An Apple a Day - Helping your child learn through field trips

Homeschool Field Trips – Helping your child learn hands-on:

               We use every situation as a learning situation or field trip. When my husband goes on out-of-state fishing trips, he takes our son with him and turns it into a learning experience. He has my son write down all the wildlife he sees, the geography of their travels, the states through which they pass, the license plates of other vehicles – to see how many other states they can find, places and cities of interest, and they even check out library books about the flora and fauna of the destination area. They also talk about the types of fish they catch.

               Each state has a website of interesting things to do, which can be used as hands-on educational experiences. There are cultural events, nature reserves, amusement parks, museums, libraries, symphonies, community playhouses, national parks, recreational facilities, etc. Wise parents will make use of these resources for interesting field trips, while getting to know their own state better.

               In each one of my volumes of It's Not Rocket Surgery! by Shannah B Godfrey on Amazon.com, I put ideas for things to do in Missouri at the end of each subject. There are similar types of activities for each state. Check them out! 

http://thegodfreymethod.com

An Apple a Day - How to get your children to read more

One more idea for motivating your children to read more: TV Bucks

One thing my father did with my siblings and me, that I have used with my children, is TV Bucks. To encourage us to read more and watch TV less, my father insisted that we read an hour for each hour of TV watched. We had to do the reading first – we could not go into “debt” nor make up the reading later. No reading, no TV.

               My father kept track of our reading hours in a notebook. I expanded on his idea by creating TV Bucks, which are the shape and size of Monopoly money, have the letters “TV” on the front center, and are laminated. Whenever my children read for an hour, they get a TV Buck. They can spend them on TV shows. TV Bucks have greatly increased reading time and decreased TV time. They are a great visual to keep track of reading time.

It's not rocket surgery! - but much more important than that. You, mom and dad, are the key.


http://thegodfreymethod.com

Thursday's Child - how to help struggling children

How to help struggling children:

           There are many ways to help struggling children, as presented in Vol. 2, 4, 5, & 7 of It's Not Rocket Surgery! I recommend hiring a private tutor – or the home-bound tutor from your school district – rather than subjecting your child to the humiliation of remedial classes. In your area, there are many good therapists for behavioral and/or learning difficulties. Do some research online to find the best choices. Or ask your doctor for referrals. I would personally suggest a behavioral therapist who is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA).  More ideas further below.

However, there is something even easier that parents can do beforehand to prevent speech and dyslexia problems: turn off the TV for a while and teach phonics early. Teaching phonics the right way (starting before the child is 2 years old - if possible) will help your child’s brain hear the individual sounds and then put them together properly. The brain neurons will learn to distinguish the different sounds and decode the words, mapping them in the proper cortex. Sight-reading cannot do this. Phonics can help clear up speech problems as well. The child learns them slowly at first, then speeds up with practice over time.

               Again, wouldn’t it be much better to prevent dyslexia (and possibly autism & ADHD) by starting phonics early at home rather than having to try to fix it later? Wouldn’t it be better to help a savant be well-rounded in all areas of intelligence from the beginning? Proactive, purposeful parents may never realize how much damage they spared their child. The worst thing possible would be to wait until school age and let the schools do the teaching. The best ‘window of opportunity’ would be lost.

Besides commercial tutors like Sylvan Learning Center or Kumon, there are also:

               The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential: by Dr. Glenn Doman, http://www.iahp.org, or for his products, http://www.gentlerevolution.com.

               Scientific Learning: by Dr. Michael Merzenich, who was featured in, The Brain That Changes Itself, by Dr. Norman Doidge, chapter 3. www.scilearn.com or www.brainsparklearning.com. Or call TOLL FREE 888-358-0212 ext. 1239.

               In the previous chapters of It’s Not Rocket Surgery!, we discussed the roles of infant sensory overload, brain temporal lobe timing, hearing (auditory) processing difficulties, and speech difficulties, in contributing to dyslexia. Now we will discuss how these problems affect reading.

               Did you know that according to Dr. Glenn Doman of The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, brain-damaged children can be healed? His definition of brain-damage also includes dyslexia, ADHD, and autism. Dr. Doman has shown that the same methods that heal brain damage can increase IQ in normal children, too. His methods include using flashcards with young children to teach ‘Bits’ of Intelligence®.

