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