Wednesday, March 27, 2013

boost short term working memory


We can hold a phone number in our minds for about one and one-half seconds. By repeating it, we can hold it a tiny bit longer, if we keep ourselves free of interruption.

This is an example of short-term memory, also called working memory. Whether you are reading, speaking, listening, or doing a task, your short-term memory is a series of connecting loops that are 1 and 1/2 seconds in length. An interruption breaks successful looping.


The brain is fast. It understands the meaning of a spoken word in 1/ 5th of a second (even before the speaker is finished saying it). 

A capable reader pulls the meaning of a word from his long-term memory storage in about 1/ 8th of a second. 

Big problem for the brain: uncertainty.   Why does this matter to you?  
Your brain and your child's brain likes to be sure. Being sure lets the brain operate at its preferred speeds. You want to be sure your child is certain of: 

1) basic letter sounds and letter sound teams like sh, wh, th, ch, bl, br, cl, cr, ce, ci, cy and later ous, ious, tion, tious, etc. 

2) sight words, and 3) smart comprehension methods. 

My blog gives you 160 free tips; my search box is in the top left corner.  And, you may want to look at my books for your child. 

I use eBay, people trust it. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you.
In all my books, the tricky letter teams are in bold or underlined so your child sees them as he reads stories. 
Cheat sheets for parents and lots of tips make it easy for you to remove uncertainty from your child's reading skills.     The brain-speed examples used in this blog were researched by Steven Pinker.  This artwork is a woodcut done by Japanese artist Kitagawa (1798-1861). 
Have fun reading with your child, Mary Maisner

Monday, March 25, 2013

high school reading help


This gorilla is tough but he can be ambushed.  
Smart students get ambushed everyday. The method below took two of my struggling 7th Graders and a 5th Grader to the Honor Roll at their schools. A 3rd Grade struggler got the highest score of his entire class on a social studies test.

Tip: quit stopping to sound out. Stopping causes the brain to drop collected meaning; it is self-defeating. Everyone's brain works this way. It is better to tell your child the word and try this method

1) Use a few pages of a story your child can write on and has not read before. (Used books are great, or download and print a mystery or adventure short story your child might like.)

Tell your child to look through the 1st paragraph putting a quick dot under words he knows, slide over the words he does not know.
Next he should read his dotted words to himself, sliding over unknown words. You may hear him, do not interrupt, do not fix mistakes, do not tell him to sound out incorrect words.
 
Now ask your child, "What is happening so far in the story?  Now ask him to read to you the paragraph he has been working on. If he has not figured out his unknown words, tell him the words as he comes to them. (Example: canoe means boat - your child will get the meaning but not a word that cannot be sounded out, like canoe, or chaos, etc. Over time, both getting the meaning and getting the word will improve. Be patient.)

Move onto the next paragraph.  Same steps: look through and dot the known words, slide over unknown words - read the known words to himself - tell you what is happening so far in the story.  Ask your child to reread this paragraph to you and you help with any words necessary.   Work through one or two more pages of the story using these steps.  At first, it will be bumpy. Ten minutes a day, for a month will reap big rewards. 

Dealing with weak letter skills: find my blog's top left corner search box. Search: ce, ci, cy  and ge, gi, gy,  and working memory, and adding ed, ing and tion and tious and compound word story.

Also, I use eBay as my website, search: Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up.   All are brand new, do not have grade-levels marked on them, and include my contact info; email or call for help.     Have a great day, Mary Maisner

Friday, March 22, 2013

pick books for your child


  
A pair of toucans having a chat with each other.
What do you suppose they are talking about?
 
Choosing an interesting book is much more important than choosing for difficulty-level. Go to a used bookstore. It is good to have a book your child can write in - doodles in the margins, or circling big words, etc. This gets your child more engaged in reading. 

If your child wants to read about snakes, he or she will reach up for hard words. If animals are most interesting, take that path. Or mysteries. Or space travel. Ripley's Believe it or Not, even joke books.

 A reading tip: quit stopping to sound out words. Tell your child any unknown word, have your child keep reading. Stopping breaks the short-term memory, thus all comprehension is lost. This is the way the brain works for everyone.
The brain likes to make sense. If your child practices this method, over time more and more of the unknown words will come. It is the way the brain works.  Many words cannot be sounded out; young readers do not have the letter skills to deal with unknown words. Likely the word is in your child's speaking bank, but not recognized in print. If your child keeps reading onward, the rest of the sentence, and paragraph, can help your child connect with the meaning of the word.

Use my blog's search box - top left corner- search: working memory, or backward b, or short vowel long vowel, or compound word story, or ce, ci, cy, or tion, or tious, etc.