               Dr. Doman, who has done this with brain-damaged babies and children before the age of 5, claims that parents could teach and do things to stimulate the child's brain and build brain cells.  Parents have taken their brain-damaged children to Philadelphia to get help where Dr. Doman has his clinic.  Some children even had missing parts of their brains because of surgery, and they built new brain cells through stimulation to that part of the brain.

               It sounds impossible, but it works. Dr. Doman has helped many children. He said that after age five the brain stops growing; if you treated a child before age five the brain could be stimulated.  However, Dr. Michael Merzenich contends that the brain is still plastic or changeable even into adulthood, but there are ‘windows of opportunity’ where the brain growth is optimum, such as before age five. There is always hope, and specific things parents can do to help.

               In a Copenhagen study, young children who were not as good as their peers at saying multi-syllabic words such as ‘crocodile,’ had trouble with literacy later. It’s a hearing-processing problem in the brain. And look-say reading makes it much worse, inducing dyslexia.

               A really great book called "The Brain that Changes Itself" by Dr. Norman Doidge, M.D., describes Dr. Merzenich's work in detail in chapter 3. It's a must-read and an eye-opener to how learning happens and how the brain nerves map themselves in our brain "real estate."

               Dr. Merzenich developed software to help map children’s brains into the best they can be. He formed the company Scientific Learning and offers the best there is to helping children learn better and faster. One excellent remedial program that rewires the brain is his Fast ForWord® for schools, from Scientific Learning Co.  His BrainPro® and BrainSpark® are for home use. These computer programs exercise every basic brain function involved in language, from decoding sounds to comprehension. It’s a cerebral cross-training and re-training of neurons.

               Dr. Merzenich's breakthrough brain-mapping discoveries help a myriad of brain functioning. His method helps repair speech and reading problems, autism, and social awkwardness, plus it sparks giftedness, showing that brain mapping can change for the better.

               These brain exercises help dyslexic children improve their ability to distinguish short and long sounds. They also teach children to identify confusing consonant-vowel combinations at increasingly faster speeds. Another exercise helps them hear faster frequency-glides. Yet another helps them to remember and match sounds.

               The fast parts of speech have been slowed down by computer so that language-impaired children can hear them and develop clear brain maps for them. Then gradually they are sped up. Each time the child is rewarded, his brain secretes dopamine and acetylcholine, which help consolidate the brain map changes he has just made. These exercises can rewire the dyslexic brain in only eight to twelve weeks.

               The average child who took this program moved ahead 1.8 years of language development in six weeks. A Stanford group did brain scans of children before and after Fast ForWord. The first scans showed that dyslexic children use different parts of their brains for reading than normal children do. After the program, their brain scans showed that their brains had begun to normalize and show patterns that were similar to children who have no reading problems, with increased activity in the proper cortex.††

               Also, try linking learning to music. Brite Music is wonderful for children, http://www.britemusic.com. The brain’s ability to change is validated in “The Music Never Stopped”, a movie based on the incredible true story, The Last Hippie, by Dr. Oliver Sacks, M.D. (of Awakenings). It’s about a young man with devastating amnesia who reconnects with his memories, and his family, through the music of the 1960s, and chronicles the journey of a father and son adjusting to cerebral trauma and a lifetime of missed opportunities. http://themusicneverstopped-movie.com/story 

               “In 1967 prodigal son, Gabriel Sawyer, runs away from home. Nearly twenty years later, Henry is shocked to learn that his estranged son requires major surgery to remove a previously neglected brain tumor.

               “After the operation, the extent of Gabriel's condition is made clear: the tumor damaged the part of his brain that facilitates the creation of new memories. For Gabriel, past, present, and future become indistinguishable. Determined not to let their son slip away from them again, Henry and wife, Helen, vow to connect with Gabriel, who is barely able to communicate effectively.

               “Unhappy with Gabriel's lack of progress, Henry does his own research on brain injuries, which leads him to Dr. Dianne Daly. She is a music therapist who has used her methods to make significant progress with victims of brain tumors.

