Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Survey of American Public School Teachers

March 13th, 2010

In a continuing effort to improve education in our nation’s schools, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation surveyed 40,000 public school teachers.  According to Vicki Phipps, the Gates Foundation’s education director, “Teachers are on the front lines of this work every day.  It doesn’t make sense not to be talking to teachers.”   The survey was conducted between March and June of last year.  Teachers were not told the Gates Foundation sponsored the survey.

Here are a few of the findings:

  • Supportive principals mean more than higher salaries.
  • 64% of teachers said merit pay was important in keeping good teachers.  
  • 29% of teachers belive a longer school day and year would impact student achievement.
  • 22% of teachers say evaluations by principals were an accurate measure of their work.  Teachers prefer evaluations based on how much their students learn.
  • 60% of teachers said setting learning standards in all states would hve a strong impact on student achievement.
  • 40% of teachers said students entered the classroom below grade level.
  • 12% strongly agree that traditional textbooks engage students.  Teachers  prefer digital media over textbooks. 
  • 97% of teacher said setting high expectations is essential in raising their students’ achievement. 

The Gates Foundation research will help shape our national debate on education.  I applaud them for asking teachers what they think.

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Movie Recommendation: Precious, A Story of Triumph

March 9th, 2010

Because of its gritty subject matter, I initially resisted seeing Precious.  As you no doubt know by now Precious is the story of an illiterate African-American teen-ager, abused physically and mentally by her own mother and sexually by her father. 

Pregnant with her second child at sixteen, Precious is sent to an alternative high school  where she is placed in a small class of troubled young teen-age girls. Precious is saved  from a life of  despair and alienation by a caring teacher who asks Precious and the other students to keep a journal, each day writing their thoughts, feelings and events in their lives.  In a very real sense, the class is group therapy.   “I’m gonna break through or someone’s gonna break through to me,” Precious says early in the film.  The class is the catalyst for her breakthrough/transformation.

By writing her life,  Precious, in fact, “rights” her life.  She not only learns to read and write but creates a network of friends that love and support her.  After giving birth to a son and reunited with her daughter, she  now has her own family.  While working on a  GED, she and her children live in a half-way house.  Precious’ story  is a story of triumph. 

How many illiterate children are there like Precious?  If they are illiterate, they are likely to be innumerate as well.  Illiterate/innumerate teen-agers drop out of school.  They take low paying jobs.  They populate our prisons. The consequences to society are great.

 We need alternative high schools especially for pregnant teen-agers.  At risk teen-agers not only have children when very young but have more children, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and despair. 

This is a breakthrough film.  Mo’Nique is fearless in her depiction of the abusive mother.  She says she accepted the role to raise awareness of sexual abuse.  A victim of sexual abuse herself, she said playing this role was therapeutic.  Gabourey Sidibe inhabits Precious to such a degree that you feel as though you’re watching a documentary rather than a film.  Extraordinary performances by both!

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Tablas de Multiplicar Multiplican Oportunidades para Sus Hijos

March 7th, 2010

 

¿Cuándo perdió interés en las matemáticas?  ¿Nunca tuvo interés?  Tal vez, pero Eugenia Francis sabe cuando ocurrió con su hijo.  Fue el momento que todo niño enfrenta:  aprender por memoria las tablas de multiplicar.

 

Memorizar tabla por tabla fue una labor tediosa para su hijo. Eugenia decidió buscar un método más eficaz.  ¿Por qué no aprender cada tabla en contexto de las otras tablas y así entender la propiedad comutativa  (4 x 6 = 6 x 4) de las tablas?  Ella dibujó una matrícula para tablas 1-10.  Pronto descubrió patrones que descifró con su hijo.  Los misterios de las tablas se revelaron en una exploración diaria de la “magia” nunca discutida en la clase de tercer grado.  “Patrones hicieron a mi hijo sonreir,” dice Eugenia.  “Podía ver la estructura y supo que acertó la tabla.”

 

Nacida en México, Eugenia fue maestra de español e inglés en la Universidad de California Irvine.  “Patrones en literatura o matemáticas,” dice ella, “revelan la estructura fundamental.  Hay una simplicidad inherente en ellas, una belleza inherente.  Las matemáticas deben estimular la imaginación.” 

