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Category: by Debra Bell

  • Help! My Child’s A Late Reader

    The magic of reading is part brain development and part environment. You can’t do much about the first — that’s a timeline God controls — but you certainly can about the latter.

    Kids will learn to read if they invest time in reading. The more they read, the better they will read. Your role is to help them want to do that. Our mistake is in thinking the reading program we choose is the secret ingredient. Not so. Curiosity is. Kids have to want to know what is hidden in those pages to persist in decoding the secret system.

    Here are four things you can do to stir up desire:

    1.Keep the context of reading pleasurable. We learn more when we are happy and relaxed.  As soon as we experience stress, our cognitive powers decrease.  We lose our ability to take in the full context, and instead, just focus on the threat. Further, emotions triggered in a stressful situation create a powerful memory that will be triggered again when the same context arises. If your child repeatedly finds reading stressful and demoralizing, those negative emotions will come rushing back at the beginning of the reading time and further complicate the process. Summertime, when school is officially out or at a more relaxed pace, is a good time to create a different reading memory for your late reader. Create a reading nook or an outdoor hiding place where books are a part of the setting. Share reading with your child, cozy up together and make reading an expression of your love and affection.

    2.Talk about books you love. Readers are raised by readers. My own childhood memories are soaked with not just my mother reading a book, but my grandmother as well. At 80, my mom is still a voracious reader who always has a book to recommend to me and her four granddaughters.  Reading is a central part of our family life, from generation to generation.  Start talking up your own reading habit. Make trips to the library or bookstore part of your family night. When traveling, track down the best used bookstore in town and give everyone a couple of dollars to splurge on books.  Share your finds with each other. If your kids see reading as an adult activity, they will be motivated to want to mimic that.

    3.Listen to a recorded book together. Nothing like a professional narrator to bring the characters inside a classic novel to life. It is a mistake to think listening to a book on tape will undermine your child’s desire to learn to read. No, it will exponentially boost that curiosity and desire to know what’s inside other books. You are creating an appetite for books when you pull the world of words into your child’s daily life any which way you can.

    4.Become a wordsmith. There are a number of skills that expert readers possess. A rich vocabulary is one of them. But don’t turn this into another dreaded subject. Rather, cultivate familiarity with words — big and small  –through wordplay, Scrabble, crossword puzzles, and dictionary games. Keep big dictionaries and thesauri within reach. Talk about words. Notice when the same word appears in different contexts. Use online resources, such as Word-Origins.com, to track down the fascinating history of words.

    Your turn.  What’s working at your house?

  • Standardized Testing: The G,B, & U Part II

    If you are required or decide to participate in standardized achievement testing, then here are tips for getting the most accurate results possible:

    1. Please see prior post that emphasizes the validity and reliability issues with these tests.  Even if you use all the tips that follow, your results are still not as accurate as your daily observations of your child’s achievement.
    2. Simulate the actual testing experience in advance.  Think of this as preparing for game day in the same way any athlete might.  You have to practice game conditions to improve your performance.  There are some test prep materials on the market that can help you do this.The best is Scoring High available from us and other homeschool suppliers. ( The publisher just changed policies, so you can expect prices to rise on this product shortly — you might want to get what you need soon.)  There are others as well, but Scoring High is test specific. In addition to practicing with test-like materials, leading up to the exam, get your kids comfortable with being timed.  You can turn this into a game by using a homeschool standard, such as Calculadder, to make this strategy fun.  On the actual exam, there is typically plenty of time for most kids to finish each test unless they are significantly below grade level.  The only exception to this rule is the math computation test.  This test’s specific purpose is to measure accuracy and speed.  Many of the standardized tests commonly given no longer include this exam because it isn’t really measuring something important ( and we have calculators for that now anyway) but some of the older versions still include it.  Students should know it is very common for most students to not finish that one test.  Keeping this in mind, it is important to talk with your children about not rushing through the questions and also the value of rechecking their work when they finish.  Accuracy is more important than speed.  And even though not finishing may hurt their overall score, when you read the report ( which I will explain how to do in the next post), you will be able to see that speed was the (minor) issue and not understanding ( a bigger issue).If possible, find out as much as you can about testing conditions in advance so you can prep for these.  If answers are to be gridded in on an answer sheet, this is a good task to practice with younger children.  You should also help kids understand how to keep their place on the answer sheet and in the test booklet.  Go over test-taking etiquette as well.  Students should not talk or ask the test administrator for help with answers.  They should be bold enough though to ask for clarification if they are confused by the instruction or if they can not find their place in the exam booklet.
    3. Find out all you can about the actual exam.  If you aren’t sure what types of questions are included on the sub-test, ask for the list of skills to be covered at each grade level.  This should be information that is made available to parents.  A common problem I find in testing is the terminology used on the math tests and the way problems are set up on the page can vary significantly from popular math textbooks in the homeschool community.  For example, a lot of younger children are confused when they are asked to solve a math problem that is set up horizontally ( i.e. 2 + 4 = ___) or if the answer is supplied and kids must figure out the missing addend ( e.g. there’s an example of a math term that can throw kids).  There is often more geometry on the math tests than elementary children are use to working with ( Saxon’s glaring weakness).
       
