Teacher Tip plus a gift

If you are a classroom teacher who tries this tip and makes it work for you; I will take 1/2 off any of my  books (eBay; Instant Reading Help) and mail it free.

Before my second year of teaching, I knew I was being assigned a wild child who had spent his first tour through 2nd grade sitting in the hall. The Special Reading teachers refused to have him in their clinic. The Lunch Room was always in chaos at the hands of ... Johnny. Gorgeous child but nearly dangerous.

What to do? I made up my mind to surprise Johnny and it worked better than I ever imagined!

The first day Johnny roared in to my classroom, spewing combinations of profanity I'd never heard assembled before. I smiled at him, instructed him to get a drink from the drinking fountain and take his seat. Johnny was so shocked, he did take a cold drink, he did take his seat.

All kids love to do the special duties teachers dole out: take this note to Miss Jones, take these books to the school library, run this note to the office. Usually teachers require children to earn these honors. These duties are bestowed only on perfect students.

Right off the bat, I was sending Angela to the office with the lunch money and, with the same breath, sending Johnny to the library with a pile of books.  (One can always find a pile of books.)

How long do you think it was before Johnny was actually working pretty hard to hammer himself into a civilized shape? 

He thrived, basking in the chance to take a note to Miss Jones and show a visitor to a chair in the classroom. These duties were never held over his head as leverage. Yes, he had many falls off the wagon, still got into fights, and his creative profanity made many appearances but he made a huge change in himself.

He started reaching for success. He learned a beautiful smile! The Lunch Room Ladies were shocked and pleased and singing his praises. Special Reading took him back and honored him with sweet pats on his back. And, me?

I cried. It tore at my heart that it took so little to open the door of school success for this dynamo named Johnny.

Let me know how this strategy works for you. Expect that it will be a day-to-day journey, don't give up. Tell me your story. Then, pick out a book at eBay, search Instant Reading Help.

The wonderful graphics I use are from Corel ClipArt, originally Micrografx ClipArt.
Thank you, Mary Maisner


  

Reading and the brain

All of our brains are constantly monitoring what is going on around us. Also, monitoring what is happening inside us. Are we hungry, worried, need to visit the bathroom, does the person with whom we are working like us, recurring flashes of an over-heard argument, etc.

So - we all have to work really hard to keep our attention centered upon a task. As adults, we must start early in guiding our children to build sustained and focused attention.

Our working memory is only about one and one-half seconds long. This is actually a lot of brain time. Connections in the brain happen in bits of 1 / 1000 parts of each second. The short bits of working memory string along as connecting loops - as long as we are not interrupted.  An interruption breaks the string of connecting loops.

Interruptions occur when we stop to sound out a word, or we experience an error, or we allow our focus to drift. (An error even creates a noise in the brain.) Quit stopping to sound out; it is counter-productive. Tell your child to slide over unknown words and keep reading. Or you tell him any unknown words.

It is most likely we will not be able to retrieve the bits of information we had stored on the loop before we got interrupted. Short-term memory is a "work space;" it does not "hold" for long.

Surprisingly, much of what we do all day is increasingly automatic as we age. You can see the early stages of this in young children as they gather skills: dress themselves, tie shoes, manage a spoon, then a fork, etc. These skills become automatic with mastery.

Did you know that reading needs to become an automatic activity for your child?

The reason we have so many children in the upper grades failing to do well in school is that they never anchored the critical elements of the early reading task within their minds.  They were never able to get enough mastery to become automatic. The sad thing is that they could have. 

I have created a few books to help your child learn the tricky lessons that make a difference. They also teach a special comprehension method. I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you.
Teaching smarter is so much fun and lots less stress!!!  Please feel welcome to leave questions or comments. Thank you, Mary Maisner

Help child finish a task; easy steps

This is great for any child, of any age, in any setting:

1) Cut up the child's work papers into smaller bits of two parts or four parts. Place his smaller work papers in a box marked "work to do." Put the box on his desk.

Parents, alert the teacher that your child's work is going to come back to school in a pocket folder, safeguarding the paper pieces.

2) When the child has completed one piece of paper, he takes it and places it in a specific "work collection" box on the teacher's desk (at home, pick a spot off your child's desk). 

Having deposited his finished work, the child picks up one star for himself (stars or stickers are already there waiting for him).

3) He takes his star back to his desk and pastes it on one square of a multi-squared piece of paper taped to his desk (looks like a bingo or a tic-tac-toe box). This is necessary at school because you are trying to help the child learn structure and get control of himself. 

4) Still at his desk, he reaches for his next small piece of work from his " work to do" box (the bit of work you have cut up for him). He starts this whole process again.

At the end of the day, the child gets to take his star-grid home.  This little process gives your child a legitimate reason to get up and move; children need this. I have used this process with very short-attention span children, also problem, impulse-driven children; it really works. 

I have created a few great books to help your child learn the tricky parts of the reading task.
All books include a special comprehension method and underline the tricky phonics so your child is sure to see them. Lots of color pictures and lessons are practiced within stories.

