Why child-led discovery leaves your child behind

No child should be left on her own for education. Child-led discovery leaves a child far behind his peers.

However, with Direct Instruction you can accomplish optimum results with any child, whose cognitive growth is accelerated by carefully engineered instruction, rather than waiting for him to learn through random experience. 

        Don’t let the boring definition fool you. It’s interesting when done the right way.

DI is the purposeful teaching of a skill-set using lectures or demonstrations of the material, rather than exploratory models such as inquiry-based learning. 

There are ways to introduce material in a fun and joyous way. 

(One of the best books to use this method is, "A Funny Boy Was Prince River", possibly followed by "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons".)

To develop a child’s intelligence, parents would do well to pursue the only teaching method proven to work: direct instruction. DI can be considered to be the ‘best practice’ of education for every subject, especially for the elementary school ages. 

DI is a teaching method that focuses on systematic, curriculum design and with a prescribed, behavioral script. (That is science-speak for guiding your child through easy steps that work.)

What was Project Follow Through? Why did we never hear of it?

        For almost 30 years (1967-1995), educrats experimented on U.S. kids in over 200 schools nationwide, with 22 different learning/teaching models.* Most of the failed models are still in use today. The data was intentionally kept from teachers and legislators.

The one and only successful method, direct instruction with phonics, has been mocked and ridiculed by ridiculous opponents, such as Frank Smith, who pushed the whole-language, sight-word propaganda (which causes dyslexia).

The Direct Instruction (DI) model was the only model that showed strong academic and effective gains at all sites. Some features of DI include: explicit, systematic instruction based on scripted lesson plans.

Emphasis on pace and efficiency of instruction, to accelerate student progress and bring students to mastery as quickly as possible. Frequent curriculum-based assessments help identify students who require additional intervention.

In other words, put your children on the launch pad of life and watch them soar!
   
Reason over rhetoric. Data over dogma.

*(Source: OVERVIEW: The Story Behind Project Follow Through, by Bonnie Grossen, Editor, University of Oregon, http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adiep/ft/grossen.htm).

http://thegodfreymethod.com/content/SeeingtheEmperorsNewClotheswhychildleddiscoveryleavesyourchildbehind

5 common teaching methods may do more harm than good

SEEING THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES – PROJECT FOLLOW THROUGH
These five common reading methods may actually do more harm than good.

Have you ever heard of Project Follow Through (PFT)? Probably not. For almost 30 years (1967-1995), educrats experimented on U.S. kids in over 200 schools nationwide, with 22 different learning/teaching models. The idea was to create the Great Society with educational excellence. The opposite happened. The effects of PFT are still ongoing today, unfortunately.

After the results were analyzed, only one model of teaching proved to work – the direct instruction model using phonics. 

All the other models, whole language (sight-reading), child-led learning, inquiry-led learning, discovery, self-esteem first, etc., failed to produce positive results, and many even did more damage to children. 

(Ironically, self-esteem models did not produce self-esteem. Achievement in basic skills did. Models that emphasize basic skills produced better results on tests of self-concept than did other models.)

Paradoxically, the method that worked and worked well for all academic subjects, Direct Instruction (with phonics), was developed by an advertising-agent-turned-preschool-expert, a non-university, non-educational, non-PhD, father at home, Siegfried (Zig) Engelmann.

So what happened to the results of this long, expensive study, PFT? They were blocked from being disseminated out to the educational world- the teachers and principals that deal with our children every day. Why? Because 21 teaching models failed (including Whole Language and its many names), and only Direct Instruction proved to work. These results were blocked most likely to advance some university professors’, curriculum organizers’, and textbook publishers’ careers. And what about the politics of egos having to admit that the un-credentialed dad got it right? Never!