    4. Set the proper psychological tone for this event.  Tell your child testing is just one way you can get some helpful information about what they already know well and you no longer need to make them study; what they are starting to learn but could use some more practice with; and what you haven’t even taught them yet.  This is not a pass or fail situation, it is an information gathering event that isn’t as important as the work they do for you in school each day.  Be careful about how you talk about testing and the non-verbal cues you send ( are you stressed about this?).  Unfortunately, testing is a part of the American way of life, and learning how to manage these events and the stress they may produce is a part of growing up.  You want to lay a foundation so kids can do their best in a timed and often uncomfortable situation.  It’s like learning how to play your best game of basketball on game day instead of at practice.
    5. Kids should get a good night’s sleep the night before and shouldn’t have a  jam-packed schedule leading up to test day ( especially if the test does matter).  The morning of, a protein-rich breakfast is usually the best brain food for most kids.  Avoid sugars.  At testing, kids should also have energy bars and water or other quick boosters to deal with the exhaustion of long periods of concentration.  When breaks are given, kids should move around even if they don’t feel like it ( testing will make kids feel sluggish and they might not feel like leaving the room during the break, but they should.)
    6. Kids should have a watch or timer so they can manage their time.  They should have a ruler or straight edge to help them keep their place on the answer sheet.  They should have something interesting to read or do if they finish early ( doing something they find pleasurable will recharge their motivation).
    7. Finally, should they guess?  If the goal is accurate results, then kids should guess if they can make an educated guess.  Either their instincts say one answer is better than the others, or they are able to narrow the possibilities down to just two by eliminating choices they know are wrong.  Then they should go for it.  But random guessing and just filling in the circles because time is about to be called is going to compromise the results you get.  ( This advice is to be disregarded if the highest score possible is actually what you want – accurate or not.  I coach my AP students differently on this point.)

  • Standardized Testing: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

    It’s testing season again in Pennsylvania.  Over the next six weeks, I will administer or provide materials for testing more than 300 homeschooled students in PA.  Why? Because it is the law here.  Fortunately, it is only required for grades 3rd, 5th and 8th and there is nothing in the law that says students have to score at a certain level.  That isn’t sufficient to prevent homeschool moms from getting pretty anxious about this experience ( I typically ask the kids to pray for their moms before I start testing.  That usually lightens the tension in the room).  Truth be told, even knowing all I do about the unreliability of standardized achievement tests, I still was just as anxious and curious to see my own children’s scores during their grade school days.

    So, what is the value, if any, of these tests?   First, let’s consider why we give students standardized achievement tests.  Testing as an industry grew up with the advent of mass education.  When I was a classroom teacher ( in another century), I saw more than ninety students a day.  My daughter who teaches high school math can see more than one hundred.   There is no way one teacher with this many students to assess is able by observation to know where each child’s skill level is in key areas.  Hence, the standardized test.  This gives teachers a brief snapshot in time of a child’s performance.  The benefit may be that it highlights kids who are struggling or, conversely, being under-challenged, that aren’t on the teacher’s radar.  ( She’s too busy dealing with the behavior problems in the room.)  However, because it is such a short measurement of a child’s performance ( no specific skill test is longer than 40 minutes) it isn’t reliable for measuring an individual child’s performance.  If you truly want a reliable assessment of an individual child’s skill levels, you need to refer that kid for full testing which will cost hundreds of dollars and take several days to complete.  What then is the intended purpose of standardized achievement tests; such as the ITBS ( Iowas), SAT ( Stanford) or CAT ( California)?   Group assessment.  These are only good instruments for generalizing whether or not the class is making progress or failing to understand key topics.  Then teachers can adjust their lesson plans accordingly.

