Love Learning

Success through Visuals & Play

I read an article the other day that really tugged at my heart. The author mourned the fact that  kindergarten as it should be seems to be a thing of the past. Gone is the free play, the crayons and paint, the housekeeping center, the emphasis on learning social interactions and skills. She painted such a poignant picture of sunlit rooms and happy children thriving and creating. She decried today’s widespread, headlong dash towards increasing academics in kindergarten.

No matter how much I agree with the author’s viewpoint regarding the true work of kindergarten, I  am not sure there is much we can do to change that academic push for beginners. Because I am totally aware of the segment of our population that frowns horribly on teaching our young children anything smacking of school, I always squirm a bit when customers write me to say that their preschoolers are devouring our stylized SnapWords™. I think my guilty conscience is rooted in a book I read by David Elkind called Miseducation. The premise of the book is that we are going to create a whole generation of at risk children if we begin to push schooling in preschool. Elkind followers, including the head of the education department in my graduate school, apply a blanket rule towards teaching preschoolers. You cannot do it, apparently, without mistreating them. Elkind makes an impassioned point, my department head is far more educated than I and surely knows better, but still I raise a timid hand to ask, “Might this only be one part of the story?”

Most Issues Are Not Black and White

Have you ever found yourself listening to a well-delivered argument which you feel is so airtight as to be unanswerable…only to find yourself listening to an equally well argued point directly opposing the first viewpoint? I have many times! I think in such cases what this means is that there is no clear cut way to choose a course of action and make a blanket rule that could be applied across the board. Far from being black and white, there are myriad shades of meaning between polar extremes.

Do I believe kindergartners should play? YES. Yes I do. Do I also believe in teaching very young children? YES. Yes I do. But what I believe lies somewhere in the middle of the argument for and against teaching young children. I do not believe that you prevent learning problems by starting to teach children when they are younger. The problem No Child Left Behind tried to address is not going to be solved by starting to teach reading and math in preschool. Not unless the method used is drastically changed. Ironically, if we change the method by which we teach, we could wait and begin to teach in first grade – or even second grade!

Use a Barometer

Recently I’ve heard from several parents who called to say they were distressed because their kindergartners were beginning to move from loving books to hating them because of what was being required of the kids in school. The children were not responding to the drills and flashcards, and the result was that they were turning away from an earlier love of books and reading. In cases such as these, STOP what is being done. If a teacher insists you drill your child at home, find an alternative right away. I think the decision about whether or not to teach young children can be made by answering the following questions. Iis the child playing? Is he having fun? Is she engaged? Does he want to do this? If the answers are no, the only option we have is to stop what we are doing immediately because we will cause harm.

Change the Approach: Use Visuals and Play

What we can do is change how our children learn the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. If we can utilize visuals and play, kids will gain the knowledge they need, but will not feel the stress of “doing school” too early. Best of all, using visuals and play will have the effect of cutting “school time” greatly. When I taught kindergarten in my home, the children far surpassed grade level expectations, but we did all our learning through creative play and visuals, and all our learning was done in less than two hours a day including coloring and craft time. Those were the days! What we were doing was working inside a system (school), but not using the regular system’s methodology. I went where the kids went – to what drew them. And it worked so well!

Is It Possible That Neither Side is Totally Right?

I think in the debate about academics and kindergarten, the point might have been totally missed. The point is not should we teach the very young, but rather HOW shall we teach them? At Child1st, we believe that if you have an engaged child, that child will learn and will love learning and we work very hard to find ways to make learning effortless.

Building Visual Memory for Number Relationships

Global children will benefit greatly from building a visual base to understand where each number falls in relation to other numbers. We’ve spent some time using dot cards to build a visual memory bank of how many each number is, of which combinations of numbers equal each target number, and now we will move on. For these games let’s use a different kind of number card.

Use a Five-Frame

I personally prefer the Five-Frame Dot Cards because when you make an array of numbers in rows of five instead of ten, the result is quite a few benefits. One benefit is that the five frame reveals wonderful patterns in numbers. Another is that we use fives for so many things in life. We have five fingers, five toes, we read an analog clock (do they still make those?) in increments of five minutes, etc. Another less obvious benefit of placing numbers in Five-Frames is that it provides another great opportunity for visual imprinting for computation.

Note the patterns that exist in the columns. 1 and 6 alternate rows, as do 2 and 7, 3 and 8, 4 and 9 and finally 5 and 0. To add five to a number you just pick the number just below it (ie:  3+5=8, which is found just under the 3). To add 10 to a number, just jump down two rows. 4+10=14, which is just below the 9 on the Five-Frame.

