A Apple a Day - Enhance your child's mind with puzzles

      Optimize your children's brains and enhance their intelligence with puzzles!

Did you know that puzzles strengthen your brain? 

Puzzles create new neuron pathways and keep the mind sharp. They improve reasoning ability and help children optimize their math and reading skills. They keep adults sharp and fend off senility. They help develop the ever-so-important spatial and timing abilities that are important precursors to math understanding. They help children (and adults) see patterns in language and numbers, which skill spills over into other areas of their lives.

Puzzles help children learn to think abstractly, which gives them the ability to be better problem-solvers in life as well as in school. It has been proven that the maths and sciences help people learn to think and see alternate possibilities.

Children should start doing simple jigsaw puzzles as young as 18 months, if not younger. Start with wooden cut-out puzzles then graduate to cardboard jigsaws with increasing difficulty as the child ages.

The next step in the puzzle progression would be simple pencil word puzzles. For elementary school ages, the Highlights magazine is a good start, but there are also many other makers of children’s word puzzles.

In teenage and adult years, there are all kinds of pencil puzzle books from makers like Dell and Penny Press. My favorite word puzzles are Cryptograms, Flower Power, Cryptic Crosswords (British version), Math Story Problems, and anything that requires some sort of deductive reasoning. 

My all-time favorite number puzzles are “Math and Logic” puzzles, including Word Math (long division in letters), Kakuro (a.k.a. Cross Sums or Sum Totals), Sudoku (a.k.a. Number Place), Sumdoku (marriage of Kakuro and Sudoku), Crossmath, and Figure Logics, to name a few.

So the next time your teenager says, “Why do I have to take algebra?! I’ll never use it,” tell her that she needs algebra in order to think better in general. Tell her to look at algebra as a fun puzzle, too.

Just as a side note, you can use algebra on your shopping list to make your total come out exactly, so you DO use algebra later it life! I use algebra every day.

For instance, if you only have $100.00 to spend and tax is 6.25%, how much can you spend so that the amount plus the tax on that amount add up to exactly $100.00?

It is algebra – say that one “y” is the amount to spend before taxes, and that the tax (6.25%) would be “0.0625 times y” then your equation would be:

y + 0.0625y = 100.00.

Add the y's together (or distribute out the y). Do the puzzle: y(1 + 0.0625) = 100.00, or

(1.0625)y = 100.00.

Remember that algebra solves like fractions, so

y = 100.00/1.0625 (The slash line means divide).

Then y = 94.12 and the tax (94.12 x 0.0625) on that amount = 5.88, so

$94.12 + $5.88 = $100.00. 

The maximum you can spend before taxes is $94.12. When you add the tax on that amount, you spend your $100.00 exactly. What a fun (and helpful) puzzle!

You can do this with any dollar amount and any tax rate. It’s a great way to keep a tight allowance within budget!

http://thegodfreymethod.com

An Apple a Day - How to raise secure and intelligent children

How to raise secure and intelligent children - Putting baby first

Studies by Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson have shown that the early developmental stages of children are crucial to how the brain is wired, and that the environment provided by parents and caregivers affects their sense of security, how they view the world, and their intellectual development.

               As a biological parent, foster parent, and adoptive parent, I have seen first-hand how true this is. The very first building block to a healthy child, intellectually, socially, and emotionally is for baby to feel that his or her needs are being met. 

This is why the currently popular doctrine of “self-soothing” is so damaging and wrong. I have found that children who are held often are much more secure and independent as they get older than children who are not. You cannot spoil a child with too much holding. That is nonsense. Nothing seems to make up for damage done in the first two years.

               Even as a working mother, my main priority when I got home was to nurse and hold my babies. The house could wait. All other activities could wait. Even though I had excellent childcare from a provider who parented similar to me, my main goal was to make sure my babies felt loved and secure. Next came helping the older children with homework and attending their activities, but taking the babies with me wherever possible.

               It is also wrong to make a hungry baby wait to be fed. The doctrine of forcing a child to wait four hours to be fed is wrong. It creates children who do not trust and may later self-soothe with food. What about overweight babies, you ask? This is much more a risk with bottle-fed babies than breast-fed babies. A nursing baby should eat every 1.5 to 2 hours, as desired. A chubby, breast-fed baby is healthy with brown fat, which goes away as the child learns to walk and run around.