As a result, many of our children continue to be led down the path of illiteracy because Mr. Ernest House and Mr. Gene Glass, backed by the Ford Foundation, convinced the Department of Education that it was not beneficial (for whom?) to publish the results of Project Follow Through. Billions of taxpayer dollars created not the Great Society, but a mediocre, declining one instead. It’s ironic that men named Glass & House were “throwing stones” at the only successful method. 

Is your child’s education (and future) safe? Take this simple quiz.

Does your child:

1) Know the letter names, but not their individual letter sounds?
2) Know how to recognize words by sight, but not how to sound them out?
3) Confuse words easily?
4) Confuse letters and numbers?
5) Guess at unknown words?
6) Need pictures to help guess at sentence context?
7) Feel frustrated with reading?

If you said YES to any of these questions, your child may develop induced-dyslexia or fall further and further behind each year. 

Do something NOW to change his/her reading skills from sight-words to true phonics with The Godfrey Method. Give your child the tools to succeed in life!


http://thegodfreymethod.com/content/SeeingtheEmperorsNewClothes5commonreadingmethodsmaydomoreharmthangood 

2 ways a gifted child may have a learning disability

Can a gifted child have a hidden learning disability? Can a learning-disabled child have a hidden giftedness?

Absolutely! Let me tell you about my 5th son. He learned to read by phonics before kindergarten. He always did well in elementary school and showed signs of giftedness. Then in intermediate school (6th & 7th grade) he started struggling. His grades were slipping, he was having behavior problems, getting into trouble, etc. 

We were pulling our hair out. We didn't know what to do. Next he went to middle school (8th & 9th) grades, and things got much worse. We noticed that he was very depressed. Was he on drugs?

About this same time, his younger brother had been diagnosed with childhood bipolar disorder. So I decided to take this son to the same diagnosing clinic and get a professional work-up. Dr. Gray wasn't available, so Dr. Lin took the case. It turned out that my son was ADHD and depressed (sounds bipolar to me, but she said no). 

Dr. Lin said that he was so gifted that it masked his problem in elementary school, but that when he reached the older grades, he couldn't hold it all together on memory and logic any more.

Changing classes and teachers 6 or 7 times a day uncovered the disorganization in his brain. So we got him the help he needed, and his grades came up, culminating in his high school graduation. I wouldn't be surprised if letting him watch too much TV or play too many video games, while I was working when he was little, contributed to his problem. 

He may have a genetic predisposition for these things, but too much media didn't help. As a single mom, I was on survival mode, worked full-time, went to college full-time, studied, took care of the house and shopping, etc. My son changed day-cares too much at that time, also.

The only thing I can say in my defense is that I didn't know. I wish that I knew what I know now, about the affects of noise on the toddler’s brain, when I was younger. I shouldn't have taken the easy road, but my stress level was really high. I also felt that, while I had to work, he was safer watching TV or playing video games than being with questionable friends or wandering outside.

Also, back then I didn't know that changing day-cares too much can cause bonding-attachment disorder in children. I realized that my son had signs of this when he was a preschooler, so I did whatever I could to help him bond with me – held him more, made him look me in the eye while speaking, spent more time with him. 

Divorce is hard on everyone, especially the children. My 5th son was the youngest at the time and was affected the most. He lost both parents; dad to divorce, and mom to work and school.

But I can also say that taking the time to teach him to read before kindergarten, with my picture-letters, solved two problems. I gave him the tools and capacity to learn (and well) despite his hidden ADHD, and I mended his bonding-attachment disorder at the same time with the one-on-one attention. 

In his early teenage years we discovered his hidden ADHD disability and diminished its symptoms, so he could function in a secondary school setting. We also addressed his depression, partly genetic but exacerbated by his struggles in school. He has grown up to be a wonderful, caring young man!

Some children who appear to be gifted in certain areas, such as math, mechanics, cooking, music, etc., may be held back by problems in reading and writing. Some children who are “diagnosed” with learning disabilities may have gifted abilities in other areas, even being savants. Others may be held back by depression or other brain-chemistry issues. 