Seeing the numbers arrayed in this fashion is going to help your child in thinking about numbers.

But for now, let’s go back to dots instead of numbers and play some games!

Five-Frame Dot Cards

If you make some Five-Frame dot cards, you may play the same games you played with the other dot cards. Numbers are anchored to 5 and to 10 in this two-row dot card. Study this first dot card that shows 7. Notice that the dots on the top row are blacked in, plus two more dots on the next row. Children can learn rather quickly that the top row is like the five fingers on their left hand, while the second row is like the five fingers on their right hand. So, the 7 in the Five-Frame is like one hand and two more fingers. The visual background the child will gain is that 7 is 2 more than five and 3 less than 10. You will be letting your child gain a visual background for how each number relates to the numbers around it.

In the next dot card, 4 is shown. You can see 4 anchored to both 5 and 10. 4 is one less than 5, and you need six more to get to 10. Relate this dot card to your child’s hands by having him show you four fingers up on his left hand, but not his thumb, nor any fingers on his right hand.

Playing with the Five-Frame Dot Cards

1. Begin with number-recognition games. Show a card and ask, “How many is this?” Remember as always that the child is going to guess at how many, not count dots!
2. Next make the connection to the child’s own hands. Hold up  a dot card and have the child show you on her hands how many as she tells you orally how many the dot card shows. For example, if you hold up the 7 dot card, the child will hold up all five fingers on her left hand, two fingers on her right hand, and will say “seven.”
3. Next, ask, “How many more than 5?” She will answer “two.”
4. Finally ask, “How many more to 10?” She will compare the three fingers she’s NOT holding up to the three white dots on the Five-Frame and will answer “three.”
5. If the child is still engaged and having fun, ask questions like, “How many would it be if I took off one dot?” or “How many would it be if I colored in one more dot?”

Play Other Games with the Five-Frame Dot Cards

Turn the child loose to play memory or war or go fish with another child, or play with him. Try to limit the teaching moments and just let the child have a lot of experience focusing on playing the games because as he’s playing, he will be storing up a wealth of visual information about numbers! Visuals and play are great ways to help your child love learning!

More Dot Card Games

Visual Imprinting for Computation

The goal of these activities is for children to develop such a rich visual background for computation that they will “see” the answers in their heads in the form of visuals when confronted with abstract problems on a page. When playing the games, however, the process of laying a visual background is passive. The focus will be on the game, and during the game, visual images will be building in the child’s memory.

Introductory Game

Give the children blank squares of paper and a crayon or marker. Tell them you are going to play a different sort of memory game. You will show them a dot card, they will give it a good look, then you will hide the card and they will draw on a blank card what they remember seeing on your dot card.

Procedure

• Show the children a card.

• Let them take a good look at it, then put the card back into your stack.

• Ask the children to shut their eyes and “see” the card in their imagination. Can they see the pattern of dots? Great!

• Now ask them to open their eyes and draw the same pattern on a blank card.

• When they have completed this task, show them your card and compare yours to theirs.

Computation Imprinting

For these games it will be best to have two identical sets of cards – two copies of each dot pattern. 

Explore the dot patterns before you begin. Pay particular attention to how many different combinations of numbers that each number has. You can only make a three from 2+1. (We are ignoring 0 + the number for now). Four is made of two combinations of numbers, as is five. Six and seven have three possible number combinations, while 8 and 9 have four. Over time, the children will learn that if  you divide a number in half, it will have that same number of possible combinations. Odd numbers can be divided in half but will always have one extra “odd” number that cannot be paired up. I think  there is value in creating dot cards that have two colors like the ones in the illustrations. The color will help the children as they form visual memories. It is likely the children will forever more associate pink and blue with five, and orange and blue with four, however!

Go Fish

The first several times you play Go Fish, play it like you did before, using the total number of dots on the card when asking for a card. When the child has played this way a few times, switch. This time when you play Go Fish, instead of saying “Do you have a  5?” you will say, “Do you have a 1+4=5?” or “Do you have a 5+1=6.”

Memory

Similarly, when playing Memory, at first when you make pairs,  say the total number of dots on the  cards. After a few times playing that way, switch. Rather than calling out the total number, you will say, “6+1=7,” or “2+3=5.”

Next, we will explore ways to build visual memory for number relationships, so watch for that post next Tuesday! And by all means, have fun playing!

Games Using Math Dot Cards

Last week we made dot cards, and by now they are beautifully dry and ready to use.

