Robot Teachers and Video Games: Tech Tools for Students with Autism

• May 21, 2013 by Joseph DuLaney

An increase in the incidence of autism is changing the landscape of our classrooms and challenging our knowledge of how best to educate all students. Fortunately, recent technology is providing some ways to help - a cast of characters including robot teachers and video games is helping unravel the mystery of how best to reach students with autism.

At the most basic level, autism is defined as a childhood-onset developmental disorder. Deficits can include social reciprocity, communication, over-focused interests, and repetitive behaviors, and can occur at differing levels of severity. The social reciprocity and communication challenges lay the foundation for what can become a challenging school environment for some.

Robots Teachers

Some schools have started using tech tools in creative ways to break down the communication barriers with students with autism. In Birmingham, England, a program in which students with autism learn from robot teachers has shown promise. The instructors and researchers believe the robot teachers are less threatening than human teachers—possibly due to the robots’ lack of emotion and much smaller size. Whatever the reason, students are showing a desire to  connect with the robots, and once that connection has been developed, learning in different forms can begin to take place.

Video Game Technology

The use of video games with autistic learners is also gaining traction, reaching students on their own terms via a fun and familiar technology. Researchers have found that video games create an environment that is less threatening than the real world—much like robots—and one that is more predictable, allowing the students to feel more at ease. As a result, breakthroughs can sometimes be made more quickly with video games, as in the case of a student who finally moved his arms up and down together while playing XBOX—after a therapist had worked with him on the movement for months without success.

Video games enable the delivery of educational content—from math and language arts instruction to behavioral modeling and physical coordination exercises—while keeping students engaged, a combination that can be harder to achieve with more traditional methods of instruction.

The Way Forward

These two applications of technology in the classroom are paving the way for additional research into how our education systems can better interact with students on the autism spectrum. Robots and video games are most definitely not the full answer, but if they give us a glimpse into a solution, then they are a great start. 

There are a lot of questions still to explore, but like a mystery novel with an unknown ending, we must follow the clues and solve the riddles to open our eyes.

Related reading:

Video Games: A New Perspective on Learning Content and Skills

Improving Auditory Processing in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

 

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Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning, Special Education

Tags: autism, digital natives, emotions in learning, how children learn, learning through play, motivating students, technology in education

Response to Intervention & Special Ed Stats: Progress Report

• May 7, 2013 by Norene Wiesen

Dr. Chris Weber is a former teacher and school administrator distinguished by his track record of helping at-risk students achieve. He’s an expert on Response to Intervention (RtI) and has authored several bestselling books on the subject. In his recent webinar for Scientific Learning, he gives a progress report on RtI, including trends in special education statistics to date.

Dr. Weber begins by returning to the question of why we have Response to Intervention at all. In answer, he explains that special ed hasn’t been all that successful in keeping students on track to graduate ready for college or a skilled career. Students with disabilities drop out at twice the rate of their peers, and 80% never learn to read. CLD students (learners who are culturally and linguistically diverse) are over-represented in special ed, for no supportable reason. And, most significant, perhaps, is the fact that very few learners who enter special ed ever exit—only about 3%.

Weber’s criticism is not about how well special ed has performed for students who have profound disabilities, but instead for the very high percentage of students who have a mild to moderate specific learning disability, defined as a disorder in one of the basic processes (reasoning, memory, processing, attention, etc.) underlying a student’s ability to use language, spoken or written, to read, spell, write, or to do mathematical calculations. Often, schools still offer separate courses for special ed learners, an approach that sends a clear message of lower expectations, intentionally or not. He also cites students who are “curriculum casualties”—learners who have not responded to intervention and who are prematurely or wrongly given a disability diagnosis despite the fact that the intervention, or instruction, provided was actually ineffective. 

It’s a moral imperative, says Weber, that we correct this state of affairs. Socioeconomic status and home language should not make a difference, nor should ethnicity or gender. The decisions we make for all students, he says, should be made with the same care and commitment as those we make for our own sons and daughters.

Another, sometimes unacknowledged driver of RtI, says Weber, is the urgency of helping all students develop 21^st century skills. RtI is not just for students who we’ve traditionally thought of as underperforming. In some districts, students who are currently meeting state proficiency standards—which in many states, he says, have been set too low—are still not making the year-to-year growth they need in order to graduate ready for college or a skilled career. RtI can be the framework that accelerates learners to competency on the path that follows graduation.

Weber goes on to discuss several additional points:

• Where did RtI come from?
• How can we measure RtI’s impacts?
• What might RtI look like?