    Unfortunately, in several states these achievement tests are used erroneously as a method of assessing individual homeschooled students.  My intention in this series of blog posts is to better inform you about how to use these tests ( if you choose to use them or are required) to help you with your homeschool program. 

    1.        First, you need to know your observations of your child’s skills and understanding in your home on a daily basis is a much more valid and reliable source of data about your child’s progress than a standardized test.  At best, the test can confirm your observations or perhaps suggest an area to pay closer attention to before drawing a conclusion.

    • We say a method of measuring data is valid if it actually measures the construct of interest; for example, reading comprehension.  So, (A) is a test which gives kids short reading passages that were written for no other purpose than to measure a child’s reading comprehension really measuring reading comprehension or (B)  is listening to your child read a picture book aloud and then discussing what happens in the story together a better test of reading comprehension?  Which one is more closely related to reading in the real world?  ( If you circled B, good job, you are correct!) 
    • A method of measuring data is reliable if we are confident the score on a particular test is an accurate representation of that child’s true skill or comprehension.  Perhaps the room was too hot during testing, perhaps the child was sick, perhaps the question was worded in a confusing way, or the problem was presented differently than the child is use to seeing.  Where do you think it is more likely you will get a reliable measurement of your child’s true skill or comprehension?  A score from a two-hour test or the cumulative average score your child has from daily exercises in his math textbook?
      In the world of educational assessment, any data that comes from performance across time is significantly more reliable than data from a moment in time.  The problem in mass education, though, is longitudinal ( across time) studies are expensive and difficult to schedule.  But what about homeschooling?  Can you gather data about a child’s progress across time with ease?  And better yet, this child has the same teacher across time as well, so you are at an advantage from a classroom teacher who makes conclusions about children she has for only one year.

    2.       Second, using a skill or demonstrating understanding in context is a far more reliable measure of achievement than taking a short test in an unfamiliar environment.  Further, the tasks children are asked to perform during testing are not in a meaningful context either.  Test designers try to come up with a task that approximates the real world, but time is of the essence.   So take those reading comprehension passages we are probably all familiar with again.  Is that how your brain works while reading?  Do you read a section of a gripping novel and then pause and ask yourself question to make sure you’ve got it?  What do you do as soon as you are confused?  You go back and re-read until comprehension is achieved.  And what kind of questions do you ask yourself anyway during reading?  Any similarity to those questions on reading comprehension tests? I didn’t think so. Finally, how often do you time yourself while reading? What do you think throwing that caveat into the pot does to reliability?

    Does this resonate with you?  The best scientific data you have for assessing your child’s achievement is what you see right in front of you day in and day out.  In addition, while you are watching your child perform a task, you and your child can interact so you have access to what your child is thinking as well as what your child is doing.  That is a potent combination of information, and if you keep following this blog I’ll try to help you make sense of the data you collect in this way. 

    In the meantime, the next post will deal with how to prepare your child for achievement testing so the report you do get afterwards is as helpful as possible.

  • Warmth – an essential nutrient for early learning

    A necessary, but often overlooked, component of learning is emotional arousal.  In laymen’s terms, that means we learn more when feelings of pleasure and interest are associated with a learning experience.   Our memory system encodes what we are experiencing more deeply, more lastingly and in greater detail when we are not just cognitively engaged but also emotionally engaged.  You know this positive force is in effect when your kids say, “this is fun!” 

