Students who consistently receive individualized reading instruction from first through third grade become better readers than those who don’t, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. These findings come after a three-year study that followed several hundred Floridian students, who received varying amounts of individualized instruction, from first to third grade. “Our results show that children need sustained,…
Kid’s Reading Success Boosted by Long-Term Individualized Instruction
Working Memory and School Performance
Have you ever walked into a room, stared at the wall and forgot why you went in there? What failed you was your working memory. You were supposed to store the plan of what you were going to do next in your working memory until you retrieved that pencil or glass of juice. We all differ in the amount of information that we can keep in…
Which Study Strategies Make The Grade?
Students everywhere, put down those highlighters and pick up some flashcards! Some of the most popular study strategies — such as highlighting and even rereading — don’t show much promise for improving student learning, according to a new report published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In the report, John Dunlosky of Kent State University and a team of…
How Technology is Changing The Way Children Think and Focus
Thinking. The capacity to reflect, reason, and draw conclusions based on our experiences, knowledge, and insights. It’s what makes us human and has enabled us to communicate, create, build, advance, and become civilized. Thinking encompasses so many aspects of who our children are and what they do, from observing, learning, remembering, questioning, and judging to innovating, arguing, deciding, and acting. There is also little doubt…
Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning
The Experience in Japan In 1979, when Jim Stigler was still a graduate student at the University of Michigan, (Stigler is now a professor of psychology at UCLA), he went to Japan to research teaching methods and found himself sitting in the back row of a crowded fourth-grade math class. “The teacher was trying to teach the class how to draw three-dimensional cubes on paper,” Stigler…
Two Tongues Can Be Too Much Too Soon
Academic urges one language at a time for toddlers if parents can’t speak two well. Reasons for “One Language At A Time For Toddlers” 1. Parents should avoid teaching their toddlers two languages simultaneously if they themselves cannot speak both languages well. 2. Babies raised in homes where two or more languages were spoken may sometimes appear to have learning disorders, leaving parents puzzled and…
Battles Over Homework: Advice For Parents
Many parents accept “battles over homework” with their children as an unavoidable consequence of responsible parenting. These battles, however, rarely result in improved learning or performance in school. More often than not, battles over homework lead to vicious cycles of nagging by parents and avoidance or refusal by children, with no improvement in a child’s school performance — and certainly no progress toward what should…
In Autistic Kids, “Thinking in Words” Improves Mental Flexibility
When children with autism ‘mentally talk things through,’ they have an easier time unraveling complex everyday tasks, which may lead to more flexible thinking and a more independent life later on. For example, encouraging children to describe their actions out loud has been successful for increasing mental flexibility in typically developing children. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may benefit from verbally learning their daily schedule at school instead…