Introducing the Games

My own preference when using math cards with beginners (four and five year olds) was to choose dot cards that only went up to 3. The instructions were that I would toss a card on the table and the children were to quickly say how many dots. The one rule was that they were not to count the dots, but just look and guess how many. If you have more than one child playing with you, let the kids take turns answering. Go through your stack a couple of times.

The next time you meet, add cards for number 4. Talk briefly about four and the dot arrangements on the four cards, and then shuffle the cards into the stack. Play the toss game again. Add another number each day until you have all the numbers to 10 in your stack. The following games should be modeled for the children first, and then they can play independently. If you are playing with one child, no problem!

Dot Card Flash

Pair up with your child or divide your group into pairs. One child will display a card and the partner will call out how many dots he sees. Remember, no counting allowed!

War

Again, this game is played in twos. Each player has a stack of dot cards held face-down. At the signal, “1-2-3-WAR!” players lay a card down, face up, saying the number of dots on their cards. The player who played the higher number gets both cards. The object of the game is to win all the cards.

War Variation

Before players lay down their cards, each says a number aloud. When cards are played, if that number shows up in the cards played, the person who chose that number takes the cards. If neither number shows up, cards go to the center pile. The next person to correctly call a number that is played gets all the cards in the center stack. For example, player 1 calls out “7” and player 2 says “5.” Both players lay down a dot card. The cards played are 3 and 4. Because the played cards do not match the numbers called, both cards go into the center pile and new numbers are called. The next time, player 1 calls out “8” and player 2 calls out “5,” and then both players lay down a card. Cards played are 5 and 7. Player 2 gets both cards. If by chance both players call numbers that match the played cards, each player gets the card she called.

Go Fish

You will need two sets of dot cards for this game. Shuffle the stacks and deal five cards to each player. The player who goes first will look at the dot cards in his hand and will ask the second player for a card to match one he is holding. For instance, if player 1 is to go first and she has dot cards 3, 7, 1, and 9, she will ask player 2 for one of those cards. If player 2 has one, he must surrender that card to player 1 who will place the matching cards face down beside her. Player 2 then asks for a card. If the requested card is not in his partner’s hand, she will say, “go fish” and the requesting player will draw a new card from the center stack. The game ends when the one player is out of cards. The player holding the highest number of pairs wins the game.

Follow Up

After your child has become very familiar with the dot patterns on the cards and has mastered the ability to name the numbers without counting the dots, it will be time to utilize her visual number sense in computation. Check back on Thursday for a new post about visual imprinting for computation. If you missed last Thursday's post about creating the dot cards, click here.

Making Multisensory Math Materials

In my October 22 post, I said the following, and now I want to jazz it up!

For the visual & tactile learner, use dot cards to practice learning how many each number is. For instance, if you steer a child away from counting up to add, she will begin to rely on her strong  visual sense to understand the “how many” of each number as well as to learn the combinations of numbers that equal each target number. These dot cards show various ways to arrange five dots so that not only will a child have practice just glancing and guessing “how many,” but also a strongly visual learner will begin to absorb that 5 can be made of different combinations of numbers. If you encourage your child to rely on her visual strengths, she will be much farther ahead than if you sit her down to do math the old way, which is to count up, count on her fingers, or just write the answers to problems written on paper. SO BO-ring! I call the practice of learning via images, Visual Imprinting.

Visual Imprinting Sets the Background for Success in Math

Our goal in visual imprinting activities is to connect abstract concepts to a visual image that is meaningful to your child. Visual imprinting just happens; it is a subconscious form of learning. You could call it “learning through the back door.” Visual imprinting occurs any time we see a complete picture or a specific part of a picture in our minds. Even though the idea of visual imprinting is elusive and hard to describe, we can deliberately take advantage of it in our teaching. If we can embed concepts we want a child to learn within a visual or a pattern, learning will happen unconsciously.

There are many methods out there for bringing kids up to speed in computation, but the most fun and the most effortless involve visual games. Let’s make some dot cards, making that process into a craft, and then play games with the cards. If your child is having fun, he will not even know he’s learning!

Making Math [dot cards] – A Multisensory Activity

• The first thing you will need is a small stack of sturdy, square blank cards. Ideally they would be between 3½ and 4 inches on a side. Make them bigger if you’d like to.

• Tempera paint in bright colors

• Wet sponge on a plate

• Paper towels

• Old newspapers

• A place to let the cards dry

Making the dot cards

1. Start with one number first – say the number 3.

2. Make several dot cards using a variety of arrangements and color combinations.

3. The child will dip her fingertip into the paint and then press her fingertip carefully onto the card, making sure to only make the number of dots you planned to make.

