers poked at her and waved its red flag throughout her academic years.

Rather than being accepted to University – her marks were excellent but luckily she interviewed poorly – she was accepted to teacher’s training college.  She quickly learned that students who did not learn in the “regular” way were not considered in the teacher’s training curriculum.

Once Patricia graduated and moved on to instructing in her own classroom, it was trial by fire that she learned how to connect and engage with students with learning differences and/or underachievers. She soon learned what an integral piece of the puzzle parents were in their children’s learning successes.

Philosophy

I have developed my strategy to children’s learning success over more than thirty years of working with children, parents and educators.  During those years I have used many educational philosophies, ways of teaching and educational systems and weeded out what did not work.

However a burning question remained. I needed to find out the influence that parents had on their children’s learning and what was the most effective way for parents to be involved.

During my PhD studies at the University of British Columbia I learned that many parents do not have the information they need to make good choices about how to help their children learn. I gained a new respect for parents and how they try to help their children succeed in school.

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A humble thank you to the parents I have learned these lessons from:

• Parenting is the hardest job in the world
• Parents often know their child better than the teacher
• The bond between parent and child is the strongest bond there is.

Most of all I have learned that parents are as important in helping a child learn as any teacher, in fact, they may be even more important than teachers.

View Dr. Porter’s Credentials