Hooked on Phonics

Hooked on Phonics - Remember them?

Hooked on Phonics was hugely popular in the eighties and nineties. It provided parents a way to help their kids learn to read. HOP's television marketing campaign made Hooked On Phonics a household name. It was reportedly one of the most successful direct marketing campaigns in history. It ran on and on and on.

While it seemed a whole generation used Hooked on Phonics to learn to read, it's popularity has declined as new technologies, approaches, and services have emerged. Today, children increasingly respond to more interactive, online resources. I would recommend Time4Learning is the modern equivalent to Hooked on Phonics.

Their learning games are digital online interactive and fun. Their phonics games are fantastic.




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Learning to Blog

Bloggers aren’t usually writing for the benefit of their health (although who knows what new research may turn up in next week’s health headlines). They are writing to share their knowledge, their insights, and their feelings with others. The hope is that other people will read what they have written, and interact with it, in the form of blog comments, quotes, and forwarding that content to others who might be interested. One of a bloggers best friends is his or her blogroll, which highlights other blogs they are following, and often that are following them. And thus, a community is born.

My blogging community started with a small group of folks who were taking the online blog writing course with me.




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Online Spelling Program

SpellingCity (which I am affiliated with) is the coolest online spelling program. They (we) keep adding cool new features. What do you think of free printable handwriting worksheets generated using your spelling lists?

With tools this good, there is just excuse for not doing your spelling practice and getting perfect scores on every spelling test.

Also, it should be easy to integrate spelling and vocabulary with your studies since there are so many lists available. Just go to FindaList and type in 2nd grade or SATs.

Here are some vocabulary lists extracted from Classic Literature.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Call of the Wild, Canterbury Tales, David Copperfield, Diary of Anne Frank, Frankenstein, Gulliver’s Travels, Kidnapped, Old Yeller, Pride and Prejudice, Red Badge of Courage, The Prince and the Pauper, The Scarlet Letter, To Kill A Mockingbird, Treasure Island, and Wuthering Heights.

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Teaching Writing

Many parents are disappointed by the writing skills of their children. However, they find that teaching writing is difficult as the kids don't necessarily recognize the parents' authority in this area.

Most schools just don't have the resources to give the children lots of writing assignments with appropriate feedback. Without the practice and instruction, students' writing skills do NOT improve.

Many parents look for help to teach writing. Time4Writing provides that help. It's a set of online eight week courses which gives weekly writing assignments followed by in-depth personalized feedback on the writing. Students can take courses afterschool, during the summer, or for homeschool families, whenever it fits into their schedule. Classes start almost every Monday.

Prices are terrribly reasonable for the amount of personalized instruction that each student needs. The course requirements are simply an Internet connection and a browser. The writing is done on an online system so a word processor is not even required.

In middle and high school, a methodology called Four Trait Writing is used. The first course on Four Traiting Writing is available from Time4Writing, which provides online writing courses. But there are likely to be books and other courses promoting this methodology in the near future. Time4Writing conforms to the NSTE approach to writing.



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Spelling Tests

If there's one common educational principle through the entire US educational system, it's the tradition of the weekly spelling test.

Public schools, private schools, parochial schools and homeschoolers all seem to unite around this principle. Somehow that amuses me. Has anyone ever studied the actual benefits of a weekly spelling test to education? Fro teachers, it's a simple routine time-filler. For most students, it's their first introduction to graded activities.

I do believe that if you organize your spelling lists well, you can achieve significant educational benefits. For instance, in the kindergarten through second grade, students are learning phonics which is best done through word families. Spelling tests that are organized in support of this principle (cat, rat, fat, hat, bat etc) are useful reinforcement. Similiarly, at these ages and into third grade for script, combining spelling list practice with handwriting practice is probably a very efficient way to go.

Practice spelling tests in later grades can deal with concepts like compound words, word roots, vocabulary by subject areas, country of origin, and what not.

Do you have any original ways to combine spelling tests to make them useful?

How do you spell: John Chow?



