Seeds of Learning, LLC

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Seeds of Learning, LLC

Tera Sumpter, M.A., CCC-SLP • Executive Function Education • Author of the international bestseller, The Seeds of Learning • International Presenter Who am I?
(3)

Seeds of Learning, LLC is a home-based private practice for children of all ages with special needs in the areas of speech, language and literacy. Comprehensive evaluations are performed to determine areas of need. A treatment plan is created and tailored specifically for each child. Early intervention therapy is provided for children ages birth-3 years of age. I provide multisensory-cognitive treatment which shapes specific neurological processes involved in impairments such as dyslexia, auditory and written comprehension impairments, expressive language disorders, phonological disorders, articulation disorders, and childhood apraxia of speech. Tera Sumpter, M.A., CCC-SLP. I am a wife, mother, and speech-language pathologist with specialized experience in the area of reading I am an instructor in the Speech and Hearing program at Cleveland State University. Having worked with children in medical and therapeutic settings for over 11 years, I understand the special needs that children and their families encounter when faced with learning difficulties. I am committed to providing quality treatment to children, as well as educating and empowering families. For a consultation or evaluation, contact Tera at 440-454-1686 or email seedsoflearningllc@gmail.com. Please do not substitute any advice found on this page for a professional evaluation. Contact Seeds of Learning, LLC directly to set up an appointment with a speech pathologist if you have any concerns regarding your child's development."

03/07/2026

Time is arbitrary.

It’s a socially agreed-upon system that has to be learned. We are not born understanding how long units of time actually are.

Children develop an internal clock, or time sense, through experience paired with feedback.

“How long do you think this activity will take?”
“Let’s see how long it actually takes.”
“How long did it actually take?”

These small moments build time awareness.

When a child has a weak sense of time, tasks often feel like they will take *forever*. And when something feels overwhelming or endless, initiation becomes much harder.

Time sense is not automatic.
It is a system that develops through repeated exposure and reflection.

Give children opportunities to estimate time.
Then help them compare their prediction with reality.

That’s how the internal clock begins to form.

Inside our SPARQ-EF classroom program, we include lesson plans that explicitly teach time awareness and help students build this internal sense of time through guided practice and feedback. Click here to check it out 👉 https://shop.terasumpter.com/products/sparq-ef-full-classroom-program

03/06/2026

When I first started my career as an SLP, I thought I was working mostly on speech and language.

But I pretty quickly realized something important.

Many of the challenges I was seeing were not just language difficulties. They were executive function challenges showing up through language.

A child who isn’t aware of their environment struggles to perceive the speech and language around them.

A child with limited working memory has difficulty holding words and ideas long enough to process them for comprehension.

A child who struggles with inhibition may interrupt, dominate conversation, or miss social cues.

And conversation itself?
It is one of the most executive function–demanding tasks children do every day.

Think about it. During a conversation a child must:
• regulate attention
• hold ideas in working memory
• inhibit interruptions
• monitor what the other person is saying
• plan what to say next

That’s a lot of cognitive coordination.

The more I understood executive function, the more clearly I could see the why behind the speech and language challenges I was supporting.

And it changed the way I approached therapy completely.

If you work with children, understanding executive function will change how you see learning.

Which one of these realities resonates most with you? 👇

03/05/2026

We are misguided if we think sustained attention is the goal. It’s not. Very few of us adults can focus to one thing for a minute without our thoughts diverting to something else. Expecting little minds to sustain attention for long periods of time is nonsensical.

Try this out- close your eyes and just think about one thing for one minute; your dog, your breath, a tv show. How far do you get before your thoughts jump to something else? Do you realize that your thoughts have moved? Are you able to redirect them back to the original goal?

This is how attention works- a string of short bursts linked together, a ping-pong machine.

It’s the linking of thoughts together that becomes key.

Individuals who appear to pay attention well have mastered two important skills:
1️⃣ Attention Awareness
2️⃣ Attention Redirection

I know what you’re going to ask me…

“Tera, how do we help kids develop these skills?”