 

En casa, Eugenia aplicó sus habilidades pedagógicas a las tablas.  ¿Por qué no aprender las tablas en orden de dificultad?  Las tablas 2, 4, 6 y 8 son fáciles a aprender porque terminan en números pares: 2-4-6-8-0.  ¿Por qué no un método más creativo?  Así originó Teach Your Child the Multiplication Tables, Fast, Fun & Easy y la edición en español, Enseñe a Su Hijo las Tablas de Multiplicar, Método Fácil, Rápido y Divertido (en Amazon y www.TeaCHildMath.com).

 

Fáciles de recordar, patrones facilitan el aprendizaje.  California Homeschool News reporta:  “Mi hija piensa que [el libro] es muy entretenido.  Ella tuvo varios momentos “ah-ha” al reconocer y predecir los patrones.”   Patrones ayudan la memoria.  “Niños con TDAH, dislexia y autismo tienen éxito con mi método,” dice Eugenia. Aprender a reconocer patrones desarolla la habilidad analítica del estudiante. 

 

Padres y maestros deben asegurar que sus hijos o estudiantes aprendan las tablas.  “Sin las tablas, su hijo está perdido,” dice Eugenia.  El estudiante que no ha dominado las tablas tendrá dificultad avanzar en las matemáticas más allá del tercer grado. Una reciente editorial en The Los Angeles Times observó que reprobar Algebra I es “el obstáculo más grande para obtener la diploma de secundaria” y la falta de dominar las tablas es una de las principales razones.

 

Según una encuesta de maestros de Algebra I en California, el 30% de sus estudiantes no dominan las tablas.  No es asombrante entonces que en habilidad matemática, los estudiantes estaunidenses de quince años ocupan un bajo rango entre las naciones industrializadas.  “Tenemos una de los más altos porcentajes de estudiantes que abandonan secundaria en el mundo industrializado,” indicó Bill Gates.  “Si continuamos con el sistema que tenemos, millones de niños nunca tendrán la oportunidad de cumplir su promesa.  Esto es ofensivo a nuestros valores.”

 

Maestros deben innovar y presentar la magia de las matemáticas en la clase.  Padres también deben cumplir con su obligación.  “Padres tienen una gran influencia sobre un hijo en el tercer or cuarto grado,” dice Eugenia.  “En secundaria puede ser demasiado tarde.  ¿Por qué no tomar la oportunidad de enseñar las tablas de multiplicar para darle a su hijo o hija una ventaja en las matemáticas y al mismo tiempo desarrollar las habilidades analíticas necesarias para el álgebra?  Dominio de las tablas de multiplicar es esencial para el futuro de su hijo o hija.”

 

Eugenia publicó su cuaderno de ejercicios para ayudar a otras familias.  “Si nosotros hicieramos para hijos ajenos lo que hacemos para nuestros hijos, aseguraríamos el futuro de todos nuestros hijos.”

 

 

                                 Datos sobre Eugenia Francis

 

Nacida en México, Eugenia Francis fue maestra de español e inglés en la Universidad de California Irvine.  Cuando su hijo encontró memorizar las tablas de multiplicar una labor tediosa, ella inventó su propio método – un método fácil, rápido y divertido.  Enseñe a Su Hijo las Tablas de Multiplicar y la edición en inglés, Teach Your Child the Multiplication Tables, se venden en Amazon y en www.TeaCHildMath.com.

 

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Benefits of Workbook for Children with Dyslexia

March 5th, 2010

I received an email  from a mom whose 3rd grade daughter has dyslexia.  She found my book on Amazon and decided to give it a try.  She mentions the following benefits:

  1. My workbook is entertaining to her daughter.
  2. Her daughter is amazed at the patterns she unlocks.
  3. Her daughter loves the repetition.
  4. Repetition is good for dyslexic children.
  5. The multiplication problems are in large font.
  6. The spacing of problems is good.
  7. Spacing has to be ample so the numbers don’t blur into one another.
  8. Her daughter likes that the first or last number is given.  This jogs her memory.
  9. The shading in the problems needing to be completed is a huge help to her.

This mom ends with:  “Thank you for all the help this workbook has given to us and the confidence it has brought to my daughter.”

The features also help children with ADD/ADHD.  If you have a story about your child and his/her response to my method, I would love to hear from you on my blog or on the CONTACT button on my website.  If your child has AUTISM, I would like to know how your child did with my method.  I know autistic children love patterns.

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Many Thanks to Jackie in the UK!

March 4th, 2010

This review appeared on Amazon:

Best Multiplication tables book!  I bought a multiplication book, but then saw this one and bought this too. This is by far the best multiplication book. It is fun and easy and my little one loves it. I am glad I got this one. Absolutely perfect. 