               I am not talking about over-feeding a baby, just common sense. Use some wisdom. I also do not agree with putting baby to bed with a bottle. Never do that. But a forced schedule, where baby feels hungry a lot, is pure evil. Hunger is a real pain to a child. Abuse and neglect rewire a child’s brain.

               Even a bottle-fed baby should be held while being fed. This is key to a child’s emotional development and self-esteem. Do not prop the bottle up and walk away. No one was busier than me with a large family, so no excuses. Take the time. Make the time.

As far as bottle-fed babies getting too fat, use a pacifier between feedings to appease a baby’s natural need to suck. Pacifiers are easier to throw away later (about 2 years) than a thumb. Formula digests slower than breast-milk, so maybe put 3 hours between feedings, but never 4 hours. If the child is truly hungry, feed him or her on demand. Be wise. There is a balance between meeting the child’s needs and over-feeding. If the baby’s emotional needs are being met, he or she will have less need for comfort from a bottle when not truly hungry.

http://thegodfreymethod.com

Why schools fail to use the best methods of reading

Why are so many schools failing to use the best methods of reading? What are the best practices? Check out this Yale study:

                Phonics changes the structure of the brain [for the better]. A research team headed by scientists from the esteemed Yale School of Medicine announced in 2004 a particularly significant finding for children who have trouble learning to read. It was reported by Gilbert Zarate in the Brownsville Herald:

                http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/articles/reading-60628-instruction-schools.html

                The focus of this study, as much of the writing on this topic, is on how to assist struggling readers. While struggling readers show us what the critical issues are, children who are not struggling will be able to learn much more, much quicker, if they are also given exposure to the best teaching practices.

Unfortunately, as is commonly the case, teachers leave good students to fend for themselves on the mistaken assumption that they don’t need help. Mom and Dad can and should do things at home to enhance their child’s learning and intelligence.

                In the words of the reporter:

                “The study reported that the brain function of poor readers actually changes to resemble the brain function of “good” readers when they have been taught to read through instruction that is direct, systematic, and focuses on the sounds and letters that make up words, the meanings of words, and helping children read accurately and quickly.

                “Using functional MRI scanners, researchers were able to document that effective [phonics] reading instruction not only improves reading ability but actually changes the brain’s functioning so children can read more efficiently.

These struggling readers were taught to read using a comprehensive reading program that focused on systematically teaching phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary and spelling and, as a result, formed new and lasting neurological connections and pathways in parts of their brain that regulate reading ability.

                “We know that almost every child in America — whatever race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic level — can become a strong and confident reader when taught through a comprehensive approach grounded in systematic, research-based instruction. And we know that scientifically based reading instruction can be successfully implemented in all schools — whether urban, suburban, or rural. More in Vol. 5 of It's Not Rocket Surgery!

                “Unfortunately, the reality today is that nearly 40 percent of fourth-grade students are unable to read at grade level. While many policymakers, educators and parents are enthusiastic about teaching children to read, not all schools and school districts are implementing instruction grounded in scientific approaches that have been proven to increase reading skills.

Despite what we know works, not all schools have put in place carefully developed, comprehensive reading programs that include research-proven instructional practices. This is a travesty.

                “We know that reading instruction for struggling readers must be explicit, systematic, and allow sufficient time for student learning. We also know that the reading curriculum should include the five critical components that are fundamental to learning to read — phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and reading comprehension.”

                So if the scientific evidence strongly proves that phonics instruction re-maps the brain for the better, why does the educational establishment, for the most part, continue to ignore the data and teach ineffective reading (and math) methods?

Part of the answer may be found in the lobbying and monetary influence of textbook publishers, who follow fads for personal gain rather than true research results.

Part of the answer may be found in the egos of some educational people pushing their own theories and agendas.

Part of the answer can be found in the inertia and ennui of large government entities, schools, to resist change.

                Whatever the factors, it is clear that parents must not let their children fend for themselves in school. Whether children attend public, private, or home school, parents can follow the best practices of phonics reading instruction (and math) with their children at home to ensure a great foundation for success.

http://thegodfreymethod.com/blog/saving-jack-and-jill-why-schools-ignore-best-practices-reading