I have one important answer…

REFLEXIVE QUESTIONING

Reflexive Questioning is an important technique that increases awareness and provides the child the opportunity to practice refocusing.

My team and I built an entire EF early elementary classroom program with 3 banks of reflexive questions per lesson plan that help you teach kids how to take charge of their attention!

Want a link to our special launch pricing?

👉 https://shop.terasumpter.com/products/sparq-ef-full-classroom-program

03/04/2026

▶️ Imitation relies on Executive Function!

Imitation is one of the first ways children learn about the world.

Before they follow directions, complete worksheets, or solve problems independently, they are watching.

They copy sounds.
They copy gestures.
They copy actions.
They copy how we solve problems.

This is how development builds.

A toddler stirring an empty bowl after watching you cook is not just playing. They are practicing observation, memory, and motor planning. A preschooler pretending to teach their stuffed animals is rehearsing the behaviors they see adults model every day.

But imitation is not just copying.

To imitate, a child has to
▶️ notice the action,
▶️ hold it in working memory,
▶️ stop their own impulse, and
▶️ recreate the behavior.

That is executive function.

When executive function skills are still developing, imitation can look like forgetting a step, doing the action out of order, or not copying the model at all. It is easy to interpret this as inattention or noncompliance.

More often, it is development.

When we strengthen executive function, we strengthen imitation. And when imitation grows, so do speech, language, play, problem solving, and independence.

Because children are not just watching us.

They are learning how to lead themselves.

This is executive function.

03/03/2026

You are not bad at classroom management.

You are teaching children whose executive function skills are still developing.

Research shows that executive function in kindergarten predicts later reading and math achievement, and classroom-based programs that target these skills can improve both behavior and academics (see references on last slide).

So when you teach attention direction, planning, and self-reflection, you are not losing instructional time.

You are protecting it.

If you want ready-to-use, easy-to-implement lesson plans that help you teach executive function without adding more to your plate, click here 👉 https://shop.terasumpter.com/products/sparq-ef-full-classroom-program

03/02/2026

After 2.5 years of writing, refining, testing, revising, collaborating, and believing in the vision, SPARQ-EF is finally here.

This project has meant more to our team than we can fully put into words. It represents countless conversations with teachers, deep dives into executive function research, classroom trials, and a shared commitment to building something that truly supports focus, regulation, planning, and independence in real classrooms.

There were moments of stretching, reworking, and pushing for better clarity because we knew this needed to be done right. Not rushed. Not surface-level. But thoughtfully built as a complete system teachers could trust.

Last night, my SPARQ-EF team came over and we pressed “publish” together, cheering with champagne as it officially went live. It felt surreal, emotional, and incredibly special to mark the moment side by side after pouring so much into this work.

Seeing it come to life is both humbling and exciting.

We are so grateful for the educators who inspired it, contributed to it, and believed in it along the way. SPARQ-EF is here, and we cannot wait to see it in classrooms.

For a link to see lesson plans, learn more, and to purchase, comment “SPARQEF” and I’ll DM it you.

Or visit https://shop.terasumpter.com

03/01/2026

Expecting every child in a grade to function the same cognitively
is like expecting them all to wear the same size clothes.

We would never say:
“Sorry, you’re in 3rd grade. This is the shirt. Make it fit.”

Yet we do this with executive function every day.

If a student isn’t finishing work, struggling to start, melting down, or zoning out…

It’s not defiance.
It’s not laziness.
It’s a mismatch between task demands and executive function capacity.

Here’s what actually helps:

• Decrease workload to what’s essential. Eliminate busy work
• Give smaller chunks with frequent breaks
• Don’t send unfinished work home. Support at point of need.
• Reduce or eliminate elementary homework
• Allow movement at the desk (stress ball, theraband, balance options)
• Build in brief physical exercise breaks
• Schedule hardest subjects earlier in the day
• Create short work plans with student goal-setting
• Require active engagement (note-taking, response tracking, interaction)

Unfinished classwork tells us the support belongs in the classroom, not in a backpack.

This is exactly why I created SPARQ-EF, an executive function tool for teachers.