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"The H* with Spelling" Time Magazine article

"The Hell with Spelling" Time Magazine. And I quote:

In the course of a congressional hearing on U.S. economic policy, a witness casually mentioned the importance of education to the future of the nation. That was enough for Vermont's plain-spoken Republican Senator Ralph Flanders, 76, who proceeded to sound off on what has obviously become one of his favorite topics.

"Our education system," said he, "is a shambles. I have, for instance, four grandchildren in high school . . . Three of them are writing rather good theses and essays but are not corrected in spelling. They communicate; that's all that is necessary. The hell with spelling.

"Furthermore, the leading citizens of the town in which I live, Springfield, Vermont, were hypnotized into signing a statement of educational policies which includes this: that examinations shall be student-based and not subject-based. In other words, it is of no great importance whether a child really understands the mathematics so long as he is working hard at it. If so, he gets a good grade. But as to whether he has achieved a satisfactory degree of proficiency is not of any particular interest to the school."

Here's my questions, what is this about?

As far as I can tell, the position of standardized tests measuring skills and achievement is very strong in this country. NCLB has vastly increased their importance and impact. So what is he going on about that the lack of testing is the problem with our educational system? It's true that spelling has lost some ground in academia due to the increased use of proof-reading and spell checkers and word processing.

Remember, my generation went to school and we drafted our writing by hand. One did not make endless revisions since each one could mean copying over the entire document. Instead, we doodled up an outline, wrote a draft, proofed it, and then wrote a final version in pretty distinct stages. Now that we have word processors, we tend to do our brainstorming on the keyboard rather than in our head and doodling. So more typos and misspellings occur. And we get sloppy since the spellchecker fixes most of them correctly so some great bloopers get through.

But this is hardly a sign of our educational system going to pot.

Frankly, there haven't been that many great tools to make spelling time, a fun time. But there are now...try SpellingCity.com




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Learning games - they don't get better than this

I'm so impressed.

Check out the PestWorld Learning Games by the National Pest Management Association.
They're great flash games. And I quote:

Archibald Ant is a very fussy odorous house ant who must find food for his colony and stay out of harm's way. Help Archibald complete his mission to locate and plunder the legendary sugar bowl on the far-off kitchen counter. And he needs, help, too, because he would rather stay outside.




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Big Small World

The internet is amazing. While is connects us all, it does not deal with the underlying cultural differences. I'm thinking about this since I just wandered across the website of an old friend of mine. Did I mention that I was in the Peace Corps in 1980-82 in Cameroon in West Africa.

Emmanuel, who I knew well back then, has emmigrated to the states and teaches cross cultural communications as well as some language work. He also has some games, one of which caught my eye: Yan-koloba the Game. And I quote:

Yan-koloba is a character education activity whose roots reach back in the cultures of Africa. It is an intellectual and highly participatory tool for character and multicultural education. Players learn the concepts of compassion, respect, tolerance, trust, responsibility, interdependence, leadership, in a fun and very relaxed and enjoyable environment.

The purpose of the game is for players to develop great concentration and move wooden blocks simultaneously, rhythmically and continuously to their neighbors within a closed circle, at a given speed while chanting the accompanying song. The game starts with each player holding a block in hand. The leader gives the signal to start the game, and calls players' names incorporating them into the song.

Check it out. And say hi to my kumbi....




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This post sponsored by Vocabulary Builder software.

Curriculum Mapping - Concept mapping

Many school systems are involved in "curriculum mapping:. Quoting Heidi Hayes Jacobs, the guru of curriculum mapping and president of Curriculum Designers, Inc:

Curriculum mapping is a procedure for collecting and documenting the operational curriculum anchored in the actual school calendar. Each teacher in the building enters critical information about the basic elements of the operational curriculum—that is: what has actually been addressed via content, skills, and assessment.

