Tricks to Help Your Child Learn Better

By Deborah Williams

A recent radio broadcast on NPR’s Science Friday program centered on techniques to improve memory.   The guests shared their expertise on the brain:

• Distraction helps when you try to solve a problem or remember material.  When you are focused, you can’t think of the answer, but when you relax, the answer comes to you.  Professor Barbara Oakley, Ph. D., author of A Mind for Numbers, explains that when we try to solve a problem, our brains go into a focused mode that “actually blocks the neural networks that we might need to actually answer that problem.”  She further explains that our brains have two states:  a focused neural state and a resting neural resting state.  Just as Salvador Dali and Thomas Edison used to do, it often helps to take a short break to relax a bit; this puts your brain into a neural resting state.
• New York Times science writer Benedict Carey, author of How We Learn, explains that forgetting is learning’s best friend.  It acts as a sophisticated spam filter.  Once you retrieve what you forgot, it becomes more firmly ingrained into your memory.
• Both authors assert that repetition helps us to learn. Oakley explains, “You need to practice and repeat in order for it to become one protected, neural chunk.” Using flashcards is still a great technique.
• Get away from the problem for a while. It is not helpful to study a subject “hour after hour.”  Doing something else allows the brain to work on the problem “offline.”  We can eliminate a tendency to see or approach a problem in one way only; we can gain a new perspective to learning or to solving a problem.  Often, when you come back to the problem, the new brain connections will give you a fresh mind to tackle a problem or new learning.  This is also why you need at least six hours of sleep before a test since sleep shrinks the brain and permits fluid to flush the metabolic toxins in the brain as you sleep, and you wake up with an “upgraded” mind.
• Study in a different place. Learning is enhanced when you move around.
• Incorporate regular physical activity. Exercise allows the new neurons to be better implanted into your brain.  As a matter of fact, it helps to move around (e.g., pace, walk, etc.) when studying or trying to solve problems

The Reading Shift

You may have heard of “The Fourth Grade Shift.”  It’s the developmental milestone that typically occurs in the fourth grade.  It is when students no longer learn to read but switch to reading to learn.  The Shift includes “a change in automatic word processing, a crucial component of the reading shift theory.”  The report on the Science Daily website seems to shut this theory down.
Dartmouth researchers have analyzed elementary students’ brain waves and have concluded that the word processing of fourth graders does not automatically change at that time.  “Automatic word processing is the brain’s ability to determine whether a group of symbols constitutes a word within milliseconds, without the brain’s owner realizing the process is taking place.”  Actually, the researchers found that some of the word processing becomes automatic before fourth grade while others happen after the fifth grade.  That means that fifth and sixth grade students are continuing to develop their “neurological reading system.”
Lead researcher, Donna Coch, found evidence that “…at least through the fifth grade, even children who read well are letting stimuli into the neural word processing system that more mature readers do not.”  She asserts “teachers and parents should not expect their fourth-graders, or even their fifth graders, to be completely automatic, adult-like readers.”
Many states and localities use this time in children’s education to establish policy and interventions.  This video speaks to the issue and provides some tips for parents to help their children read better:

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Mandatory Summer School for Young Students in some School Districts

Gary Stern, writer for Lohud the Journal News reports that the Middleton (New York) school district has issued an unusual mandatory requirement for some of its students.  It has identified 600 of its kindergarten through second grade students and is requiring that they attend summer school.  The students were chosen based on their scores on their most recent MAP tests.  Students who do not attend the classes or who attend but do not progress face possible retention or promoted with extra help.  Superintendent Kenneth Eastwood explained that the district is trying different approaches in an effort “to help students who are in danger of never reaching academic standards.”
This requirement is being met with resistance from some parents.  Some complain that this policy is unfair and shocking since it is based on results from one test, and many had been assured of adequate progress throughout the school year at parent-teacher conferences and report cards.  The district’s officials face greater challenges with the implementation of the Common Core and new state tests for grades 3 to 8.  Superintendents from nearby districts are divided on this policy.  They, too, have similar populations that they have offered summer school remediation, but those were not mandatory,

Keeping Kids in High School

America is celebrating the nearly 80 percent high school graduation rate (the highest rate ever), but parents will appreciate the insight gleaned from Edweek’s College Bound blog writer Caralee Adams.  Adams shared significant findings from the America’s Promise Alliance at Tufts University in Boston.  The report examines the reasons that students drop out of school.
Researchers found that there are multiple reasons that  students drop out, and, typically, it is not just one reason.  Contrary to some beliefs, it’s not that school is boring or that they are not motivated.  The “cluster of factors” includes the following:

• Growing up in “toxic environments” with unstable families
• Living in violent neighborhoods
• Attending unsafe schools
• Being the caregivers for parents, siblings, or their own children
• Being homeless
• Being victims of abuse

Unless these students have “strong relationships with family members, teachers or peers, many give up.”  Even if they re-enter after dropping out, these students require a strong support network even more.
The report’s authors urge that the significant adults in a student’s life can turn things around or decrease the chances that a student will drop out of high school.  They specifically recommend the following actions:

1. Listen to young people. Take time to understand their struggles and circumstances when figuring out how to respond.
2. Surround the highest-need young people with extra supports. Early-warning systems can pinpoint problems based on attendance, grades, or behavior.
3. Encourage leaders from faith-based organizations, schools, and the broader community to help students stay in school.
4. Use proven and promising, evidence-based approaches to drop-out prevention, such as ones that look at the holistic needs of students. (The report contains a list of examples, such as Youth Opportunity Baltimore and Youth Build Providence.)
5. Give young people a central role in designing programs and coming up with solutions to staying in school.