    What can we do to trigger this powerful force?  Set the temperature to warm.   I’m referring, of course, to the emotional tone of our relationship with our kids.  You trigger their pleasure and engagement when you hug them, encourage them, smile, laugh and give full expression to your love and enjoyment of them, especially while they are exploring and challenging themselves cognitively.   I think this truth explains why young children love to be read aloud to — this is almost always accompanied with sitting in a parent’s warm embrace.  That, more than the  gripping plot line, explains the constant refrain, “more, Mommy, more!”

    Unfortunately in the modern classroom, teachers are often prohibited from touching children.  The potential for misunderstanding or false accusation of impropriety has led to this over-reaction and we’ve just impoverished the soil for learning in this setting even more.

    This is one reason I say if we were to build a school from the ground up based upon what the research shows is how children learn best, we’d build a home.  The three ingredients necessary for young children to learn — language, warmth and experience — are easily provided in a home environment.  But in a classroom, there are many constraints that get in the way.

  • Experience – the Early Learning Advantage

    The final nutrient needed to cultivate a rich soil that feeds your young child’s early cognitive growth is experience.  God has created a marvelous environment to promote this — it’s called “outdoors.”  Further, He has given your kids five intake valves through which to process this information.  These are called the 5 senses:  hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling.  The more intake valves processing information, the more brain-building this information promotes.   Your job?  Allow your young kids the freedom to immerse themselves for long periods of time in a rich, mulit-sensory environment that is always refreshing with new and delightful adventures and experiences.   Don’t overly-control the situation.  They do not need you to manage this exploration.  Rather join them in the inquiry. 

    What’s the  one support you can provide? Direct their attention to intriguing sights they might not see – the butterfly emerging from its chrysallis, the tadpole swimming just below the surface, the ants working industriously to build their colonies.  Focus is a skill you can help them to develop.  You can aid in this by showing them ( gently) how to take their time, study the environment and pick out the individual parts of the whole.   Perhaps everyone, including you, might spend a sunny afternoon in a field with a sketchpad and drawing pencils in hand.  ( If this sounds like Charlotte Mason, then you are right — despite living a century before much of what neuroscience has learned about how the brain develops was known, Charlotte Mason’s insights into how children learn are amazingly accurate.)

    Working from the backyard out, take them further afield to discover how each place has its similarities and differences.  If you spend a lot of time in the car, don’t short-circuit the opportunities to look out the window with media players.  Listening to music, yes; watching a video, no.  Playing “I Spy” – absolutely.

    In addition to heavy doses of the natural world, open wide the windows of their budding imagination through books.   Curling up together on the bed or in a special reading nook brings together all three essential ingredients: language, warmth and experience.  Here is where you most potently lay the foundation for later formal studies:  reading aloud from the world’s treasury of classical children’s literature.  The books by Beatrix Potter and E.B. White, for example, put your kids in the hands of two of the most talented writers for children.  They use language inventively and expansively. No controlled vocabulary here.  Your children do not need to understand every word to grasp the storyline.  In fact, learning new words in context is the best way to build their vocabulary.  Hearing the same word in a variety of different situations is an even better way for them to recognize that words have multiple layers of meaning and connotations.  So read, read, read aloud and let the music of the words wash over your kids in leisurely abundance.

    Finally, what haven’t I said.  I haven’t said send them to preschool, have I?  Playschool, perhaps (if you must).  But certainly not a place where structured formal learning is promoted.  I’ve also not encouraged you to teach them to read yet.  The brain is not ready.  It is a modern idea that young children need a highly structured and restrictive environment in order to learn.  It’s also a modern notion ( invented by Madison Avenue) that young children need expensive, complicated toys to promote brain growth.  No, they need imaginative play.  And that is better accomplished with sticks, old clothes, blocks, puppets, pets, stones, water, sand, paint, brushes, rag dolls, homemade play-doh, any item with endless possibilities, etc — all the more natural elements we’ve been using for generations.

    Play Is The Work of the Child ~ Maria Montessori

  • Does growing up in the country improve learning?

    Here’s an interesting finding: City life decreases emotional control and cognitive capacity. Does this context, in part, explain why children growing up in our urban core lag behind their middle class peers? And what does the net effect of less time spent outside by school age children predict for the future?

    Homeschooling families can offset this trend by making the most of green spaces near at hand ( if not an actual backyard, then a city park) and allowing plenty of time for recess.