I've seen schools and talked to teachers who found the curriculum mapping exercise, when they review what the students are learning in the previous years and what they are expected to know before going to the next year, to be a very fun and productive exercise. BTW - any time that you get teachers EXCITED about doing something that is related to administration and curriculum, it's really special! I think it's partially that they get to think holistically about their students' education, it's partially that they have a very focused way to discuss curriculum with their colleagues.

BUT, in all my experiences working curriculum, the problem of the underlying "language" remains. Are we talking about performance standards, learning outcomes, or benchmarks? Are we using our state standards as "primitive"? I for one, have found the state standards to often be confusing to work with.

I saw an interesting different approach this week. A company started looking at the high stake tests (FCAT and AP exams). They studied how children did on the practice tests. The results were then mapped back to mathematical concepts. A single question on a test could map back to several math concepts.

They build a database for each student of the right/wrong answers and which math concepts they map to. Then, for intervention, they build a list of the concepts which would be most useful in improving performance and teach. They start teaching on the concepts that would have the most impact on test results.

I'm now looking at the third grade math curriculum trying to figure out how I would map some little part of it, just getting my feet wet.



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6 out of 10 Americans Cannot Locate Payless

(this post turned out to be a farce) woops

WASHINGTON—An alarming new study conducted by the Department of Education has found that 60 percent of all Americans are unable to locate the major retail outlet Payless Shoes when presented with an ordinary shopping-center map.
The study, which surveyed 200 consumers, has raised a number of troubling questions about the public's grasp of basic mall geography, its ability to identify key regional chains, and its awareness of the diverse brands and logos that make up today's world.

Dr. Howard Saunders decries the nation's lack of basic shopping-center knowledge.
"Not only did a majority of Americans fail to find Payless Shoes on the map, but, more disturbingly, many didn't even know which floor to look on," said Dr. Howard Saunders, a cultural studies professor and the study's lead researcher. "To see countless men and women point to the outline of a parking garage and call it the largest footwear retailer on earth—well, it makes you wonder about our priorities as a society."
Saunders, who stressed that knowing the location of various stores is one of the most relevant real-world skills Americans can possess, said he was deeply discouraged by the study's results. Of the 60 percent of participants who struggled to find Payless Shoes on the map, nearly 30 percent seemed to be guessing at random and 20 percent reportedly confused the shop with the similar-looking Foot Locker. Another 5 percent searched for assistance, but were unable to figure out how to get to a nearby information desk.
Even more shocking, Saunders said, was the inability of many Americans to pinpoint their own location, despite it being accompanied by a bright green star and the words "You Are Here."
"These results are far worse than we could have anticipated," continued Saunders. "It's almost as if these people had never traveled outside of a JCPenney before."
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who personally monitored the study, said that the United States ranked behind 130 other nations when it came to mall-map comprehension—an embarrassment considering one-third of the countries surveyed didn't even have shopping center




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Education should teach people how to live or how to make a living

"Education should teach people how to live or how to make a living" said John Adams.

Roger Schank: "Our schools do neither. They teach how to pass tests about meaningless knowledge that never comes up in real life."

I would agree that today's curriculum and our understanding of what education is and how to go about it are way overdue. Of course, the current national debate has only to do with how testing and the whole NCLB method fit into today's model. Sigh.

As long as I'm here, I'll plug two a few of my more successful efforts.

Why do I blog?
Vocabulary Learning Resources
Expand Vocabulary
GRE Vocabulary
Increase Your Vocabulary
Power Words
Vocabulary Builder
Vocabulary Software





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News Stories to Study History with

I read an article on a homeschool curricula blog and I'm intrigued. It takes a news story and discusses using it as a lesson play to teach with. I'm going to pick up on this and hopefully, build an entire website and educational effort around it. Anybody think this would be interesting? Of course, it's probably much more useful to homeschoolers than their standards-leadened school bound counterparts.

News story from earlier this week: Kosovo Breaks Away: Province declares itself sovereign; Serbia says it's illegal. Kosovo's regional parliament declared independence Sunday

Questions for discussion and research:

Has anything like this ever happened in American history? Two likely answers, the American Revolution and the Civil War.