4. First card can have dots of the same color.

5. Second card could have one dot the same as the first card, but then the remaining two dots in a new color.

6. Name your cards according to what the pattern reminds you of. See examples below.

The first card just has three red dots. The second card has one red and two blue. It reminds me of a bear face. The bear has a red nose and blue eyes! In the third card, the bear is looking over his shoulder to see who is behind him. The third card can be a slide or stepping stones in the garden, or whatever else you fancy. Even if you do not stress that 3 red dots and zero other dots makes three, or that two blue dots plus one red dot make three, the child is storing up the visuals in his mind to serve as a reference point later. In addition to the visual, the child is feeling the squishy paint, smelling the tart aroma, and is seeing the color on his fingertips. It would be a powerful multisensory experience if you had your child dip three fingertips at one time in the paint because he would feel the three, see the three fingertips coated in paint, and then he’d feel and see himself transferring the color from his fingertips to the card stock.

Making More Patterns

When you make dot cards for fours, play with the arrangement of dots. The first card reminds me of a child sitting down reading a blue book. The third card looks so much like a footprint to me. The middle card could be anything. To me, it looks like sets of twins walking, as viewed by a bird flying over their heads.

Note that I have shown 3+1, 2+2, and 1+3. Use the first and last dot cards to explore the fact that no matter how you arrange the dots, 3 dots and 1 dot will always equal four.

One more set

Fives are fun. Card one is a box with a blue belly button. Card two can either be a house, or a sitting bear with blue shoes. Card three could be a baby chair with pink feet. Note that in my cards, I’ve covered both combinations of numbers that equal five. Once again, two cards show the same combination of numbers (3+2 and 2+3), both equaling 5.

When you have made your dot cards through the number 10, lay them out in a safe place to dry. Check back here on Tuesday for games to play with your dot cards! In the meantime, have fun creating!

Teaching Picture Thinkers

I’ve been thinking about visual learners for several years now--teaching them, working to understand how they think and learn, and then creating visual helps embedded in left brain material so they can grasp new material with ease. My goal has been to provide a connection between left and right brain processes so that more and more right brained learners will be successful. I’ve been primarily focused on getting material into a child’s understanding and memory.

A few short weeks ago, I began thinking more about not only how people process new ideas and information, but then how they re-articulate that once they've digested it. My focus shifted from thinking primarily about channels into the brain, to how people express the learning. I was doing some research in unfamiliar territory, with the goal of first understanding the content, and then distilling the critical parts of the research so I could share it with others. During the process of research, I drew several pictures and mind maps to help me organize the content. When it came time to share the material with my colleagues, I found myself really struggling. What I had digested was so rich and deep, but I felt completely inadequate when it came to verbalizing the amazing ideas I had gained. It dawned on me that the breakdown occurred somewhere between the hemispheres of my brain. I had spent a week reading words, translating them into pictures and visuals so I could learn the material, and now it was time to take those pictures and change them back into words. I think I understood more fully what it really means to be a visual learner. I realized how frequently I think in pictures rather than words. I thought everyone did that. Pictures I make in my mind or ones I see help me remember.

The problem with thinking in pictures

The trouble comes in that I cannot always form a picture from words I am hearing. In graduate school, I recall sitting in a class and hearing strings of words each of which I had heard before, but being completely unable to extract meaning from them. Particularly painful were the times in which the professor was verbalizing directions for the current class activity, and everyone around me seemed to be totally in tune – except for me. Everyone set to work – except for me. I was too mortified to ask a question and betray my ignorance. Surreptitiously I would peek at what my neighbors were doing, and if I felt ok with the person seated next to me, I would ask him/her to translate for me what we were to do.

In a third type of scenario, I was confronted with problems to solve, which I felt unable to solve until I hit on the plan of drawing sketches of what the problem entailed. When I did this, a solution presented itself.

What if the picture thinker is a child?

At that time when I found myself not understanding the professor, I had grown children. Imagine what I would have felt like had I been a child. If you do a search for terms such as right brained learner, teach visual learners, reading programs dyslexia learners, or a similar phrase, you will access a lot of information about the percentage of children in the world who are suspected to fall into the category of picture thinkers or visual learners. There are quite a few children that can be described this way. So, what happens when you have a high percentage of children who think in pictures, but our primary means of teaching them is verbal or approaches that use symbols rather than images?

