I am delighted to be able to tell you that, in collaboration with my long time colleague Dr. Laura Berlin, I have developed a new reading program titled "Story Smarts." It is a 30 story, full color program that teaches children the essential skill of "telling stories" and it is available online.You can purchase the complete program for less than $50 or you can purchase sets of five stories for less than $2 a story.

Parents often tell me,
"The teacher says my child is having troubling telling stories."
"Whenever I ask my son what he has done in school that day, he never answers."
"My daughter dreads having to write her daily journal entry."

Story Smarts is designed to handle those problems. But there is more.

All the problems that parents are talking about are part of a constellation of skills known as "comprehension." It is a vital but neglected area of reading. As you probably have seen, the bulk of the effort in reading instruction goes towards "decoding;" that is, teaching children how to look at a word and know what it "says."

Remarkably little effort goes towards comprehension; that is, teaching children how to understand what they are reading. So it's not surprising to see the many new reports that are appearing showing that children have major problems in this area. With all the attention going to decoding, problems in comprehension are not even noticed until they are too big to ignore. That generally happens at around fourth grade.

The source of the problems, however, goes way back. The basics of comprehension start in the preschool years. As is always the case, some children have a gift and do well in this area. But many do not. Unless the problems are extreme, however, their difficulties go unnoticed. Parents may sense a bit of discomfort when their children cannot recount events very well, but the hope is that "they will pick it up with time."

It's wise to start trusting your feelings. The qualms you are having are likely to be a sign that your child can benefit from guidance in this area. And the good news is that it is easy and fun to offer the guidance, particularly when the children are young and have not faced the devastation of problems in school.

That's why Story Smarts has been designed so it can be used with children as young as four years. And it can also be used with children who are older and are experiencing problems in reading comprehension. The importance of comprehension cannot be overstated. Without it, school success evaporates; with it, school success blossoms.

Since so little has been done in this area, it will take lots of time before the slow moving bureaucracies of school will put in place what the children need. Fortunately, if you want to help your child, you do not have to wait for that to happen.

Story Smarts is an easy, fun program that will enable your child to form a solid base for comprehension. If you want to learn more, go to www.storysmarts.com

Posted by Marion Blank at 01:55 PM
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A teacher in the mid-West realized the obvious: that telling kids to “sit still and quit fidgeting” did not do much good. So, like bookkeepers in the era of Charles Dickins, she has the students using new, adjustable-height stand-up desks that don’t ever require them to sit still.

The teacher was Abby Brown, a sixth-grade instructor at Marine Elementary School in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota. Frustrated by a lack of innovative workstations for youths, Brown designed her own stand-up desk and took the idea to a company called Sunway in Wisconsin. The company makes ergonomic office products for home and commercial use, but it had never designed anything for a classroom.

After a few tries to get the shape and mechanics right, the team at Sunway arrived at a model of a sturdy, adjustable-height desk that comes in two sizes. It also has a swinging footrest that takes the pressure off the lower back while also giving restless students the ability to swing their legs back and forth.

Other schools are exploring other types of arrangements including stand-up workstations in the classroom and stability balls (where you can steadily move on the ball and stay balanced).

It’s been clear for ages that having kids sit all day at desks is not a good idea. It’s amazing that the practice has continued for so long. At the same time, it’s great that options are being explored. Unfortunately, it has come at a time of severe budget cuts. Stand up desks, for example, cost about twice as much as a traditional desk and chair set. Nevertheless, it is a hopeful move.

Posted by Marion Blank at 02:07 PM
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In case you don’t find yourself seated in front of a computer on a regular basis, the sequence ‘qwertyuiop’ may seem a bit odd. Should that be the case, you are probably equally unfamiliar with its neighbors-- ‘asdfghjkl’ and ‘zxcvbnm.’ In combination, these represent the three main rows of letters on a keyboard.

They came to the fore recently when I was reading an article about Philip Roth, the novelist. Talking about Roth’s drive, passion and/or obsession with writing, it said “Never a day passes when he does not stare at those three hateful words: qwertyuiop, asdfghjkl, and zxcvbnm.”

There has been lots of discussion about the ‘qwerty’ keyboard and its far from perfect design. But in this day and age, when children are finding handwriting more and more onerous, keyboarding offers lots of advantages. And so ‘qwertyuiop’ ‘asdfghjkl’ and ‘zxcvbnm’ have a lot to offer.

Still and all, even when primary school children are managing a mouse with ease, most of them are not given the opportunities they need to become automatic at keyboarding. Once skill in keyboarding is attained, writing becomes far easier—and far more readable.