The American Revolution was punctuated by a Declaration of Independence. Did Kosova issue a declaration of independence? If so, how did they justify their actions? In fact, lets revisit the US Declaration - What was it's purpose? How did we justify our acts? When the Confederacy declared it's independence, did it issue a declaration? What justification did it give?

Who in Kosova declared independence in terms of what organization? What claim do they have to speak for Kosova? In America, what organization did we have that declared independence and what claim did it have to speak for the colonies? And what organization was there in the Confederacy?

What do we think the Serbs will do? What did the British do when the US declared independence? What did the Union do when the Confederates declared independence? What will decide whether this will be called a War of Independence or a Civil War?

When Kosova declared independence, the US recognized them as a nation. Any idea why? The US recognition, is it important? Did anyone recognize the US as a nation after our July 1776 declaration? Why did they? How much and how did they help us (Answer; France recognized us and sent $s, generals, soldiers and support. Mostly to hurt their rival the UK). Did anybody recognize the South?

Anybody want to talk or research other efforts for independence? Anybody want to talk about the Kurds in Iraq? The Mexican war of independents? How about the Declaration of Independence by Texas (from Mexico).

This post brought to you by: online kids learning, where you get website info on reading comprehension, and math help, for home school.



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The Paradox of Proverbs

I've long been fascinated with proverbs. Not just how they sound, which is comforting, but also by theparadox.

While proverbs are great at encapsulating a point of view, they are useless at providing guidance. In fact, worse than useless.

Proverbs are frequently used by people to justify really stupid decisions when they don't feel up to really thinking about it.

They're useless because there is contradictory folk wisdom for any point of view.

You want to move quickly without considering the implications and you justify it with:
"He who hesitates is lost" and Strike while the Iron is Hot".
Well, what about: Look before you leap.

A penny saved is a penny earned. You need to spend money to make it (OK, not as good an example but I'm in a hurry to get my run in).

The point that I want to make in my opus on proverbs has something to do with following your own internal compass, not the wisdom of others.

BTW, while you might have noted that my use of the word opus is self-mocking, this is a project that I've thought about for years. Be careful, with just a little support, I might pursue it. For instance, I just bought myself a pair of domains (proverbparadox.com and proverbsparadox.com). It was just 15 months ago that I dusted off another old project and created my spelling web site. My point is that I might just dive into it.

Readers. Please help. Can you come up with some pairs of proverbs that express opposing points of view? I'd appreciate the help.

I got into this today when I read a "just keep churning" story with some folk history supports it. Beth, the just keep churning lady, had a teaching story by Paramahansa Yoganandato to support her quest: to get a motivational call from Diane Sawyer (I'm not kidding!). Apparently, she has long idolized Diane and this would be meaningful to her.

My instinct was to remind her that a definition of insanity is to keep trying the same thing over and over and over again and expect different results. Perhaps, better goal setting would be a good exercise for her? For instance, motivational calls by Ed Mouse are amazingly effective and they come with a complementary coffee cup. Plus, they can be arranged quikcly so that she can get on with her life. Or, maybe, she should stick to her guns (note, all paradoxical proverbs contributions gratefully accepted but without any right to attribution, royalties, or other moral rights in my opus)

Education, learning, & homeschool
Here are three more educational directory sites that might benefit from a little goosing...Reading Comprehension is one of the major goals of education.We all need more help with math.And, while school seems like the place to learn and make friends, the homeschool world is fast showing how false that can be.there's also the big homeschool world website.

By simply listening, a mother helps her child learn

This is so obvious (to me) that I'm amazed and pleased that somebody took the time to validate it. I also think that it's the tip of the iceberg (which I'll explain below) And I quote:

“We knew that children learn well with their moms or with a peer, but we did not know if that was because they were getting feedback and help,” Bethany Rittle-Johnson, the study’s lead author and assistant professor of psychology at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development, said.

“In this study, we just had the children’s mothers listen, without providing any assistance. We’ve found that by simply listening, a mother helps her child learn.”....