Provide images

Certainly it would be advantageous to provide the very young with images as they are learning the critical skills that lead to reading and math. We have written a lot about our products that tie symbols to meaning using embedded visuals. These materials are critically important when you are teaching a young child. Children between the ages of 4 ½ and 7 are highly visual thinkers anyway; that is the time of life in which their right brain is rapidly developing. It makes the most sense to start out right and teach these young learners in a way most compatible with how their brains are working.

We can quite easily provide visual cues as we teach sight words and even explicit phonics concepts. But the great good news is that there are ways to help teach the visual learner to begin to make his own mental pictures. Children are their own best allies when they are helped to understand what they need in order to learn.

Show her an example of what you want

To this day, if I am asked to do something I’ve not done before; failure is pretty much guaranteed unless I can see an example of a finished product that is considered to be successful.  I need to SEE something to understand the expectations for me. If you ask your child to draw a picture to help him solve a math problem, show her an example of you doing just that with a similar problem, modeling for her your thinking process as you do it.

Practice visualization

When young children are working on learning to read, in many cases, they don’t instinctively know that the reason they are learning to read is to extract meaning. There are many, many children who “do not comprehend” what they are reading, but really, did anyone ever tell them to think about what the passage meant? Or did we just tell them the phonics rules, teach them how to recognize high frequency words, or drill them on correct spelling? Did we ever explicitly tell them to visualize what they are reading? As I worked with young children on learning to read, I found it very helpful to prompt them to stop, close their eyes and make a picture in their minds of what they had just read. If they answered, “It’s just dark in here,” I prompted them to open their eyes and read the passage again with the goal in mind this time of making a picture. I have done this with kids as young as kindergarten. It was not an instant process, but it did work better and better over time.

The starting point was to show them a stylized letter from our Alphabet Teaching Cards. We’d explore the details in the picture, then I would have them close their eyes and wait until they could see the picture in their minds. At this point, they would open their eyes and quickly draw on a whiteboard what they saw in their minds.

Using our SnapWords® is a next step. The image that is embedded in each word conveys to the child the fact that the collection of symbols MEANS something. The image makes it impossible to ignore the meaning of the word. But again, if you ask the child to close his eyes and “see” the word in his mind, you can even focus in on details. You can show the child the SnapWord for CLEAN. Talk about the lady with the blue bandana that has not one but two dusting rags. Is she in a hurry to get a lot done? Give the child a chance to study the word, then lay the card down and ask him to close his eyes and see the word again in his mind. Ask him to describe for you what he’s seeing.

Finally, as a child is reading a book, stop him after each thought and ask him to close his eyes and imagine what he read. If you prompt him to do this, visualization will become easier and easier. In addition, he will learn that he needs to focus in this way in order to extract meaning not only out of reading material, but out of people’s words he is listening to.

Write directions out

One easy help to offer your picture thinker is to write out for him what you want him to do. I know it takes me a few reads sometimes to make sense out of directions for a new task. If there are only auditory directions provided, there is nothing to refer back to. A middle aged graduate student might have the motivation to ask for clarification, but I pretty much can guarantee you that a first grader won’t always feel the burning need to do so. We can save ourselves some frustration if we take a few more steps in helping picture thinkers know what is expected.

Turning pictures into words

Helping visual learners grasp new information by using images and helping them learn to visualize is great. However, my recent struggle to put words to my research made me understand in a very personal way more about the challenges our picture thinkers have in our traditional school setting. Once visual learners have made pictures in their minds, the other half of the issue is helping them learn how to put their mental images into words. I have thought carefully about how I felt when in the middle of trying to verbalize what I’d learned. I’ve relived the frustration, the suspicion I had that I was somehow a bit slow, and the resulting discouragement, and it makes my heart go out to children.

What can be done?

If so many of our population are picture thinkers, we need to spend a lot of effort reevaluating our teaching approach and materials. Much of our traditional system is not kid-friendly. It hurts me that this is so, and that we are calling children disabled when they can’t learn via traditional approaches. Some of our most creative potential problem solvers and designers are kids who think in pictures. Let’s encourage them to use their giftedness by opening the door to alternate ways of learning and new ways of expressing their learning. We can make it so that all our children love learning.

Child1st Publications, www.child-1st.com

So You Find it Hard to Just Memorize?

Just this morning, a mother told me that her son is having increasing difficulty with reading and math. He was tested at his school and diagnosed with something called “specific learning disability.” He was given an IEP (individualized education plan) which allows various helps, but the mother said she feels he is not disabled; rather, he is not learning the way he is being taught. She is not alone. Over and over again I hear from parents who are desperate to find something for children who have been judged unable to learn.