               “As Diane works with Gabriel, she realizes that he is most responsive to the music of the Rock and Roll era - The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and particularly the Grateful Dead. Even though he is unaware that the era of his music has long passed, the effect is remarkable, and he begins to be able to have conversations and express himself. Although Henry loathes rock and roll, he is determined to forge new memories and salvage his relationship with his son.

               “While his own health fails, Henry begins his own pilgrimage through the bands of the sixties. With the songs that animate his son's soul, he is able [to help his son create new memories, previously impossible for Gabriel, and] to form an unusual but emotionally vibrant bond with the child he thought he had lost.”

               ††But what about parents who can’t afford to, or don’t want to,  send their children away for eight to twelve weeks for this break-through, computer-based remediation? Scientific learning has home-based computer solutions such as BrainSpark and BrainPro as well. They are a great, albeit pricey, remedy.

               If your child has some brain or body chemistry issues, look for holistic and nutritional solutions, first. Therapists in Canada strongly prefer this route and have several solution ideas.

I am not against using medications where needed, and several of my children have benefitted from medical help for bipolar, ADHD, anxiety, and depression struggles. However, use them carefully, keeping the side-effects to a minimum. I also work to find help that doesn’t numb-out my child or remove his/her core personality.

               Better nutrition can help diabetes, high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, etc., in adults, but sometimes they still need medical help. Likewise, we often can’t change our genetic, body and brain chemistry with just nutrition and/or talking therapy. If something can help my children get along better in society, or feel more successful in school, I may use it. But be careful; meds can do the opposite, too. The goal is to do what’s best for my child rather than to make my life easier.

Web MD, http://www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/guide/nondrug-treatments, has several non-drug solutions for bipolar disorder and others. Types of psychotherapy used to treat bipolar disorder include:

·        Behavioral therapy

·        Cognitive therapy

·        Interpersonal therapy

·        Social rhythm therapy

·        Support groups

·        Education – benefit from learning about the disorder

·        Also, taking these steps may help you cope with a disorder:

o   Establish routines

o   Identify symptoms

o   Adapt

o   Maintain a regular sleep pattern

o   Do not use alcohol or drugs

               For more information, check out the WebMD website for this and other disorders.

               If s/he beyond-doubt needs some medical help, have your therapist look for medicines that aid behavior and learning without spacing-out your child or erasing his/her personality. Watch for detrimental side-effects, such as muscle twitches, liver damage, or blood-sugar spikes; some can become permanent. But please do not let the doctors hospitalize your child; s/he’ll feel abandoned by you, with makes self-esteem worse. There are other options.

               And have hope! My son’s therapist, Nancy Pierce, has had several bipolar-child patients who have outgrown their disorder and have been weaned off the meds in their college or young adult years. This is my plan for my son, too. And this may be true of ADHD and other disorders.

               Without these preventatives, the cracks in your child may be dyslexia, speech problems, resource remediation classes, being teased at school, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, rage, low self-esteem, insecurity, childhood depression, low self-confidence, lack of imagination, lower IQ, slower learning capacity, math incompetency, caught in the downward educational trend, and/or low-paying jobs. They all may be preventable or curable. You, mom and dad, are the key. It’s not rocket surgery!

http://thegodfreymethod.com

Thursday's Child - No Child Left Behind

          No Child Left Behind?

               Professional development?! Teacher preparation?! ‘No child left behind’ really means 'all children left behind.'

               Before we returned to homeschooling, at the end of every term, my children got a day or two off from school for the teachers’ “professional development.” I used to think that this meant the teachers were attending training on how to be better educators, or something similar. Not so! Recently someone in the school PTA told me that what happens is this: All the teachers get together by grade level to adjust the curriculum down for the next term.

               For example, all the 4^th-grade teachers get together and look at their students’ scores. They find the lowest-achieving children in their grade, then readjust the curriculum back to that child for the coming term. No Child Left Behind has become ALL children left behind, because schools are afraid of getting a bad rating and fines from the Federal Department of Education.