There are lots of good programs out there to teach young children graders how to use a keyboard smoothly and effectively. What you need to do is set aside about 15 to 20 minutes three or four times a week and make sure your child uses the program you have selected. A useful site you might want to look at is
http://www.northcanton.sparcc.org/~technology/keyboarding/freeware.html

For children who cannot manage all the fingers on both hands, you can teach keyboarding with even a single finger—the index finger. Simply support the child’s preferred hand and allow him or her to press the letter keys that are requested by the program. The end result is that the typing may not be as fast as when both hands are used, but it will still be faster and smoother than handwriting.

Posted by Marion Blank at 07:27 PM
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The BBC in England recently announced that 11-year-olds in schools around Britain will receive free cookbooks. The goal is to help tackle the obesity epidemic that, just as in our country, is overtaking the youth there. The head of schools in the government said that the goal is to have everyone be able to prepare basic, nutritious dishes from scratch--in contrast to the current pride that exists in not being able to cook properly.

The booklet has recipes for favorites such as spaghetti bolognese, roast chicken and jacket potatoes. And it represents the start of an effort to implement compulsory cooking lessons for all 11- to 14-year olds by 2011.

When I heard the idea, my first response brought up memories of the cooking classes that all girls had to take many years ago. While we marched off to tackle the stoves, the boys marched off to woodworking. Eventually these classes were eliminated--partly in response to claims of gender discrimination. But the inclusion of all students puts that objection to rest.

Of course, schools are given far too many responsibilities and then criticized for not meeting the Olympian heights which they were supposed to attain. Every time a problem comes up, the suggestion is made to teach a course about it. Aside from driver's education (where the motivation is phenomenal), the new courses fail to achieve the enormous and unrealistic goals that have been set for them.

Still, if even a few percent of the children are reached and alter their eating habits, the effort will have been worthwhile. The obesity epidemic is real and it is serious. If something as pleasant and unthreatening as a recipe book and cooking lessons have any positive effect, they are more than welcome and something that we should emulate on this side of the Atlantic..

Posted by Marion Blank at 02:33 PM
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When I was a child, several of my older relatives were illiterate (no small factor in my going into the line of work that I chose). And I recall that when they had to write a letter, they went to a "scribe" --one of the more learned people in the neighborhood. There, they would dictate what they had to say and he (it always seemed to be a "he") would put their words on paper. Then the letter would sent on its way.

It's been a long time since I heard the word "scribe" but I came across it recently in a British newspaper, The Independent, which reported that thousands of teenagers need "scribes" to help them write their exams because they are incapable of answering questions in longhand themselves.

To satisfy examiners that a request for a scribe is valid, a candidate must either have a physical disability, a sudden injury or be assessed by a qualified psychologist or specialist teacher. Students are eligible for a scribe if they can prove they cannot write more than 10 words a minute.

The requests occur primarily in subjects which required detailed writing, such as English, history and citizenship. In Scotland, examiners have called for handwriting classes to be reintroduced because so many pupils cannot write longhand.

Experts say speed is not the only factor. More scripts than ever are illegible because the email and text generation are unable to write properly by hand. Examination centers are also considering the use of word processors in more cases – especially for those candidates with known handwriting difficulties.

The situation is not unusual when, as now, major technological changes have disrupted the usual patterns. It may well be that in a few years, students will be allowed to dispense with handwriting and do all their writing on devices such as computers. With Dragon-type speech input, they may not even have to type. All they need do is talk into a microphone and the software will be the rest.

On the other hand, it seems foolish to lose any skill --especially when it is so easy to teach. With proper instruction in the early grades, effective handwriting can be taught --and maintained for life. Unfortunately, under the "drill is kill" mantra, handwriting training was deemed to be tedious and it was discarded. Perhaps the rise of problems such as those noted in The Independent will lead schools to restore --what can so easily be restored.

Posted by Marion Blank at 05:42 PM
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Math is, unfortunately, one of the least liked subjects in school. For many children, it is just a series of painful memorization of tables, lots of tedious calculations and nothing much in the way of being interesting.

if you want your youngster, or yourself, to see math from a new and somewhat amazing perspective, get hold of the book by Kevlin Devin titled The Math Instinct: Why You're a Mathematical Genius. http://www.amazon.com/Math-Instinct-Mathematical-Genius-Lobsters/dp/1560256729

Devlin is a mathematician with a gift for telling stories--and he tells lots of interesting ones, including how infants and animals have some extraordinary math abilities. For example, babies within a few days after birth can distinguish between two objects and three objects. Is he counting? Well, they are surely not saying, "one, two, three" but nevertheless, they are showing a grasp of number.

This would be a great book to read to your children and grandchildren if they are 8 years or older. All of us love ideas that are intriguing and challenge our views of the world. And in the process, the new ideas are likely to make math easier and more attractive. Quite a combination.

Posted by Marion Blank at 01:35 PM
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