Who should get the label?

I think in many, many cases, the teaching method should be the one labeled rather than the child. If a child cannot memorize strings of information or facts, is there something wrong with her? OR, is there something less than desirable with how she is being taught? Is memorization the best way to teach? Is it effective? How many adults out there find it difficult to just memorize? Is there a more effective way? If so, why are we still relying so heavily on memorization?

Alternatives to memorization

Use visuals that SHOW the information so that the child can look, understand, and remember. Example: understanding the difference between b and d. You can either tell the child, OR you can show the child a visual of the stylized letters. For the kinesthetic learner, you can act out the difference between b and d.

Let the child work out the problem for himself. Instead of asking the child to memorize math facts, give him some manipulatives such as plastic disks and two bowls, or a handful of smooth pebbles and two cups, and let him work out the answers as you pose the problems. Example: “Toby, count out five pebbles. Now, let’s find out how many pairs of numbers will equal five. In order to do this, divide your pebbles into the two cups and write down what you find.” The child would put the pebbles in the two cups and would write 2+3. You would prompt him to divide them up again another way. He might put one pebble in one cup and the remaining four in the second cup. He would then write 1+4. After some thought, he might decide that he can put all the pebbles in the first cup and have none for the second cup to make 5+0. The child will have discovered that there are only three pairs of numbers that will equal five. This is powerful. The child will have thought it through, handled the pebbles, represented the combinations in writing, and he would have been engaged in the activity rather than being passive.

For the visual & tactile learner, use dot cards to practice learning how many each number is. For instance, if you steer a child away from counting up to add, she will begin to rely on her strong  visual sense to understand the “how many” of each number as well as to learn the combinations of numbers that equal each target number. Example: These dot cards show various ways to arrange five dots so that not only will a child have practice just glancing and guessing “how many,” but also a strongly visual learner will begin to absorb that 5 can be made of different combinations of numbers. If you encourage your child to rely on her visual strengths, she will be much farther ahead than if you sit her down to do math the old way, which is to count up, count on her fingers, or just write the answers to problems written on paper. BO-ring!

Get away from memorizing words. How many of you have had children who just struggled to the point of discouragement with trying to learn to recognize words he was supposed to be learning? What is engaging about that? Frankly, it is the quickest way to make reading a chore and something to be avoided. Our colorful SnapWords® have rescued many a child from the drudgery of having to try and memorize (and later recall!) his all important lists of words. If you show your child a word like this one, is it not clear how engaged he will be? What will happen is this: He will put himself right into a pleasurable time when he was in the store with Mom and saw a teddy bear (or something cooler!). He will take a picture of the word in his mind and his recall will be easy. The tall letter was Mom, the U was the buggy holding the bear, and the Y was the front of the buggy. Best of all, the your smart visual learner will attach a positive emotion to this experience of learning how to read “BUY” so that rather than avoiding word work in the future, he will come to look forward to it.

Let’s throw out the labels!

I’d love to suggest something here. Please, can we be a little slower to call a child disabled? Is it not in the perfect design of a child to learn via pictures, images, movement? Is that not how she was beautifully created? What if we promised to react to a struggling child by looking FIRST at what we are doing to see if it might need changing? We could transform the world for many children! There is a better way; there is a more child-friendly way to teach.

Location, Location, Location

It is so amazing to me how a brain associate places with either good or bad experiences - or how returning to a particular place instantly throws one into a particular state of mind. When I was little, we lived overseas and Mom taught us school. While I was able to learn to read without many hiccups, math and I were not friends! Under my mom’s regime, if I missed problems, I had to fix them all. Most days it took as long for me to get my arithmetic paper done correctly as it did to do all the other subjects combined.

Given my early non-expertise in math, it was pretty interesting that when we returned to the States just as I was to begin eighth grade, I was so far ahead of my classmates that I was seated with another girl in the back of the classroom to work through a “special book.” I was enrolled in a boarding school for high school. 9th grade Algebra I didn’t cause me any problems. I was still far enough ahead that I was able to daydream through most of class, and skated by, making B’s pretty consistently.

Imagine my chagrin the following year when I had Algebra II in the same classroom with the same teacher, and I discovered that the moment I entered the room, I slipped into the familiar daydreaming mode that had come to be associated in my brain with that location. Reality set in. I had to work hard to kick the daydreaming habit; I was not going to pass Algebra II unless I stayed in complete focus during class.