There is hope. Parents can do things at home to prepare (or repair) their child’s brain for normal, signal processing.

~ Early reading the right way
~ Less sound and visual “noise”
~ Dr. Merzenich’s group
~ Dr. Doman’s institute

(More about this in Chapter 7 of "It's Not Rocket Surgery!" Also, see visual-spatial learners in Chapter 8.)

Without phonics, the idea of anagrams and other word puzzles would be extremely difficult for the sight-reader/dyslexic with little precision in letter-sounds and sequences. Here are a few examples of anagrams from http://www.baconbabble.com/index.php/2009/12/03/48-amazing-anagrams/ plus some of mine. The idea of these anagrams is to scramble the word into something that describes the original word, using all the same letters.

Note: some of the anagrams on the website are not appropriate. I do not support the ribald ones. However, these below are genius!

Mother-in-law __________________________Woman Hitler
Debit card______________________________Bad credit
Slot machines___________________________Cash lost in ‘em
School master___________________________The classroom
Eleven plus two_________________________Twelve plus one
Dormitory_______________________________Dirty room
Punishment______________________________Nine thumps
The Morse code__________________________Here come dots
Snooze alarms___________________________Alas! No more Zs
A decimal point_________________________I’m a dot in place
Astronomer______________________________Moon starer
The eyes________________________________They see
The public art galleries________________Large picture halls, I bet
Election results________________________Lies – let’s recount
The Hurricanes__________________________These churn air
Presbyterian____________________________Best in prayer
Desperation_____________________________A rope ends it
Animosity_______________________________Is no amity
The earthquakes_________________________That queer shake
Semolina________________________________Is No Meal
Contradiction___________________________Accord not in it

-Anagrams in Famous Names- (try your own name)

Elvis___________________________________Lives
Elvis Aaron Presley_____________________Seen alive? Sorry, pal!
Madonna Louise Ciccone__________________One cool dance musician
Clint Eastwood__________________________Old West action
William Shakespeare_____________________I’ll make a wise phrase
Marilyn Manson__________________________Manly man? No sir!
A Homer Simpson_________________________Mr. Homo Sapiens
Giovanni Pergolesi______________________I love opera singing!
George Bush_____________________________He bugs Gore
Osama bin Laden_________________________A bad man, no lies
Saddam Hussein__________________________UN’s said he’s mad
Adolf Hitler____________________________Do real filth
Alec Guinness___________________________Genuine Class
Princess Diana__________________________Ascend in Paris (freaky, right?)
Shannah B Godfrey_______________________Fans go by her hand (writings)

This one's truly amazing:
"To be or not to be: that is the question, whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." ~ William Shakespeare

And the Anagram:
"In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten."

And another long one:
"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." ~ Neil Armstrong

The Anagram:
"Thin man ran; makes a large stride, left planet, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!"

With early reading the right way, no one has to miss the joy of anagrams!

• http://thegodfreymethod.com/content/SavingJackJillcanagiftedchildhavealearningdisability

3 reasons why sleep is so important for children

Did you know that sleep deprivation affects learning, IQ, and behavior?

The affect of sleep on learning - this is such an important reason to reduce the noise and visual distractions at nap-time and bedtime for everyone, whether learning-disabled, bipolar, or normal. Turn off the radio, turn off the TV - noise really hampers a child's sleep and brain development.

Sleep is extremely important for bipolar children, especially in stabilizing mood swings and rages.

On the Audiblox website, http://www.audiblox2000.com/sleep-deprivation.htm, a multi-sensory brain-training program that claims to be effective for dyslexia and other learning disabilities, I found an interesting article about the affect of sleep on learning. To quote:

“To achieve optimum performance, people [and children] need good quality sleep. Impaired sleep reduces performance on many mental tasks. Mitler’s studies of catastrophes, such as the Three Mile Island nuclear power accident and the Challenger space shuttle explosion, concluded that poor sleep quality impaired decision making and contributed to each catastrophe.