 And, if you are looking for reading skills help I use ebay as my website, people trust it. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up. All are brand new, none have grade levels marked on them, all include my contact info; email or call for help. 

Have fun reading with your child, Mary Maisner



Thursday, March 21, 2013

muscle

When you look at a mouse does the word
muscle come to your mind?
Surprisingly, the word muscle comes from mouse.
Very likely the Roman soldiers took the word musculus with them when they invaded England before the birth of Christ.

If you flex your arm or leg muscle and watch the tissues under your skin dance back and forth, you may see how the people of long ago connected the idea of a scampering mouse with the idea of the moving muscle.

The ancient people in England shortened musculus to mus - their word for mouse. Over hundreds of years, the word muscle came to be used to talk about the tissues moving under the skin.      Say muscle, mus'l. 
Look to the right side of this blog to see other lessons. And, you might like my books for your child.

I use eBay as my website, people trust it. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you. All books are brand new and include my contact info; email or call for help.
                      Have fun with words. Thank you, Mary Maisner

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

fix reading trouble

Can your child see the creature hiding here?

A child having reading trouble believes there are millions of tricky lessons and that he will never learn them. Luckily, there are only about a dozen.

1) Quit stopping to sound out words, tell your child any unknown word and have your child keep reading. Stopping breaks the short-term memory, thus all comprehension is lost. This is the way the brain works for everyone

Show your child how to keep reading using the words he does know. At the end of the page, you ask questions - what is happening on the page, who did what, etc. Then go back to any unknown words. Help your child figure them out or tell him the words. In a few weeks, this method will reward you with great results.  

2) Use the search box at the top left corner of my blog. Search for: working memory,   or backward b,   or high school reading help --- even if your child is in 2nd Grade,  or  short vowel long vowel,   or compound word story,   or ce, ci, cy,    or ge, gi, gy,   or adding ed, ing,   or tion,   or tious,   or silent t,   or silent gh,   or rules for special teams.  

This page is telling you to do two things: 1) quit stopping to sound out, instead help your child gather meaning and keep reading, 2) strenghen your child's letter / sound skills.

BTW, the creature hidden in the photo above is the deadly Gaboon Viper.  I now use eBay as my website: search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you.  All are brand new and teach lessons through stories and include everything you need.  Mary Maisner



Tuesday, March 19, 2013

reading skills, reading help

Owls hunt at night. Their eyesight and
hearing is much better than ours.
This page is divided into 1) preschool - kindergarten, 2) 1st Grade - 2nd Grade, 3) 3rd Grade - all upper Grades. Tip for all ages: quit stopping to sound out; tell your child unknown words and build comprehension connections.

Preschool - Kindergarten: get a ABC letter strip from Target, Office Max etc. Work on recognizing 3 letters at a time. Build instant see / say for letter name and sound.

Ignore backward letter printing, it is rarely dyslexia, will self-correct by mid-2nd Grade, will not slow your child's progress; your energy is better spent getting instant with crucial letters b, d, g, p, q.  

Goal: be sure your child starts 1st Grade correctly identifying letters b, d, g, p, q within words. Confusing the shapes of b /d and p / q / g within words is the major cause of falling behind. 

Use my blog's search box - top left corner box- put in backward b and working memory.

1st Grade- 2nd Grade: 1) read the above Kindergarten advice. 2) Teach my letter rules to put your child in control of b, d, g, p, q: Use my blog's search box - top left corner - put in backward b and working memory and sight words and short vowels long vowels. 

Do not panic; 10 minutes a day will boost your child because your child is getting one-on-one with you and the most important skills. The bottom of this page tells you how to get my books, if you want one.

3rd Grade - all upper Grades. Even if your child is in 3rd Grade, put into my blog's search box (top left corner) high school reading help.  That lesson will show you how to help your child connect to comprehension.  After that: short vowels long vowels and ce, ci and ge, gi and ce, ci, cy and tion and adding ed and changing y to i.

Also search my blog's 3rd Grade reading skills or 4th Grade reading skills, or 5th Grade reading skills. Do not panic - you can do it. If you do not have time, get my book for your child's grade level and hire a tutor to teach it. (Personal tutor, not a group tutor company.)

I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help. All my books will pop up. My books use stories to teach the skills your child needs plus a strong comprehension method. None have a grade level marked on them, all come with my contact info; email or call me. Help your child have fun reading. Have a great day, Mary Maisner



Monday, March 11, 2013

phonics


Millions of tiny fragments work together when
the peacock fans his beautiful plumes.
The fragments of phonics work in the same way for your child.
Your child learned to speak words by imitating the sounds you say. 

Phonics is Greek word meaning sound. Your phone is a tool for you to hear the sounds of someone speaking, and now text enables you to read what someone would say to you. 