Education has moved Online

Free Online STEM Tutorials

By Deborah 
The explosion of growth for Khan Academy continues.  According to the Science Daily website, it has teamed up with NASA to create a series of online tutorials designed to increase interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM subjects.  The lessons include things that NASA does routinely:  “…to measure our universe, to explore…the engineering challenges of launching and landing spacecraft on Mars, and to learn about other space exploration endeavors and destinations.”
These online tutorials are interactive lessons that use a number of ways to engage users in NASA’s scientific and mathematical protocols.  The lessons are “exciting and realistic simulations, challenges and games transport students deep into STEM subjects.”  The lessons are self-paced and free.
Access these lessons at the following link:  https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/nasa
Learn more by viewing this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CcM2R6vIvfw

Be Literate in what you buy

Benefits of Duplexes, Single Family Homes and Condos Investment

Duplexes / Multi-family
Duplexes are basically normal houses which are split into two housing units, and are separated by a common central wall. Each unit has discrete entrance door usually mounted at each frontage.
Whatever your purpose in acquiring these duplexes, herewith are some benefits which are inherent in this type of home as follows:

• If you have an eye for an investment, duplexes are better option because these generate more cash flow over the time you own the property.  With two housing units as source of your monthly rental income, USA Advantage confirms that you have higher probability of a continuous income because of the greater number of units as compared to single family homes.

• The home values of your duplex in the neighborhood in which you live have generally higher values than the single family home. A recent study made by Moxie Realty Group of Austin showed that duplexes have about 25% higher selling price than single family homes in the same neighborhood.

• On living in one unit of your own duplex, you can sustain your daily living expenses by having one unit rented. This set up will allow you to supervise the tenant as well as the maintenance of the building.

• Duplexes have great advantage especially in running its operation and maintenance. These structures have only one roof, one set of gutters, one basement and one yard which needs termite and pest control. This arrangement will make your maintenance activities easy to manage.

Single Family Homes
Single family homes are detached houses which are not connected to any other structures, and are intended to be occupied by one family. Furthermore these units do not share an inside wall with any other house or dwelling.
If you are planning for a residential place, and you consider dwelling in a single family home, you may find these interesting benefits which are built-in this type of structure as follows:

• Single family homes enjoy the advantage of having about 15% to 25% lower property insurance premium rates than duplexes.

• When the time comes that you want to sell your property, you will have no difficulty in marketing it because there is a great demand for single family homes.

• In single family homes, you have clear and less complicated parking conditions. Moreover you have the opportunity of building garage or carports.

• Single family homes provide privacy to the dwellers. This is an inherent advantage of this unit because the dwellers are completely disengaged from other tenants.

• Re-sale value for single family homes is superior because these can be marketed to both owner-occupants as well as investors.

Condos
Condos or condominiums are form of housing tenure where a specified part of a piece of a real estate is individually owned. Individual home ownership within the condo is interpreted as ownership of only the air space within the boundaries of the said condo.
If you are looking for a place to reside, and you consider residing in a condo, you may find these exciting benefits which are integral in this type of homes as follows:

• Condos provide low maintenance as you are not responsible for the repair of exterior and common areas.

• Generally condos are built in prime locations which are convenient to city centers, shopping malls, restaurant, etc.

• Living in condominium is much safer and secured compared to single family home or duplex.

• Condos usually offer access to amenities such as swimming pool, gym, tennis courts, reception areas, etc., which provide luxuries you may not otherwise be able to afford.

Teens and Leisure Reading

 

By Deborah Williams
A recent analysis of several studies was made by Common Sense Media.  The nonprofit reports that there is a definite reduction in the number of adolescents who read for pleasure.  NPR’s National Desk correspondent, Jennifer Ludden, reports, “Nearly half of 17-year-olds say they read for pleasure no more than one or two times a year—if that.”

Could the limitless access to technology be the reason?  Common Sense Media founder and CEO, Jim Steyer studied the effects of technology on children, and he believes that technology access is just part of the problem.  Steyer describes several possible reasons for less leisure reading by adolescents:

• Most children have access to e-readers, or other smart electronic devices like phones and tablets.
• Some students say that they would read for pleasure, but they have too much homework.
• The Internet can be very distracting.

Parents can still promote reading:

• Be a reader themselves.
• Purchase or borrow books from the library.
• Schedule a regular time for children to read each day.