My response  Jackie in the UK,
Thank you for your review! When my son balked at learning the tables through rote memorization, I knew there had to be a better way! Day by day, we discovered amazing patterns for each of the tables. I published my method to help other families. I smile when I imagine your son at the kitchen table with his mum in the UK much like Scott and myself when he was in the 3rd grade. Why not eliminate all that agony in learning the tables? Why not a creative, innovative approach that just might instill in your child a love of numbers and fascination with math? Thanks again, Eugenia Francis (the author)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Movie Scripts to Teach Your Child to Read?

March 3rd, 2010

Monday I posted tips on teaching your child to read in Teach Your Child to Read.  In my blog, I suggested downloading scripts of your child’s favorite movies from www.DailyScript.com.

 I just logged on to this site.  Out of 100+ scripts,  I found the following scripts that might interest your child:

Back to the Future,  Ferris Bueller,  Indiana Jones,  Jurassic Park, Princess Bride,  Spider Man,  Star Trek,  Stuart Little and Toy Story. 

You can decide which would be most appropriate for your child.  The format is easy to read as the descriptions are brief and the rest is dialogue.  If you can’t find a script for a favorite movie, you can often find the novel such as The Karate Kid, one of my son’s favorite movies.

My experience as both a mom and a university English teacher is:  discover what your child is passionate about and find books that nurture that interest.  When your child has a question, google the question or go online to wikipedia.  Thanks to the internet, we all have extraordinary resources at our fingertips.  Remember a parent is a child’s first and primary teacher.

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Seashells by the seashore . . . Stimulate Your Child’s Innate Curiosity

March 2nd, 2010

By the time my daughter was eight, she had an amazing collection of shells from vacations at the beach.  One trip to St. Thomas provided a treasure trove of unusual shells, among them: cowries and conches.

“Mom,” she would ask, “what are the names of these shells?”   One by one, we would look at angel wings with their delicate plaid patterns and rosy clam shells and shiny olive shells.  “What are their real names?” she would ask.  “Real names?” I replied.  “Like in the dictionary, mom?” 

So off we went to the library and came home with books.  An olive shell, we found was an Olividae; a cowry, a Cypraeidae and a conch, a Strombidae.  We explored what these names meant in Latin. Each shell was placed in a plastic bag and tagged with its name.  When we returned the books, Gina asked if she could display her shells in the library display case.   Printed next to each shell was its English name and its Latin name. The local paper took her photo and ran a story on Gina and her shell collection. 

Just like a chambered nautilus, a child builds an intellectual framewrok from a tiny center, chamber by chamber.   Your child too can be an expert in his/her world.  Encourage collecting.  Explore how things are different and similar.  Learn to categorize in groups.  Why is a chambered nautilus called that?  Today we have the internet and can easily find answers.  Curiosity leads us on incredible adventures.

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Teach Your Child to Read

March 1st, 2010

Often parents ask me for tips on teaching their children to read.

My recommendation:  find books on subjects that interest your son or daughter.  What is she/he passionate about?  In the 3rd grade, my son was into karate and loved the movie, The Karate Kid.  I bought the novel, which is not too long and fairly easy to read.  So over the summer we read it page by page.  I made a vocabulary list of the words he had trouble with and put these on flash cards for review.
 
English spelling makes reading difficult. To read proficiently, children need to develop word recognition/decoding skills..  They need to know the vowel blends (oa, ea, ou etc) and consonant clusters (ch, sh, tr etc).  They should also associate the word with word families:  pack, lack, tack, etc.  Teach them about “silent e” at the end of a word.  Look at not/note, cut/cute, rat/rate, bit/bite, pet/Pete.  The silent e makes the vowel sound long. 

When reading out loud, if your child does not know the word, have him/her read the entire sentence and see if the context tells what the word is.  Vocalubary lists are hard because the word is in isolation. Let’s say your child can’t read the word: elephant.  But if it appears in a sentence, she/he most likely would be able to read it:  The circus had lions, tigers and elephants.  Context makes all the difference.  
 
Children need to recognize word patterns:  “right, bright, flight” to build proficiency in reading and spelling.  Also good is to teach them to  recognize prefixes, suffixes, base words and their meaning.  Fortune and misfortune?  Does the meaning change when you add the prefix?  What about like and dislike? Keep flash cards or have a “word wall” in your home.
 