Written language is the total collection of agreed upon letters and letter teams which stand for the sounds in spoken words. This collection is called the phonics code.

Some bits of the phonics code are easy; some are tricky. The letter for the sound of m is always the same: mouse, camel, arm. But, the written f sound can be: frog, photo, laugh

Letter c can say k (cat), but if e, i, y came next after c, the teams ce, ci, cy always say s: cent, decide, bicycle. BTW soccer is slang invented by British boys to refer to soccer instead of rugby. Sometimes slang abides by the phonics code, sometimes not.

Your child starts learning the code with the simple ABCs. By 1st grade, he is being shown some of the code's teams, such as th, wh, also the parts of the code called short vowels and long vowels. Eventually ous, ious, tion, tious, etc. New lessons never stop coming. 

Children cannot figure out the inventory of phonics bits without help. The code is not based on what makes sense. The code is a collection devised by our ancient forefathers. Letter shapes were invented and assigned to stand for sounds for the purpose of sending accurate messages to military captains, etc. And for record-keep: how many silver plates a king possessed, how many sheep a duke owned, etc. 

Your child needs to see each part of the code and practice it within words. Repetition is the key.  Lessons have to be learned well enough to be deeply embedded in the long-term memory storage part of the brain.  Our eyes look ahead and alert the long-term memory to pop into place the next needed phonics bit. Thus, children well-prepared with the code do vastly better. (This alert system is a fabulous byproduct of the eyes' saccades function.)

Anyone can teach a child the phonics code; you need a pencil, paper, and clear instruction.
My blog has 160 free reading lessons. Use my search box - top left corner - put in backward b or working memory or short vowel long vowel or ce, ci, cy or compound words or silent h, or gh, etc. 

You may want to look at my books for your child. I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all of my books will pop up for you

The tricky phonics are in bold print in the stories in my books. Seeing the tricky phonics within words as your child is reading makes it easier to learn the tricky phonics. Sight words and a special comprehension method are always included at every level. My books are challenging, not dumbed-down; your child will soar with them. Includes my contact info so you can email or call.   Thank you, Mary Maisner





Friday, March 1, 2013

tch match catch itch witch


This drawing gives us a peek at life in the 1400-1500s.
About 400 years later, a Scotsman designed a safe matchstick.
His friends used a slang word for the new match: a Lucifer.
Letter t melts into ch so that t is nearly silent: itch, twitch. 

Tell your child this is a rhyming family. Then tell your child the first word: batch. Ask your child to point to each word as you read, then let your child try each word: 

batch      hatch     match     snatch

catch      latch       patch      scratch

Important word watch is not listed with this rhyming family because watch has a slightly different a sound; a as in wall. 

Let's try:
itch        hitch      witch     switch

ditch      pitch     snitch     twitch

One of our meanings for match is a narrow wooden stick dipped in sulfur for igniting a flame, but the ancient people thought of maache as the candle's wick.

When a candlewick is not aflame, it can lean over and dangle. Long ago, someone imagined the dangling wick had the look of a drippy nose.  The candlewick came to be known by the same word as a drippy nose, maache.

An ancient word from India, meug, meaning slippery and slimy, had been picked up by the Greeks and Romans. They changed meug to myxa and mucus.  The Old English changed meug to maache; the Old French, meiche.

As you see, in ancient times, match did not have a letter tI have not found a good explanation for how we ended up with t in match, or the spelling pattern: tch.

Possibly the letter x which says ks in the Greek word, myxa (say mi k sa) may have sounded a bit like letter t to an ancient scribe somewhere. Not wanting to be accused of misspelling the word, he may have stuck in a letter t before the ch.

About the drawing: A Belgium man, Simon Bening (1483-1561) drew miniature pictures which he colored with brilliant pigments,often adding details in gold. They were hand-painted on pages about 5 1/2 inches by 4 inches in size; then bond together in a book. 

In addition to fabulous tiny pictures, the books included the Catholic prayers one should be sure to say each day. Only the very wealthy and royal families could afford to buy one of Simon Bening's books. This picture is from The book of Hours (Da Costa Hours). The pages, called leaves, are on display at the Morgan Pierpont Library in New York City. 

I now use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you. You can extend your child's reading and comprehension skills with my books.   All books put the tricky phonics in bold print in the words of the stories, so that your child becomes instant with the sounds of the tricky teams. 

About the drawing: A Belgium man, Simon Bening (1483-1561) drew miniature pictures which he colored with brilliant pigments,often adding details in gold. They were hand painted on pages about 5 1/2 inches by 4 inches in size; then bond together in a book. 

Have fun reading with your child. Thank you, Mary Maisner