               Personally, this horrifies me. Why not get special tutors for those that are behind, and let the rest work ahead at their own pace? And many of those who are behind wouldn’t be behind if we changed what/how we’re teaching the teachers to teach in the first place! It’s a self-propagating, downward spiral.

               Although a conservative myself, I realize that not all conservatives have good family values, and vice versa. I was disappointed when President Bush enacted “No Child Left Behind.” The only good part of it was if parents could take vouchers to the charter schools of their choice, but that was never achieved for most people. Here’s what Hartman Rector, Jr., said in the interview referenced previously:

               “They say education has failed. It has not failed, it is doing exactly what Dewey set out to do. He had two major goals: #1 Get God out of the schools; #2 Get mothers out of the schools; and they’ve done it. (John Dewey was the founder of modern public education and a signer of the Humanist Manifesto. He designed an educational system where God and family influences would be excluded and where students would be separated into academic or tradesman tracks.)

               “And that’s where we are today. Today about 3% of the students get PhD’s. Dewey would have wanted a few to get doctorate degrees, and they would do the thinking for the rest of the people. Today 17% of our students are dropping out. Dewey would have felt they were needed to do the more necessary menial tasks like pick up the garbage and dig the ditches. Then he would have wanted the rest of them (80%) to learn how to follow orders, to follow rules. Dewey set out to do what we are achieving today.

               “Dewey set out to implement what Plato taught – the Great Society, completely planned. Nobody has any way to get out of the mold they put them in. [Not so great, eh?] That’s what this ‘Goals 2000’ education is designed to do. The Governor of Texas (George Bush) has got it implemented in Texas already, and he’ll try to do it in every state in the Union if he gets elected. We haven’t got anybody to vote for.”

               Well, Bush was elected and he did implement it nationwide, under “No Child Left Behind”. The crippling continues…

               Just a note: all conservatives are not Republicans and vice versa. According to Jonathan Krohn in, Define Conservatism, the characterization of a conservative falls under these four core values:

1.      Respect for the Constitution

2.      Respect for Life

3.      Less Government

4.      Personal Responsibility

               NCLB actually undermines these values by lowering the educational standards for all children, by government mandate. Homeland Security also undermines them, and undermines our Bill of Rights, big time.

               Even if you don’t agree with my conservative values, you need to understand that what I’m saying about the need for parental involvement in early reading the right way is true, regardless. It’s for everyone and all belief systems or political views, secular, religious, liberal, or conservative. Our children’s futures deserve our best efforts!

               Consider this: more than 22,260 secondary students in Texas were listed as withdrawing to home-school in 2008. Similar statistics are happening all over the United States. Parents are waking up! Every child has a right to be well bred, well fed, and well led. The ideal isn’t always possible, but we need to do our best for our kids.

               What about foster children who don’t have an advocate? As mentioned in Vol. 4 of It's Not Rocket Surgery!, The Godfrey Method can do a lot to help heal the learning struggles caused by the emotional traumas and educational methods faced by these children.

               Oprah Winfrey has magnified our public education failures on several of her television shows and website. She highlighted the movie, Waiting for Superman, by Davis Guggenheim, which opens Sep. 24, 2011. She called it, “The movie that could revolutionize America’s schools.” We shall see…

               On Sep 20, 2010, Oprah reported shocking educational statistics:

• Since 1971, educational spending in the U.S. has grown from $4,300 to more than $9,000 per student. But reading and math scores have flat-lined. [After a constant decline.]
• Among 30 developed countries, the U.S. is ranked 25^th in math and 21^st in science.
• High school dropouts are 8 times more likely to go to prison.
• Approximately 7,000 kids drop out of school every day.
• It is estimated that by the year 2020, there will be 123-million high-paying, high-skill jobs in the U.S., but only 50-million Americans to fill these positions.

               Will your child be ready for the technology jobs of the future? Not if you leave it up to the Departments of Education in our universities and government. Parents are the key!

               On Sep 15, 2010, Oprah also aired a show that focused on education activist Michelle Rhee, who “won’t back down”. Ms. Rhee is the chancellor of Washington, D.C.’s school district. She has been firing “bad teachers” right and left in an effort to improve the District’s public education. However, her concentration on teachers is a bit mis-guided because we can’t improve education until we change what we teach the teachers to teach! State legislatures tie their hands with faulty curricula from the lobbying of erroneous university professors and their political cohorts. Period.