I now use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you to consider. Good luck and have a great day, Mary

ADD, ADHD: help your child focus



Are the bears looking at a whale? 

Dr. Klingberg is the professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He has done extensive research into the problems children with ADD and ADHD cope with while learning to focus their attention on a task. 

His findings are useful for helping all children learn to process information and keep their attention on the task until it is finished. 

His evidence shows ADD and ADHD to be very real conditions. He suggests these specific steps for the early and repeated training of a young child, and especially for children who may have had a less than perfect APGAR number at birth:

1) give the child one direction at a time and wait for the child to complete it

2) give the direction in a short and specific sentence

3) when giving a series of directions, repeat the important parts  (when giving an assignment to a group of children, allow three or four minutes to pass, then again announce the steps) 

4) when possible provide the child with visuals, like check lists

Dr. Klingberg recommends that after firmly and repeatedly establishing this training, the adult slowly increase the complexity of the direction by using a longer sentence, or more sophisticated vocabulary. Eventually, give a two sentence direction, and so on.

His point is that your child's brain must be trained to a more sophisticated level of concentration and organization for the more challenging work the child will encounter in his future.

My reading instruction books are based on this information. My books start with an easy comprehension method because it is concrete for your child.

All tricky letter teams like ce that says s are in bold type in the words of the stories. This makes it easy to see them and learn them. All my books teach through stories with lots of color pictures. I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for your consideration.

Dr. Klingberg's book is a wealth of researched information: The Overflowing Brain, Klingberg, MD; PHD (2009). Oxford University Press; Inc. New York.

Please feel welcome to write with questions. Have a great day, Mary Maisner

 

Sight Words: Why they help your child read

Although English has over one-half million words, a group of three hundred recurring words make up about 65% of all print. The first 25 sight words make up about 33%; the first 100 words, roughly 50%.(Research by E. B. Fry). 

The 1st ten are: the, of, and, a, to, in, is, you, that, it. All lists are the same and in the same order. Your school might call the list: Instant Words, Snap, High Frequency, etc.

Children need to know them on sight because stumbling over recurring words causes a child to be slow and fall behind. Many sight words look alike, have no clear meaning for a child, and many cannot be sounded out: does, goes, their, there, they're, were, where, though, thought, bright, etc. 

Learning these words in families, and in stories is the best way to plant these words in your child's mind. It is also the most effective way to master so many words in a short time.

It is normal for children to appear to learn their lessons then quickly forget them because new lessons are always bombarding them. This is why review is so important. Rereading sentences and stories, and word-hunting on any page of print, and circling words in used books your child can write in, are all good ways to review.

It is well worth it to help your child for 5-10 minutes daily with sight words.  Eliminate trouble before it starts. Waiting is never your friend, when it comes to reading.

I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help; all my books will pop up for you.


Thank you for visiting my blog. Write with questions.  Mary Maisner

fire together, wire together, working memory help

Fire together, wire together is your child's best friend when it comes to learning to read.

Canadian Donald Hebb made famous this motto to help us realize that lots of repetition of a lesson embeds the lesson in your child's brain, so the lesson can be retrieved instantaneously when the lesson is needed later.

Our brains are set-up to hold learned information in long-term storage then pop the information into the short-term working memory when our working memory asks for it. 

(Unbeknownst to us, our eyes see what letters and words are coming next - and alert the storage memory to pop up the stored information into working memory - so that our working memory can keep rolling forward. This is successful reading.)

We adults have all had moments when storage memory cannot find the needed information. We are stuck; the information has been forgotten because it was not strongly embedded.

When our children are stuck because lessons are not well enough practiced to be deeply embedded - the child falls behind. But, we are adults. We can help our children. (NIH research reports teachers believe that kids can catch up next year; but only 6 / 50 ever catch up from a slow start in 1st Grade. These horrible numbers demonstrate the need for parents to step in with help.)

Energy (the firing action within the brain) able to build embedded connections comes in two ways: a huge surge, or many tiny surges.

A huge surge comes into your brain when a scary event hits your life. The huge surge wires into your brain: where you were, what you were doing, who you were with, even smells, and sounds. Fire together, wire together.

But, the many seemingly unimportant bits required to learn to read do not cause huge surges. Tiny surges - created by the practice of b says ba or ce always says s - soon melt away; many, many repetitions are vital for fire together, wire together learning to embed in the brain.

The brain requires that lessons become so well fired together that they can spring instantly from long-term memory.  Being slow to recall any of the tiny bits that make up our collection of reading skills has the result of causing a cascade of troubles. (By the way, stress is huge brain drain; try to keep it out of lessons you are teaching.)

Neuroscientist Eric Kandel won the Nobel Prize in 2000 for his research into the chemicals and amounts of chemicals required for the brain to anchor cell connections into long term memory. I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Kandel speak at a neuroscience conference in New York. He has authored several books but one is specifically targeted to the everyday reader: Memory: from mind to molecules by Larry R. Squires & Eric R. Kandel (2009).