Fast forward

In the past several years, I have had occasion to think about location and how it impacts a brain’s performance. While teaching Title 1 groups, I had the chance to talk quite a bit with individual students about their own habits, and what contributed to their success or failures in the regular classroom.

My room was located in a corner of the school building where two hallways intersected. There were big windows to the outside with a view of field and trees, a cozy kidney table, and two walls of whiteboards with a great supply of colored markers for the kids to use. Bulletin boards held student work, and we kept charts with stars for each group that came into my room. It was a cozy, safe place, and students did great.

In that particular room, students felt safe to venture out and take risks because they had an ample safety net. We raised the bar for achievement to 100% on quizzes, but we also had an agreement that if a student did not make 100% on the first try, he or she could elect to study a bit more and come back during lunch for a retake. Surprisingly enough, every student in 3rd grade and up who did not make a 100% on their first tries asked to come back. There were even times when a child made a 100% first time, but asked to retake the quiz anyway, just to prove they could do it again!

Venturing back out

One thing that worked so well in our room was engaging each student in conversation about what  was going on in his/her thinking when doing school work. The children learned to pay attention to how they were feeling or to what they were thinking when they did particularly well or when they failed again. Kids can be their own best allies when they learn to pay attention to their thoughts and feelings.

While the classroom teachers were satisfied that their students were learning while in my room, some grumbled a bit over the fact that the kids were still coming to me for their quizzes. “If they can do the work, they should be able to do it in my classroom” was the feeling. There was also an idea circulating that if the student failed in their room, likely we were giving too much help in my room. By mid-year, one 4th grade teacher requested that her students stay in her classroom to take their next quiz. Of course I agreed. At lunch, however, I four distressed boys rushed into my room, extremely upset that they had failed their quiz in class.

I knew the boys were prepared, knew they should have scored a 100%, but also suspected what had gone wrong. I wanted them to think through what had happened. First I asked the boys to sit down at the kidney table and I gave them the quiz again. They each scored 100%. They were gratified, but still upset. So I asked, “What were you thinking about when you were taking the quiz in your classroom?”

Three of the boys just shrugged their shoulders, but the fourth one articulated very succinctly what had happened. “I got my paper. Then I looked around and thought, ‘I’m going to have to pass my paper up the row when I am done and everyone is going to see how awful I did.' Then suddenly my brain got fuzzy and jumbled and I couldn’t remember anything.” This explanation illustrates so clearly how our emotions can hijack our thinking ability. I explained to the boys what was going on. They associated being in the regular classroom with past failures and their fear of failing was self-fulfilling. Armed with this new understanding, what remained was to work on thinking new thoughts.

What can we do to help?

 One thing we can do to help children overcome negative emotions around learning is to change the environment as much as possible. Even if the location is in the same room as before, you can make the environment new and safe by moving the children’s desks or letting them sit on bright pillows on the floor with clipboards to write on. Provide a lot of security, warmth, and scaffolding as they begin to relearn. Rather than viewing the extra support as “cheating,” let’s view it as supporting children while they learn to overcome their fear of failure. If we can take the time to remove any possibility of threat, the children will once again be able to focus on thinking about the work at hand. I read somewhere that for every negative comment a person hears, they have to hear 50 positive ones to counter the power of that one negative comment. If this is true, only imagine how much positive support a child needs who has been labeled with a disability!

Child1st Publications: www.child-1st.com

Everything Hinges on Emotion

I found a great article today on emotions in learning. It was written by Candy Lawson, Ph.D., from the Center for Development and Learning.  (Go to http://www.cdl.org/resource-library/articles/connect_emotions.php to read the whole article).

“Priscilla Vail, an expert on learning, has described emotion as the "on-off switch to learning". According to Mrs. Vail, when the switch is off, the system is dormant and only the potential for learning is available. When the switch is on, the pathway to learning is open. When the limbic system interprets sensory information and dispatches it to the cortex for processing, it sets the emotional tone of the information before it reaches the cortex. If the limbic system interprets the information as positive, it dispatches a message of purpose and excitement and directs our behavior toward a goal. When this happens, we become motivated to act; thinking and learning are enhanced. When the interpretation is negative, the switch is turned off and thinking and learning are stifled.”

For better or for worse

Emotions, quite simply, envelop every experience we have. When I think about gardening, I remember vividly the pleasurable experiences I’ve had in the past – the sun warming my back, the fragrance of the flowers I planted last year now blooming, the humming of bees, the satisfaction of seeing the black earth turned over to welcome new plants, and the brilliance of color. I also relive the relief from stress which gardening gave me during some difficult times in my life. I have come to associate gardening with enough positives that when given the chance to repeat the experience, I’m ready to start!

