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

I always remember a radio ad that began:  ”People Judge You By the Words You Use” which promoted its own vocabulary development program. However, you don’t need to pay for an elaborate video or audio program or workbooks and texts.  Instead, here are eight simple ways that you can use to enlarge your vocabulary.  They...Read More

I’ve just read an account in the Detroit Free Press, about a program where young kids are being given data-gathering bracelets that keep track of how many words they speak or hear in a given day.  This new technology has emerged out of findings that the number of words a child speaks or hears during...Read More

Educator and media critic Neil Postman once remarked that:  ”children enter school as question marks and leave school as periods.”  In other words, kindergarteners and first graders are full of enthusiasm, raise their hands high when asked a question, and respond favorably to new learning activities, but by high school, the zip is gone and...Read More

The very first category that C.A.S.T., the Universal Design for Learning clearinghouse, describes as a way of constructing environments for variable learning is:  (1.1) ”Offer Ways of Customizing Display of Information.”  We can see the wide range of possibilities available, for example, when customizing the reading of text within Microsoft Word.  Here are 15 ways...Read More