“According to Coren, scores on intelligence tests decline cumulatively on each successive day that you sleep less than you normally sleep. The daily decline is approximately one IQ point for the first hour of sleep loss, two for the next, and four for the next. After five successive days of sleeping less than you need, your IQ can be lowered by up to 15 points. This means that a person of normal intelligence could have an effective IQ of only 85, the level at which you would need special education in order to learn. Even a very ‘bright’ person (IQ of 120 plus) can be reduced to robotic thinking, as though on automatic pilot.

“Research has also revealed an association between sleep deprivation and poorer grades. In a 1998 survey of more than 3,000 high school students, for example, psychologists Amy R. Wolfson, PhD, of the College of the Holy Cross, and Mary A. Carskadon, PhD, of Brown University Medical School, found that students who reported that they were getting C’s, D’s, and F’s in school obtained about 25 minutes less sleep and went to bed about 40 minutes later than students who reported they were getting A’s and B’s.”

The affect of sleep on learning. Enough said.

http://thegodfreymethod.com/content/SavingJackJill3reasonswhysleepissoimportantforchildren

The controversy of medicating children

Drugs vs. no drugs - the controversy of medicating children

Therapists and doctors in Canada don’t seem to believe in the diagnosis of childhood bipolar disease. They call the symptoms a myriad of other diagnoses. On Monday, Jan 3, 2011, I was a call-in guest on a blog-radio internet talk show, Together Again with Marsha Dean Walker and Jim Eastwood, with Dr. Stuart Jeanne Bramhall, a psychiatrist and a noted authority on bi-polar disease. Dr. Bramhall is the author of The Most Revolutionary Act. However, I strongly disagree with Dr. Bramhall's denial of the need for medical help with many of these children.

Having been a foster mom in the 1980s, when there was no "childhood bipolar" diagnosis, and having “toughed it through” with many of these children, I am so grateful for the new classification and the medical help with my son, now! It was so damaging to my bipolar daughter’s self-esteem to not have any help with her mood swings and inability to control herself. It affected her self-esteem. It was very hard on our relationship, too.

Doctors said she was borderline personality disorder, etc., etc., but she got no help for her missing brain chemistry. Now that my son has been diagnosed, I look back and realize that my daughter had the same symptoms and behaviors as a child. I hope Canada isn't dis-servicing these children by denying them the available medical help.

While many medications have harmful physical side-effects, talking therapy alone doesn't work for most bipolar children. Their adrenalin-spikes can take them from zero to rage in less than 60 seconds. They tend to be perfectionists with control issues, and often have no tolerance for Murphy’s Law or the Golden Rule (the wants of others). With my youngest son, we have changed his medications multiple times until we found a combination with the best benefits for the least amount of side-effects.

Our goal was to keep his core personality intact by not numbing him out, nor having him sleep all day. He is a humorous, delightful character when he’s not angry, and we wanted to preserve that. He is also very organized, can get the job done, and is a leader (the positive aspects of having OCD).

Sometimes the most difficult children grow up to be the best leaders! The trick is to not squelch their spirit while pointing their energies in a positive direction. Let's help them get there, with their self-esteem intact, with the best possible combination of nutrition, therapies and/or medications.

http://thegodfreymethod.com/content/SavingJackJillthecontroversyofmedicatingchildren

4 things you should know about bipolar children

Bi-polar children are my specialty - I have 3 of them out of my 15 children. This disorder is closely related to autism and dyslexia, and can affect reading ability.

But there is hope! Phonics is the best way to teach a child with a disorder to read, an important piece of become a functioning member of society.

                Want a survival guide for parents of bipolar children? Get The Ups and Downs of Raising a Bipolar Child, by Judith Lederman and Dr. Candida Fink, M.D. (Simon & Schuster, 2003).

                Like I tell my son, “Being bipolar is not your fault, but it IS your responsibility.” He can’t change his brain biology any more than a diabetic can change her pancreas biology. But she still has a responsibility to control her blood-glucose levels and eat right.