Conversely, when experiences are unpleasant, we associate negative emotions with them. I remember being asked to do a training session for our staff during an in-service day. I prepared zealously for days! The day arrived in which I was to present. Everything went wrong! First of all, we all sat through four grueling hours of a different training session. As I sat through that session, I began to feel ill. I ached all over, and all I wanted to do was put my head down and cover myself up with a blanket. Lunch time came. Faculty was drained and ready to go home. But instead, they had to move to another room where they were to participate in yet another training. I stood up to begin the session, and all I can remember about it is how much I didn’t want to be there, how badly I wanted to lie down, how quickly I tried to cover the material, and how jaded everyone looked. I was happier than anyone when finally we called it quits for the day.

The next morning, however, my mortification set in. Why hadn’t I canceled and just gone home? The negative emotions I had attached to that experience made it difficult for me to agree to another in-service presentation when I was later asked again. All the mortification of that previous time flooded in to remind me of exactly why I did not want to ever repeat that experience. It didn’t matter if the place and time were different; the negative associations were that strong.

Imagine how the kids feel

 Again I quote:

“Some children (and adults) have trouble managing negative emotions. In children, emotional problems are usually manifested as behavioral problems. Some children tend to externalize or under-control their emotions and behavior. They may act out their negative thoughts and feelings by being impulsive or aggressive. Anger is the core emotion associated with externalizing behaviors.

Frustration often leads to anger. Frustration occurs when our wants, efforts and plans are blocked. We do not get what we want. Children who have a low tolerance for frustration believe that the world is "too hard" and they can't stand it. Children with learning differences are often easily frustrated because tasks, such as learning to read, are incredibly difficult for them. They try their best but don't succeed regardless of how hard they try. Children also respond with anger in situations that are perceived as threatening to their self-esteem. If a child is being picked on in school because he can't read, he might react with anger.”

All of us have worked with children who were disruptive and did not seem to be trying. What is hard to remember when we are in the middle of a teaching these children is that there is most likely a well of negative experiences behind their unacceptable behavior. The child will not be able to verbalize, “The reason I don’t want to try again is because last time I did, I failed and the kids laughed at me. From now on, I am going to do anything in my power to avoid a repeat of that awful experience.”

My dream is to work at Burger King

I will never forget an eighth grade student who informed me that his goal in life was to work at Burger King, and this being so, he didn’t really see the need to do any of the school work demanded of him. I think someone in the office had asked me to talk to him, so I was sitting with Fritz (pretend name) trying to get to the root of what caused his behaviors.

I had just read that if we can discover what the child really wants deep down inside, we can use that to motivate him to work and perform. So I asked Fritz, “If you could pick anything in the world to do when you grow up, what would it be?” At first he was adamant. He wanted to work at Burger King with an eye to management some day. It took work to get him beyond the realm of what he had come to believe was likely and into the realm of his secret dreams. Finally, Fritz told me that if anything were possible, he’d love to be in business in Asia in some field of technology. I could see Fritz come to life as he began to imagine his dream could become a reality. To make a long story short, once he believed his dream could become real, Fritz seemed to have no trouble digesting the fact that he not only would need to finish eighth grade, but would also need to go to high school and college.

Fritz said that he’d been tested and put into special education and he just gave up at that point. He was stupid, and he got mocked for his label.

We discussed strategies and goals for him, including a work ethic, all in light of getting him to his dream life. Several days later, I asked Fritz if he would mind mentoring a 5th grader, Scott, who was out of control and was repeatedly thrown out of class. I suggested he set up regular times to meet with Scott during the week and offered my break-out room for them to meet in. It was amazing to hear Fritz encouraging Scott not only with his math, but also with his goals in life. For both boys, negative behaviors nearly disappeared. Fritz had gone, in a very short time, from being the failing nobody to being a tutor and mentor and example to another student. That was powerful.

Discover their desires and follow them

Belief in oneself is paramount. But most children cannot arrive at this belief by themselves. If they have failed, it becomes even more difficult. Something radical needs to be done to rekindle their belief in themselves.

They need us to uncover their abilities, hidden behind their behaviors. They need us to believe in them, to help them write down strategies that will enable them. They need us to take the time to discover solutions for them when it is the norm and far easier to just test and label them.

If a child has been failing for years, find out what their dream is and help them follow it. The time taken to build positive emotions could impact the whole direction of a young life.

Child1st Publications, www.child-1st.com

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