Sit next to your child and take turns reading paragraphs, run your finger along the sentence so your child can see the word you are reading.  Some children read better if they use a bookmark under the sentence.  This helps with focus. 

 Make copies of your child’s book so you can mark up the text.  Try one color for vocabulary words, another for the main idea, another for difficult words.  What I did for my son, was to buy a set of school books for home.  You can buy these through the publisher or through Amazon.  So this way, there was never any “I forgot my book at school.”  Also we could read ahead and, of course, mark up the text.  Textbooks are not inexpensive but consider them an investment in your child’s future.  They are cheaper than tutoring or failing assignments and developing poor self-esteem. 
 
Another idea:  which movie is your child’s favorite?  Go to www.dailyscript.com and look for these.  You can download scripts for free.  Description is quite brief and the rest is dialogue. Have your child play different roles. Most kids would find this fun.  Or buy a subscription to a magazine that would interest your child. Have your child write his/her own book.  Reading with your child pays enormous dividends.  A child who is a proficient reader is likely to be a good writer.  There is a direct link between writing and reading.

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Does Your Negative Attitude Towards Math Influence Your Child?

February 27th, 2010

At book fairs, some parents tell me they weren’t particularly good at math.  Some will go even further and say they hated math. Some go even further than that and say, “My daughter’s a dummie in math like me.”  What’s shocking to me is they tell me this with their child standing at their side.

STOP and think what this message conveys to your child:

  • Mom/dad wasn’t good in math so maybe I won’t be either.
  • Mom/dad wasn’t good in math and doesn’t expect me to be good in math either.
  •  I’ll show up mom/dad by if I do well in math.  They won’t like it if I’m smarter.

If you say you hate math, be aware you are shaping your child’s attitude toward math, particularly if you’re a mom speaking to a daughter.  Your daughter loves you and seeks to be just like you.  She may pick up the false message math isn’t for girls.  Now most moms would never say, “I hate reading.  I hate books. I haven’t read a book since high school.”  Yet somehow it’s okay for parents to disparage their math skills. 

If you say your child is a dummie in math like you, you are setting your child up for failure.  Your child may choose not to disappoint you.  Like father, like son?   Like mother, like daughter?

My recommendation:  do not to share your negative math experience with your children but encourage them.  If you feel you must share this experience, frame it this way:

  •  I had trouble with math but you won’t because you have a parent who really cares about your success in math and will help you.
  •  Your teacher also cares about your  success in math and will help you. 
  •  You have resources I didn’t have such as great math books, video tutorials, multiplication CDs and math video games.

My point is:  your negative experience stays with you.  Although you had a negative experience, you expect your child to have a positive experience.  You expect your child to succeed in math.  Your child will fulfill these expectations.  There are few parents who do not have the basic skills to make sure their 3rd grade child succeeds in math.  The formual for success is the following:

     Parent’s  POSITIVE expectations  + HELP for child =  SUCCESS

This formula works for any subject matter: English, reading, science, etc.  So think about what message you’re imparting to your child.  Separate your negative experience from your child and make clear that your child will succeed.  Your child deserves no less.

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Happy Valentine’s Day Book Recommendation: My Love for You by Susan Roth

February 11th, 2010

How to express the depth of your love for your child on Valentine’s or for that matter any day  of the year?   Do you tell your child, “I love you as big as the sky” as I did with my children?  With this little counting book, you can express your love for your child as you teach numbers 1 through 10.

Through the eyes of a white mouse and a smaller brown mouse, you will journey on a wild-animal adventure.  The book begins: MY LOVE FOR YOU . . . Turn the page and read:  is bigger than 1 bear.  The next page tells you: taller than 2 giraffes.  And the next: larger than 3 blue whales. (Notice we’re developing good language skills in the use of comparative adjectives.)   The books ends with the sentiment that “my love for you is greater than all of these together . . .  forever.”

The illustrations in the book are delightful!  The landscapes are made of multi-layered, translucent tissue-paper collages similar to those your child will make in school.  These give the pages an amazing depth.  Some of the animals  are made out of construction paper. Explore with your child how the patterns on the 5 pythons are made out of simple  rectangles, squares and triangles.  Why not sit down with your child and construct your own as an art project?  Or maybe cut out two giraffes and apply small brown squares to  make a  giraffe mosaic?  This book will inspire you.

I recommend this book not only for its lovely sentiment (the two little mice can represent a parent and child, an older and younger sibling or simply two friends), the counting skills it imparts but also the art.  This charming little book will delight your child on Valentine’s or and other day!

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