In the same way, he is aware of his inherited disease and is responsible to practice his anger-management techniques, get enough sleep, eat right, and take his meds regularly.

                True, good nutrition, keeping blood-sugar levels even, and adequate sleep help a bipolar child have more self-control. In fact, when s/he is hungry or tired s/he is completely unreasonable, just like many of the rest of us. But the rages are markedly, exponentially manifested, as are the control issues.

Omega-3 gummies help, as do high-fiber and fresh, unprocessed foods in their diet. But for bipolar children, nutrition is not enough. Check out the wonderful Child & Adolescent Bipolar Foundation website,http://www.bpkids.org/learn/education-issues.

Their Education Corner, under the Learn tab, has many helpful articles and resources. These children are emotionally fragile,which many parents and teachers need to understand in order to help them properly.

My son’s diagnosing psychiatrist, Dr. Doug Gray at the renowned University of Utah’s Child & Adolescent Center, suggested the BP Kids website, and it enlightened my understanding immeasurably!

If you can't find the website (i.e., its link has changed), then do an internet search for bpkids, and you'll find it.

http://thegodfreymethod.com

Healing the effects of trauma on reading skills

Effects of abuse and neglect on reading - Hope for children

                Sometimes the inability to learn easily stems from a deep-seated psychological disturbance that ‘blocks’ a child’s ability to learn. S/he is not unintelligent, just traumatized. Now, to add sight-reading to the mix is just throwing the child from the frying pan into the fire.

Abuse and neglect re-wire the brain in an unhealthy manner. Even so, these children can learn to read by direct-instruction phonics, giving them a sense of accomplishment. Such personal success can help their self-esteem and give them the tools to eventually improve their situation. I’ve seen it happen many times.

                One mom, Serenity, is healing her two, adopted-daughters' rough beginnings with The Godfrey Method. Their biological egg-donor (I can’t use the word, mom, with her) was a severe drug addict, very neglectful and abusive. The bonding and brain stimulation from A Merry Child Was Alpha Bettehas helped Serenity’s daughters develop from asocial, slow-learners into normal, engaging, bright children.

                Serenity is my daughter and I’m so proud of her! She is introducing The Godfrey Method to other foster moms in her area to help rebuild their foster children’s foundations for a better future.

                Several others have made me aware of children who had learning disabilities because of abuse and/or neglect. One man, Steve, couldn’t concentrate in first grade, so he kept falling further and further behind. The teacher told his parents that he had learning disabilities, which only worsened as he grew older.

                The truth is that this little boy couldn't concentrate in school because of what was happening at home. He was being regularly abused and molested by a relative, and his thoughts in class were distracted by things a first grader shouldn’t think about. The teachers and other students made him feel dumb at school, and he believed them.

                However, Steve wasn't dumb at all! As an adult, he put himself through college and worked hard to come up to speed. He is a successful business man. A show on Oprah about child abuse gave him the courage, decades later, to tell his mother what had happened to him as a child.

                This makes me realize that so many foster children, adopted children, and others who have a difficult childhood, can be helped with The Godfrey Method to realize they are not dumb, but capable. Their emotional trauma affects their learning by traditional methods.

And sight-reading does even more damage. Foster and adoptive parents would benefit from one-on-one time with these children while rebuilding their foundations with phonics the right way.

                Does this sound familiar? How many times as parents have we tried to help our kids with their homework or piano practice, only to have the whole thing end up in a fight? Your child screams, “That’s not the way my teacher did it!” You get frustrated when he won’t listen. Eventually one (or both) of you goes to your room and slams the door.

                The Godfrey Method insists that you de-fuse this scenario before it starts. One of the cardinal rules is to have no control issues or power struggles. Encourage, negotiate, but never force the child to respond or perform. Learning at home should be fun and joyous!

http://thegodfreymethod.com