Although the researchers used children and their mothers in the study, they believe the same results will hold true whether the person is the child’s father, grandparent, or other familiar person.


Personally, I believe that anytime somebody revisists some recently-learned materials and tries to express or explain it, they reinforce the learning and broaden their understanding (making new connections) as they strive to articulate it. This is, I believe, the basis behind book reports. If you think about and try to explain what you've read and what it meant, you will build your understanding of it.

The article continues: “The basic idea is that it is really effective to try to get kids to explain things themselves instead of just telling them the answer,” she said. “Explaining their reasoning, to a parent or perhaps to other people they know, will help them understand the problem and apply what they have learned to other situations.”
The research is currently in press at the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
Rittle-Johnson, along with co-authors Megan Saylor, assistant professor of psychology, and recent graduate Kathryn Swygert, set out to determine if 4- and 5-year-olds learn more when they have to explain the solution to a problem to someone else. They were shown a series of plastic bugs, and then had to say which bug should come next in the series based on color and type of bug, a problem that is challenging for 4- and 5-year-olds. The children were told to explain the solution to their moms, to themselves or to simply repeat the answer out loud.

The researchers found that explaining the answer to themselves and to their moms improved the children’s ability to solve similar problems later, and that explaining the answer to their moms helped them solve more difficult problems.

“We saw that this simple act of listening by mom made a difference in the quality of the child’s explanations and how well they could solve more difficult problems later on,” Rittle-Johnson said.

The researchers also found that children experience the benefit of explaining a solution at an earlier age than previously thought.

“This is one of the first studies to examine whether or not explanation is useful in helping children under 8 apply what they’ve learned to a modification of a task,” Rittle-Johnson said. “We found that even 4-year-olds can use explanation to help them learn and to apply what they’ve learned to other tasks.”

I'd like to know more, I think I'll google Rittle-Johnson , Megan Saylor, and Kathryn Swygert. I think this might be one of the keys to why homeschoolers get such a great education. They talk about it.

How to Build a Homeschool Program for Your Child

The Internet can dramatically improve education. Homeschoolers take full advantage of the educational use of the net. In the discussions about the growth of homeschooling, the impact of the Internet is often overlooked.

The general population of course, would be surprised that "those backward homeschoolers" are benefitting to a greater degree than their school-bound counterparts. But arguably, one of the root reasons that homeschooling is growing so fast is the role of the Internet in providing educational resources to homeschoolers, the simplified shopping, and the web-based homeschool communities and support groups.

“Kids like using the computer to learn and to develop their skills. Time4Learning's educational teaching games gives students independence as they progress at their own pace.” - Time4Learning

When starting to homeschool, many parents’ first instinct is to go shopping and to buy a year's worth of curriculum. This is one of the most common errors that new homeschooling parents make. When a parent begins homeschooling, they must first understand where their children are academically. We recommend that you start out with two weeks of working with and observing your child across all subjects while you consider your choices in terms of curriculum and programs. You could borrow textbooks from the library or purchase new or used books for this effort. Time4Learning is a simple low cost resource for this exploration period. After a few weeks, you are in a much better position to start making curriculum commitments.
Also, parents should get connected. Find some mentors and friends. Try to find some like-minded homeschooling families and ask them what they do and recommend. Try to find local families with whom you can share ideas and activities on an ongoing basis. Be aware that the homeschool world is a collection of many strong-minded people with a range of views. There will be plenty of people who have widely divergent views from yours. Expect to have to meet ten families to be sure to find two to three that you will consider "like-minded".

Use the net! The Internet provides an amazing ability to find people with similar situations. Are you looking for secular curriculum for children with reading difficulties but gifted in math? Are you looking for interactive curriculum appropriate for a Christian family or for attention deficit children with aspergers?

You can find collections of people with just a few hours searching on the net. On the Time4Learning homeschool forum, there are moms with decades of experience homeschooling, ready to answer questions on all sorts of topics. Discussions include questions like how to set up kid-safe email and how to blend Time4Learning with other curriculum.