               Yes, there are children with legitimate learning disabilities, but the vast majority of children with LD-diagnoses don’t really have them or would have them to a much milder degree; they’ve been caused by teaching theories that don’t work. Don’t blame the teachers because they often don’t know what they don’t know, having been dragged down the wrong path by flawed mentors in universities. This whole process has been snow-balling since 1967 until now. And it continues.

For No Child Left Behind to be real, more and more parents need to homeschool or get involved in a major way in their children's education.

http://thegodfreymethod.com

Thursday's Child - Is resource class hurting your child's self-esteem?

     The Paradox of Resource Class and Your Child's Self-Esteem      

     

     Is your school's curricula destroying your child's future? Ten ways to stop them now.

               In the 5^th and 6^th grades, one of my sisters was taken to resource classes after lunch every day, along with a handicapped boy. The school thought that she read too slowly, or that her grades weren't good enough, or something. Or they made a mistake and took the wrong girl.

               No one ever explained to my sister that she was going to start resource class nor why. One day a lady just came to her class and said, "I need Leah and Tom to come with me for some special reading time." She was so embarrassed; after awhile, she begged the teacher to let her come to resource on her own after lunch, without being picked up. However, she didn't – and doesn't – have any learning problems. Why my parents allowed the schools to do this to her is beyond my understanding.

               The resource teacher had my sister read out-loud for hours. The teacher supplied tedious little books far below my sister's  intelligence level and attention span. Basic sight-word booklets. She read very well at home all the time, so she was really confused about it and bored out of her mind.

               If she made a mistake, the teacher just told her what the word was and made her repeat it. Look-say at its worst. No phonics or sounding-out was used. My sister rarely made any mistakes, other than reading too quickly and tripping over her tongue. She understood perfectly well.

               The slower a child reads (sounding-out), the more intellectual s/he is; has higher reasoning skills. The faster a child reads (look-say), the less s/he understands; just jumping through hoops. Kids are afraid to read too slowly in front of the teacher and class. Sight-reading may help some of them speed up in the short-term, but they don't learn how to think, just what to think. Is this really what we want?

               My sister's neighbor, a school reading therapist, said she'd take a kid who reads slowly, and may trip on some words, over one who reads quickly but can't comprehend. It's ridiculous that schools push speed over comprehension. The speed naturally comes after the phonics rules are learned, as it should be.

Educational Errors:	Parental emPowerments:	Shannah B Godfrey:
Audio-Sequential Teaching	Find out if Your Child is a Visual-Spatial Learner	Vol. 8 It's Not Rocket Surgery!
Holding Bright Students Back	Gifted Classes, Private or Homeschooling	Vol. 7
Inducing Dyslexia	Early Reading the Right Way – TGM	Vol. 1-4
Lowering Curricula Standards & Remediation	Stopping 'Teacher Preparation' Days	Vol. 4
Mis-Diagnosing Giftedness & Boredom as ADHD	Find out if Your Child is Gifted or Creative	Vol. 7
Pushing Ritalin	Research Nutritional & alternate Natural Solutions	Vol. 4
Student-Led Discovery	Adult-Led Direct Instruction	Vol. 6
Whole 'Reform' Math	Early Math the Right Way - & less calculators	Vol. 10
Whole-Language Sight Reading	Phonics Reading only	Vol. 5
Whole-Music Instruction	Back to the Basics	Vol. 7
	Homeschool

               The paradox of resource class and your child's self-esteem is this, the Self-Esteem-First and Whole Language teaching models have failed to produce either self-esteem or basic academic skills, thereby putting more and more children into recovery, resource, reform, or remedial education. (Or forcing their parents to pay for private or commercial tutoring programs.)

               Going to a resource class usually embarrasses a child and gives other children more excuses to tease him/her. The recovery methods used often don't fix the educational problem, thus not improving the child's capabilities either. So the child is exposed to more ridicule without a viable reason for the class in the first place.

