Watering Your Young Child?s Mind
September 30, 2008
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells And pretty maids all in a row.
It’s an everyday nursery rhyme, it’s simple to sing with your small child, and apparently this nursery rhyme about a little child watering her garden is watering your little child’s mind!
Early childhood educators have identified pre-reading skills that are necessary for the learning of reading and the mastery of language. They include phonological awareness, or the awareness of speech sounds and rhyme similarities, vocabulary or knowing lots of words, and the more a child loves the enjoyment and pleasure of using language, the more success they will have in reading and writing and academic studies. Nursery rhymes, with their words of imagery, rhymes and rhythm that children find so fun, have all these qualities!
Let’s look at other ways that you are probably already simply, instinctively and effectively watering your child’s mind, and what the researchers are now saying about it.
Read Together With Your Baby
September 29, 2008
Imagine sitting your baby in your lap and reading a book to him for the first time.How different from just talking! Now you’re showing him pictures. You point to them.
In a lively way, you explain what the pictures are. You’ve just helped your child take the next step beyond talking. You’ve shown him that words and pictures connect. And you’ve started him on his way to understanding and enjoying books.
While your child is still a baby, reading aloud to him should become part your daily routine. Pick a quiet time, such as just before you put him to bed. This will give him a chance to rest between play and sleep. If you can, read with him in your lap or snuggled next to you so that he feels close and safe.
As he gets older, he may need to move around some as you read to him. If he gets tired or restless, stop reading. Make reading aloud a quiet and comfortable time that your child looks forward to. Chances are very good that he will like reading all the more because of it.
Make The Most of Your Online Spanish Lessons
September 28, 2008
Make The Most of Your Online Spanish Lessons
by: Liz Santiago
Learning Spanish is the perfect way for you to introduce yourself to the world of other languages. And online Spanish lessons are by far the easiest way to learn to speak Spanish too. Of all the languages in the world Spanish may just be the easiest one to master quickly. Learning to speak Spanish will also give you an excellent foundation to learn other languages. Think of Spanish like a stepping stone to other even more fabulous languages and places.
Here are some tips to help you to learn to speak Spanish fast:
Don’t skip ahead
The key to being a success when you take online Spanish lessons is to never skip a lesson or skim over a lesson either. Before you advance to the next lesson to learn Spanish you need to be sure that you have the previous one down flat. This is the only way to learn to speak Spanish the right way. Each of your online Spanish lessons will be building on a foundation and if you advance before you are ready you will never learn to speak Spanish because parts of your foundation will be weak.
Thriving As A Family When You Live In The Fast lane
September 27, 2008
It is extraordinary times that we find ourselves in. Change is now an entrenched way of life. Most of us don’t blink when new piece of technology comes out. Just the other day I read about the death of the desktop computer. The big lump of plastic and glass that used to sit on my desk has been replaced by a laptop. Email is quickly making those twentieth communication icons, the telephone and the fax, redundant. The way we live, do business, even shop is undergoing rapid change.
Living successfully is now about keeping up, staying ahead or staying on top of things. It is hard work. Business is constantly asked to grow or reinvent itself so employees are always learning new skills to improve productivity or just to keep up. There is little opportunity to rest or time to stand still and smell the metaphorical flowers.
More and more we live our lives in the fast lane with one eye on the road ahead and the one eye in the rear view mirror sort of glancing at the scenery as we leave it behind.
Influencing Adolescents - Guided Democracy
September 26, 2008
You need to smart to be able influence adolescents. You need to be able to stand back a little, hold your tongue and wait your turn to speak.
Recently, Sam my seventeen year old son, said "No way" to our requests to wear some decent clothes to an upcoming on-stage event. Sam was chosen to read a piece of his written work on stage in front of 200 people in a plush venue the coming Friday night.
Our suggestions to wear a decent set of threads as opposed to the thread-bare, bum hanging out of his pants attire that was his norm was met with defiance. His is jutting jaw and arms folded he said determinedly, "No way, I am dressing for me not for you! I want to feel comfortable on stage, and I won’t feel comfortable dressed like a dork."
My experience dealing with him lead to me to believe that meeting him head-on was like waving a red rag to a bull, and he would have only stood his ground and not shifted on principle. I wanted him to feel comfortable with his clothing but also that he needed to dress according to the dictates of the situation. We wanted him to be himself, just a souped-up version of himself for that night.
