Once a student has learned to decode (e.g. read the actual printed words on the page or screen), then reading teachers (and remedial teachers) launch into an enterprise called ”reading comprehension.” Taken at face value, this really just means being able to understand what you are reading. There are rare cases of individuals who are...Read More
In an earlier post, I pointed out how over the course of millions of years of human evolution, reading and literacy have occupied only the last 5000 years of human existence. Consequently, our brains did not evolve any brain regions specifically for reading, but must make use of preexisting structures of the brain to make...Read More
When I was a kid I used to enjoy Mad Magazine, which I loved for many reasons, the irreverence, the hilarity, the satire, and more. One feature that I remember in particular involved cartoons that spelled out nonsense words as sound effects. For example: ”Glomp!” “Flaaack!” ”Pffft!” ”Sproing!” (above – a page from Mad with...Read More
Estimates are that 15-20 percent of the population have some degree of dyslexia, which sounds like an exotic disease, but really just means ”trouble with words.” Increasingly, scientists are getting closer to an understanding of why certain people have such difficulty in decoding the printed word. There seems to be a consensus that the difficulties...Read More
A new study has revealed that high doses of Omega-3 oils work as well or even better in improving attention and vigilance for some children diagnosed with ADHD than psychoactive medications. The double-blind placebo-controlled study noted that this effect occurs only in those children who started the study with lower levels of EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid...Read More
Let me start by telling a story based on actual classroom research. A research psychologist gave 27 students in a high school classroom wireless pagers and told them that whenever they received a ”page” they were to write down on a form he’d given them whatever was going on in their minds at that moment. ...Read More
Any time you mandate that kids must do something, ANYTHING, you’ve automatically created a special category for those kiddos who don’t or won’t – and that’s how labels are born. Before reading was mandatory for kids, there weren’t any reading disabilities. Before we descended into this ”short attention span culture” of ours, we didn’t have...Read More
This video presents a clear case for school reform based on how Albert Einstein might implement changes. It presents 12 school-based interventions using supporting quotations from Albert Einstein’s writings. The 12 ways include: focusing on imagination, opening children to a sense of wonder, promoting individuality over standardization, putting play back in preschool and kindergarten,...Read More
ADHD continues to occur at epidemic levels in our society. Thirty-five years ago, only a handful of children and teens were considered to have what at the time was called ‘’hyperkinesis’’ or ‘’minimal brain dysfunction.’’ Now, the diagnosis takes in almost 10% of all children and teens. Most of these kids (62%) are taking ADHD...Read More
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