I have created a few books to make it easier for your child to learn the most tricky lessons. They are full of color pictures and fun stories. I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you to consider. All include my contact info; email or call for help.

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

the brain has a letter-box

What is my little kitten doing?

We know that children have a letterbox on the left side of the head, right behind the ear.

About "five hundred columns of neurons are needed for the initial bank of letter detectors." 

These detectors are reacting to the tiny differences in letters, like the difference between c and e.

Bottom line: be sure your child correctly prints and knows b, d, g, p, q - ignore all other backward letters, they will not slow your child's progress, are rarely dyslexia, and your child will self-correct by mid 2nd Grade.

Kids know the name and sound of b, d, g, p, q but confuse the shapes when the child starts trying to read words in 1st Grade. The child confuses shapes b / d and p / q / g.  Work to avoid this problem: When reading stories with your child, ask your child to find b at the start, middle, and end of words. Do the same for d, g, p, q.   Also, you point to a word with one of these five letters and ask your child to name the letter. ( What is this letter in about? What is this letter in sad? )  

It is vital to help your child because the brain executes reading as a complex habit. An item incorrectly learned is very hard to fix later. I just finished tutoring a 1st grade boy, a very smart, adorable boy, who needed 5 months of hard-hitting concentration to re-wire his brain with the correct direction for letter b.

The quotation about the number of neurons required for the letterbox is from research conducted by Stanislas Dehaene and found in his book, Reading in the brain (2009).

I now use ebay as my website. 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.

Thank you for visiting my blog. Have a great day, Mary Maisner

Fix a slow reading start

Kindergarten and 1st Grade are the foundation upon which your child's reading success depends. Teachers believe, and will tell you, your child will catch up next year. Research shows this to be untrue. If your child is getting a slow start, use my top left corner search box - put in backward b and working memory.

Start today to strengthen your child's letter skills and sight words. If you do not have time, or you and your child do not work well together - common problem -

hire a tutor to teach my book- see below. (Not a tutor company, and not the school's special reading clinic. Now is the time for serious help; a personal tutor.)

Parents are dependent upon teachers to keep them informed.  Teachers see a snapshot rather than the long-range picture. Teachers do not realize a slow start is crippling, long into the future. 

The blame rests with teaching colleges and universities. These institutions are not following the research which is detailing what needs to be done, and not preparing teachers properly.

Every one of my books teach exactly what you want your child to learn. I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up. All my books include my contact info; email or call for help.

Research shows that only 6 out of 50 kids catch up by 4th grade from a slow start in 1st grade.

Please feel welcome to write with questions or comments.  Thank you, Mary Maisner

Backward letters will hurt your child's reading success



Help your child get
control of
the tricky letters.

Only between 1%  and  3% of the population are true dyslexics. Dyslexia is real and tons of work for a child to overcome. Luckily, very few children are dyslexic.

A child can look dyslexic because it is natural for a child to start out printing the ABCs backward. Only b, d, g, p, q require your attention. Ignore all other backward letters. They will not slow your child and will self-correct by mid-2nd Grade. Control of b, d, g, p, q is crucial. Spend your child's limited energy being sure your child can correctly identify letter shape and sound for b, d, g, p, q when these letters are used in words - at the start of 1st Grade. 

Parents depend on preschool and kindergarten to have their child ready but there are 52 letter shapes and a huge variety of sounds. Please realize that slow recognizing b, d, g, p, q within words will stop your child's advance.

 This is only five letters; you can do it. Teach my letter rules:

1) Bb rule: Bb is the 2nd letter in my ABCs and b's round face always looks the way words go in a story >>>. Help your child draw tons of giant b's with eyes looking the way words go > and a smile. Repeat the Bb rule together. Find b at the start, middle, and end of words.

2) Dd rule: d's straight line blocks d's eyes from seeing the way words go in a story; d is sad. Help your child draw tons of giant d's with sad eyes and a sad mouth. Make a big point of blocking d's round face with d's straight line. Watch for d at the start, middle, and end of words.

3) Gg rule: g has a fancy tail which tries to reach up to tickle g's round face. Draw giant g's with eyes looking down at g's fancy tail. (Beware: handwritten lower-case q is the opposite of g; the tail of q has a small hook curving up and away from q's round face.)

4) Pp rule: Pp looks the way words go in a story, just like letter b >>>; b and p can see. Draw giant p's with eyes looking the way words go and a smile. Find p at the start, middle, and end of words.  

5) Qq rule: q's straight line blocks q's face from seeing the way words go in a story. Help your child make lots of giant q's with sad eyes and a sad mouth. Qq says kw, take turns saying q words: quick, quiet, quest, squirrel. Watch for q at the start and middle of words. In English words, letter u is next. Be aware, your child needs to know q within printed words, but handwritten q at school has a hook curving away from q's face. This is the opposite of letter g.

You may like to buy my book for your child. I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up. All are brand new, no grade level printed on them, all of the basics plus tons of special lessons. My contact info is included; email or call for help.

Have a great day, Mary Maisner