Childrens Friendships Made Easy
September 26, 2008
Most research into children’s friendships shows that those children who are able to form friendships when they start school are happier at school and also learn better.
More significantly, a positive beginning to friendships has long-term implications for social and indirectly academic success.
Developing and maintaining friendships is a dynamic process. Most children experience some type of rejection from their peers throughout childhood. One study found that even popular children were rejected about one quarter of the time when they approached children in school.
Most children recover from such rejection. They move on and form constructive, worthwhile relationships but some children need help.
The results of number of studies indicate that children can be taught friendships skills. The strategies are simple and revolve around teaching children a range of friendly behaviours such as: talking with others while playing, showing an interest in others, smiling, offering help and encouragement when needed, a willingness to share and learning how to enter a game or social situation. It is also useful to teach some children alternatives to fighting and arguing when there is disagreement and conflict within groups.
Gifted Children - Getting the Balance Right
September 25, 2008
One of the challenges for parents with a gifted child is to encourage them to develop a range of interest outside the academic sphere that not only rounds them out but stops them from being isolated from their peers Gifted children are a diverse group of kids who are talented in specific areas such as mathematics, language, sport or music. Some gifted kids are mutli-talented excelling in a variety of areas.
Gifted children tend to be passionate and single-minded about their interests focusing their energy on the topics that absorb them, often to the exclusion of other activities.
Just as all children need to have a balanced diet to remain in good health they need a balance between work and play to make sure they develop good social networks and maintain emotional health. That means that parents need to guide these children towards leisure-time options that they wouldn’t normally consider.
Work from strengths
Study More Effectively
September 24, 2008
If you are studying for an exam or if you need to learn some material for a presentation, you may be wondering how early you should start to study, and how often you should review the material in order to remember it.
Is it best to study large chunks of the information at a time, or should you try to master small bits of it? Should you review the material again the next day? Or is it best to let a few days go by?
Learning experts have proposed several different schedules for reviewing study materials, but the following is one that works well for most people. Try it to see if it works for you, or whether it is more effective to introduce minor changes to the review schedule.
First, study what you can thoroughly learn in a 40-minute period. During this time keep your mind actively engaged in the material by making notes, asking yourself questions about it, speaking out loud, and making learning maps. Then take a five or ten minute break to do something completely different, preferably something which includes physical exercise and deep breathing.
Learning Activities For Your Baby
September 23, 2008
Books and Babies - For babies from age 6 weeks to 1 year Sharing books is a way to have fun with your baby and to start him on the road to becoming a reader. What You Need Cardboard or cloth books with large, simple pictures of things with which babies are familiar Lift-the-flap, touch- and-feel, or peek-through play books (For suggestions, see Resources for Children,
What to Do?
Read to your baby for short periods several times a day. Bedtime is always a good time, but you can read at other times as well–while you’re in the park, on the bus, or even at the breakfast table (without the food!).
As you read, point out things in the pictures. Name them as you point to them. Give your baby sturdy books to look at, touch, and hold. Allow him to peek through the holes or lift the flaps to discover surprises. Babies soon recognize the faces and voices of those who care for them. As you read to your baby, he will begin to connect books with what he loves most–your voice and closeness.
Discipline
September 22, 2008
Discipline is a necessary part of parenting yet it makes most parents feel uncomfortable. Some of those old disciplinary phrases such as ’spare the rod and spoil the child’, ‘teach them a lesson’ or ’set children straight’ are enough to send shivers up the spine of any reasonable-minded parent.
Discipline for the majority of the twentieth century was adult-centred and relied heavily on punishment as a way of keeping children on the right track. Discipline was based on the principle of severity and terms such as punishment, obedience and compliance were commonly used.
Corporal punishment was used in schools and smacking and variations of that theme were the general tools of trade used at home. Rewards and positive reinforcement for good behaviour were usually kept for the behaving children rather than used as a mechanism to encourage better behaviour in more difficult children.
The last few decades have seen some dramatic shifts in discipline that reflect very much the social changes that have occurred. In countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and Australia discipline has swung between a very child-centred approach where it seems parents forgot that they were the adults in the parent-child relationship through to the use of parent-focused techniques that place control firmly in the hands of parents. The use of praise and a reliance on reward systems to promote appropriate behaviour are the hallmarks of these child-centred approaches.