Many behavioral problems in school stem from a child feeling worthless because of needing remediation. What is supposed to help often does more damage. Behavioral problems vs. learning disability is a self-propagating "slippery slope" because each continually feeds off the other, revolving downward to decrease a child's confidence and motivation. Get your child off the slope!

               Without the horrid look-say sight-reading methods, the need for remediation would dwindle to a few needy cases. And naturally self-esteem would rise.

               Phonics deciphering skills build intellect and reasoning skills. Sight-word memorizing doesn't. Quite the opposite, in fact. How many children think they're slow when they're not? Whom does this serve?

               To illustrate, I would like to quote a section from the wonderful satire of former NRRF* North Carolina Director, Cathy Froggatt's, Whole Language at the Fork in the Road, Right to Read Report, February 1998. Read the entire, brilliant article at http://www.nrrf.org/satire_WL_at_Fork.html:

               Paradise or Perdition? "Why, Dr. Goodguess, what is the matter? You look very distraught! What has happened to your self-esteem?"

               "Well, Dr. Sampler, it's these darn words-in-isolation. You'd think there would be at least one picture clue somewhere?!"

               "Hmmm, I see what you mean, Dr. Goodguess. Oh, no! Both signs have words that start with the same letter, and the words are about the same length."

               "Professor Indoctrinate, unwilling to provide any phonics information due to her thorough disdain for such "lower order subskills," encouraged Drs. Goodguess and Sampler to use the Whole Language cueing system they knew so well. In an attempt to reassure them, she said, "Don't be upset if you can't read the signs just yet. After all, reading is developmental. In time it will all begin to click, maybe next year or the year after."

               "Now they knew they were in need of a 'real' reading expert, particularly one who had been intensely trained, preferably at Ohio State. So without hesitation, even though their self-esteem was becoming badly damaged, Drs. Goodguess and Sampler fell to their knees and began praying loudly. As if on cue, a Reading Recovery teacher appeared on the pathway. At first she was a bit intimidated to be in the presence of the founders of Whole Language. After all, she knew quite well that Reading Recovery owed its very existence (in more ways than one) to the theories and strategies taught by these very experts.

               "Fortunately, her extensive training allowed her to quickly regain her composure and to focus on the reading problems the gentlemen were experiencing. "I am sure I need not remind you, gentlemen," she began, "that comprehension and meaning-making are of primary importance when reading a word you have not seen before. You must just answer the question: 'What would make sense here?'"

               "With the path behind them filling up with people impatiently awaiting their turn to pass through the fork, Drs. Goodguess and Sampler cried out in despair, "What we desperately need is more context!" (The context-clue of 'Pandemonium', the capital of Hell in Milton's, Paradise Lost, didn't help. Neither would 'Purgatory'.)

               "Just then they heard the soft-spoken voice of a child. A little six-year-old boy walked up to them, looked at the sign on the right and said with great pride, "I was taught to read with explicit, systematic phonics. I can sound out any word. The sign on the right says 'Paradise' and that's the way I'm going." And off he went."

               "Drs. Goodguess and Sampler looked at each other with knowing smirks. Their need for context had surely been met. Dr. Goodguess whispered excitedly, "Did you hear him say 'explicit, systematic phonics'? The path he took must be the road to Perdition! Quickly now, let's take the other path!"

*The National Right to Read Foundation (NRRF).

               Take a look at spelling bees. Virtually all winners of spelling bees spell by phonics. They are able to hear the sounds in the words and take them apart. They can build words from root words, adding prefixes and suffixes, so they can also deconstruct them for spelling. Phonics makes it easier to remember which spelling goes with which homonym, too. These children don't have to memorize thousands of sight words.

               They have been able to make sense of words on a foundation of phonics rules, and can decode new words, with only about 42 sounds. That is just sheer genius. It is higher-order thinking. It even makes it easier to remember irregular spellings.

               On Twitter, I recently saw a spelling-bee-preparation method based on sight-words, and I cringed. No, no, no! Stop this insanity!

               Have you or your children ever taken piano lessons? Students are taught each note's name, sound, place on the piano and in the musical staff, individually before putting them together into chords, measures, and complete songs. Once those are mastered, they can move on to more complex pieces and learn to add nuances to the music with soft and loud, slow and fast, slurring or staccato, etc.