SPARQ-EF gives educators a clear, structured way to support executive function needs and explicitly teach the skills students are missing, inside real classroom demands.

Because executive function isn’t about compliance.
It’s about capacity.

And SPARQ-EF launches tomorrow!!

Learn more here 👉 https://terasumpter.com/sparqef

Reference
Barkley, R. A. (2016). Managing ADHD in school: the best evidence-based methods for teachers. Wisconsin: PESI Publishing & Media.

02/27/2026

Far too often, Executive Function is talked about in the context of planners and checklists.

But EF is so much more than that.

EF is the engine behind child development.

EF is the driver behind all learning.

Children have to perceive and attend to their environment to learn from it.
They have to hold information in mind to process it.
They have to resist temptations and ignore distractions to stay on track.
They have to self-monitor their thoughts and actions in order to fix mistakes.

This is Executive Function.

When we strengthen the roots, the leaves and flowers flourish.

When we build the boss, the workers thrive.

When we teach students to direct themselves, we prepare them not just for academic success, but for lifelong resilience, adaptability, and growth.

And this is where real independence begins.

02/26/2026

Consequences require executive function.

Think about that.

To respond to a consequence, a child has to:
• Inhibit the impulse in the moment
• Think into the future
• Connect present behavior to a later outcome
• Adjust their actions accordingly

Those are executive function skills.

So when a child doesn’t change their behavior after a consequence, it’s often not defiance.

It’s a lagging skill.

If inhibition is underdeveloped, the impulse wins.

If future thinking is weak, “later” doesn’t feel real enough to matter.

We can’t expect consequences to build a skill that the child doesn’t yet have.

Skills are built through:
✔ Modeling
✔ Visual supports
✔ Structured routines
✔ Reflexive questioning
✔ Practice in the moment
✔ Opportunities for self-reflection

Consequences may stop behavior temporarily.

Support builds the skill long-term.

02/25/2026

Every lesson is designed to make implementation simple and thoughtful.

Each one of the full program 91 lesson plans includes:

✔️clear overview so you know the goal
✔️short research-based Pro Tip to ground the why
✔️script to support confident delivery
✔️modifications to meet different student needs
✔️reflexive question banks to deepen self-direction
✔️visual plan to make it concrete for students

Structured. Practical. Ready to use.

SPARQ-EF launches March 2!

Comment “SPARQEF” for a link to learn more.

02/24/2026

Executive function (EF) development isn’t just about attention. It’s about learning to self-direct and self-regulate when things are hard: starting, staying with frustration, and returning after a slip.

One brain region that shows up again and again in the science of persistence is the anterior mid-cingulate cortex (aMCC).

Reviews describe it as a network hub involved in the cost/benefit computations of effort that support tenacity (sticking with challenge even without immediate reward).

Even cooler: It improves with practice!

And zooming out: EF is a set of “top-down” mental processes that make it possible to resist impulses, stay focused, and meet novel challenges-core ingredients of self-regulation.

We strengthen our own brains when we practice sticking with it hard tasks, and doing “just one more.”

We help our students do the same when we meet them where they are and scaffold the amount of time and energy they can apply to hard things. Today might be one minute. Tomorrow could be two!

Save this post if you’re building EF skills in yourself or your students!

02/23/2026

Executive function isn’t built in one lesson. It’s built in phases.

And in a world where there is so much noise online about EF, it can be hard to know what actually works and what is just another bandaid.

That’s why SPARQ-EF is structured intentionally so teachers aren’t left piecing it together on their own.

Each phase builds on the last:
✨ Foundational awareness
✨ Practical classroom routines
✨ Deeper skill development
✨ Independent reflection and growth

Instead of managing behaviors all day, you’re teaching students how to manage themselves.

Clear. Scaffolded. Sustainable.

Because executive function isn’t just something we talk about. It’s something we teach.

Which phase would make the biggest difference in your classroom right now? 👇

Address

16927 Detroit Road Suite 5
Lakewood, OH
44107

Telephone

+14406161984

Website

http://www.terasumpter.com/

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