               Wouldn't it be ridiculous to learn piano the Whole Language way? The piano student would have to learn whole songs by sight, guess through context, cooperation, comprehension, and meaning-making. And yet my Canadian friend Pavel, a music teacher, says this is happening in schools now. How many whole songs can a child memorize by sight? Not many. But any student who has a foundation of individual notes can build up to any and every tune out there. It is the same with phonics and reading.

               A great way to enhance your child's mind is to have him or her participate in the national spelling bee. The deadline is usually in October, each year. Encourage your child's teacher to enroll your school (or homeschool group) for a fee with the E.W. Scripps Company. You can also enroll your child and buy spelling practice supplies. http://www.spellingbee.com.

               The local, spelling-bee sponsors conduct community spelling bee programs, usually in cooperation with school officials for public, private, parochial, charter, virtual, and home schools. The champion of each local spelling bee sponsor's program qualifies for participation in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. Each year they grant a limited number of local spelling bee sponsorships.

               Between August and October, schools enroll for participation in the program for the next season. During the fall and winter, schools conduct spelling bee programs at the classroom, grade, and/or school level, and send their spelling champions to the next level of competition as designated by their local spelling bee sponsors.

               Homeschool expert, Hartman Rector, Jr., in an interview with The LDS Home Educators Assn Newsletter, Issue #31, Nov 1999 http://www.ldshea.org/Notes/Hartman%20Rector.htm, said:

               "There's no question in my mind that about 14 minutes with mother is equal to all day in the public school. That’s what they determined when William Bennett was director of the Department of Education under President Reagan. He tried to determine how much time it would take with private tutoring for a child who had been injured and couldn’t attend school. All it takes is 1 ½ hours a week to keep a child up with his class. That’s about 20 minutes per day!" [Children usually learn faster from their own mother than from a teacher.]

               "That's why 14 minutes with mother is worth more than a day in school.  Because of the love and relationship that exists between a mother and her children, she is the best teacher of children." [I'm sure this is true of good fathers, too.]

               "(What about mother burn-out?) That happens because they try to put on a public school in their home. They even use public school materials. That doesn't work. You've got to adapt to what will work. I'm convinced that Glenn Kimber has gone a long way down the road to getting past this burnout problem. He suggests teaching three days a week, four hours a day, and no homework. Homework was devised by Dewey to make kids hate school. He didn't want students to love learning.

               "Don't teach on Monday. You need Monday to get over Sunday. That's when you do your housework, learn about Tide in, dirt out and if you put yeast in, bread rises. Then when [your kids] go on [their own] they're not helpless. …kids who came out [to college, e.g.] knowing how to cook and mend were better qualified to survive well.

               "The afternoon is open for students to play in the band or sports with local high school, if they want to. Friday is field day; you've got to know how the fire department and the police department work. I'm convinced this is a great system."

               "I'm convinced that home-schooled kids can finish high school and be ready for college at an average age of 15. That's too young to go to college, so you take college correspondence courses."

               Even for those of us who aren't currently homeschooling, Mr. Rector's words carry a lot of weight. We can do things at home to help our children, whether they attend public, private, or home school. In fact, all the HELPS at the end of each chapter of It's Not Rocket Surgery! by Shannah B Godfrey can be utilized by anyone, regardless of his/her situation.

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Ten O'Clock Scholar - The mind-body connection of reading

Did you know that all your senses can help you learn to read?

        We all have 5 senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Personally, I would call emotion a sixth sense because I often feel my emotions in my heart or chest area, as well as other parts of my body. Science calls it psycho-somatic, meaning that the mind affects the body (and vice versa). Some parents make the mistake of only focusing on one area of a child’s intelligence, either academic or sports. Children need exposure to many types of learning to be well-rounded. All areas affect the mind. Mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual healths are inter-related and we should encourage them in our children, for robust lives and futures.

        There is a mind-body connection that is important to understand. There are many examples of times when body movement optimizes mental ability. Since the goal of most parents is for their gifted children to be well-rounded people, the mind-body connection is important to consider.

        There is a proven connection between academics, infants and academics. Crawling affects language, reading, and math abilities. Children who crawled longer as babies often have an increased ability to learn during school years. In fact, children who are struggling in school show marked improvement when they do crawling exercises each day, even at ten years old or older. The eye-hand-leg coordination that is learned helps brain processing in all areas. It may be related to spatial relationships and timing patterns, which always improve math and reading. Young parents are often excited to have their babies walking early, but wise parents will encourage their infants to crawl longer.

        Playing an instrument such as piano improves mental functioning. Music definitely improves space and time understanding, which maximizes learning in all areas. Likewise, hearing classical music from Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart has been proven to increase intelligence in infants and children. There is something about the compositions from these four geniuses that increase the necessary neuron paths required for higher-level thinking. Wise parents incorporate music into their children’s lives, by both listening and playing instruments.

        Playing sports can sharpen logic and logistical intelligence. Grasping how several players coordinate together, and all the many possibilities of interaction and play, is an important part of problem-solving later in life.

        About age 5, it may be a good idea to start children in community t-ball, soccer, basketball or swimming. The recreation department at most city offices has information on all community sports. They also usually have a city pool that offers affordable swim lessons during the summer. Start children in sports early. The hand-eye-leg coordination required is akin to crawling in maximizing intelligence. Caution: do not neglect intellectual stimulation for physical prowess.

        Three of my sons loved the swim team. None of them became Olympic or professional material, but they learned valuable lessons and strengthened their bodies, which strengthened their minds, and learned the value of teamwork. The oldest went to the State Swim Competition. Smart children are often independent and stand alone in their intellectual abilities. They may begin to think that their way is the only way, or that because they are smart, they are always right. It is good for them to learn teamwork and compromise in a team sport. It is good for them to learn that others have good ideas, too.

        The steps to success are intention, attention, and then no tension. First, write down the goal that is intended to accomplish. Then give it attention and real effort for a sustained time. Finally, release the tension and do something else for a while. It is while doing something physical that the “Aha!” moments often come.

        Personally, I pace when I’m having a mind blank. Washing dishes, walking, exercising, creating something with your hands, or just doing something physical releases ideas from the mind at unexpected times. Sleep affects mental acuity, too. Some “Aha!” moments occur in the middle of the night, awakened from sleep, where the mind has had a chance to relax. Many geniuses relax with some sort of physical art like painting, sculpting, carpentry, or other creative activity unrelated to their area of expertise. Giving the conscious mind a break allows the subconscious to kick in ideas.

        Chiropractors such as Dr. Bradley Nelson (The Emotion Code) have shown that stress stored in the body relates to memories of traumatic moments. There is also a strong correlation between depression and physical ailments, where a negative mental attitude suppresses the immune system and allows illness in. The reverse is also true, that chronic illness can provoke depression. Keeping a positive mental attitude can keep the body healthier. By the same token, proper nutrition and exercise keep the mind and emotions healthier.

        Some parents make the mistake of only focusing on the gifted child’s academic intelligence, or vice-versa. All other areas affect the mind, too. Mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual health are all inter-related and should be encouraged in gifted children for robust lives and futures.

        “Mom, there’s nothing to do!” Recognize that summer-time whine from your kids? Sometimes they need to put down the books, computer, and games and play outside. Children need the right side of their brains exercised as much as the left, so activities in the arts and humanities are refreshing and beneficial.

        Stimulate your child’s imagination and creative juices with family trips to local water parks, federal reserve banks, museums with activities, pioneer towns, skating, nature reserves and farmstead parks, puppetry institutes, children’s science institutes, cave exploring, library activities, fine arts centers, community theaters, zoos, petting zoos, bird refuges, festivals, renaissances, college-sponsored math competitions for kids, picnics, nature hikes, arts & crafts, amusement parks, camping, historical sites, old downtown shops, reunions, to name a few.

        Specialty museums, such as Native American museums and cultural centers, are a great way to expand your child’s social understanding. Local history is a splendid way to open your child’s mind to the past. Many historic buildings have tours and children’s activities. Check them out!

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