He also discusses the tradeoffs that must be made in prioritizing both academic and behavioral skills, as both are essential for success in school and career. Watch the full webinar to get all the details, including special ed stats and data that you may not see elsewhere.

Related reading:

RTI is a Verb

Fast ForWord® Language Series Has Greatest Impact of Any Intervention Listed by NCRTI

 

 

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Categories: Education Trends, Fast ForWord, Reading Assistant, Special Education

Tags: accelerate learning, intervention, learning disabilities, response to intervention tier i, response to intervention tier ii, response to intervention tier iii, rti tier i, rti tier ii, rti tier iii, struggling students, technology in education, webinar

Why Dr. Timothy Rasinski Thinks Reading Fluency Should Be “Hot!”

• April 23, 2013 by Norene Wiesen

Tim Rasinski is on a mission to change minds and he shares that mission with us in his webinar, “Keys to Increasing Reading Comprehension in the Age of Common Core.”

What’s Hot, What’s Not

Rasinski laments the fact that reading fluency has been ranked “Not Hot” for years in the annual “What’s Hot, What’s Not Literacy Survey” in Reading Today. Worse, he says, is the fact that the reading experts surveyed said that fluency should not be hot.

Fluency is one of the key skills, says Rasinski, that increases comprehension, the real goal of reading. So he wrote an article called “Why Reading Fluency Should Be Hot!,” which was featured in last May’s Reading Teacher magazine.

Building a Bridge to Reading Comprehension

Rasinski likens reading fluency to a bridge that connects accuracy in word study (phonics, decoding, spelling, and vocabulary) to comprehension. When students do not pick up the connection intuitively, educators have to teach it. But, if educators do not see fluency as an important component of reading instruction, the bridge to comprehension may never be built.

Teaching fluency means developing automaticity in word recognition, so learners can devote their available cognitive energy to comprehension. When that limited energy is spent on word recognition, there’s often not enough left over for the difficult task of deriving meaning from the words that have been read.

Ways to Develop Fluency That Really Work

Rasinski outlines what he calls “the essentials” of developing reading fluency:

1. 1. Reading real literature
   2. Getting real-time word recognition support
   3. Reading with expression
   4. Participating in assisted reading activities
   5. Practicing both “deep” and “wide” reading

Anyone interested in helping students become eager and capable readers should take the time to watch the full webinar and hear Rasinski’s thoughts on these points in his own words. It’s a topic he’s thoroughly studied, and he brings his extensive knowledge and passion to the discussion.

The online Reading Assistant program, as Rasinski points out, supports classroom teachers by delivering these five essentials—including real-time corrective feedback—to any number of students simultaneously.

Reading comprehension all comes down to meaning, says Rasinski, and teaching reading fluency ultimately helps learners get better at deriving meaning from any text.

Doesn’t that sound “Hot!” to you?

Related reading:

5 Fluency and Comprehension Strategies That Every Reader Can Use

Print Exposure and Reading Fluency: Building a Foundation for Academic Success

 

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Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant

Tags: child reading development, cognitive skills, Common Core, fluency, improving reading skills, learning to read, literacy, phonics, reading comprehension, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, technology in education, vocabulary, webinar

Dyslexia, Auditory Processing Disorder, and the Road to College: Maria’s Story

• April 9, 2013 by Cory Armes

I remember the early years with my children and the dreams I had for their success. Of course, my dreams and theirs didn’t exactly end up being the same. But what happens when a mother realizes that her dreams for her child may be shattered because that child struggles with auditory processing issues, dyslexia, or other challenges never imagined? That’s exactly what Irene experienced with her daughter, Maria.

Attending school proved difficult for Maria. As she advanced from grade to grade and the work became progressively more difficult, anything presented in auditory form was especially challenging. By sixth grade, Maria had been diagnosed with dyslexia and Auditory Processing Disorder and was labeled with a language impairment. 

For obvious reasons, Maria struggled in school. Because of this, she was shy around other students, avoided reading, and required extensive help at home. Her family considered sending her to a private school, but Maria was unable to pass the entrance exams. 

By the middle of sixth grade, Maria had attended several different schools and the last was a disaster. It was then that one of her mother’s friends suggested Bridges Academy, a private school that specializes in serving students with learning challenges. Upon enrollment, Maria’s life began to turn in a new direction. When she got into her mother’s car after school she often said, “Mom, they understand me here!”

At Bridges Academy, Maria’s dyslexia and auditory processing issues were analyzed further and the Fast ForWord program was recommended in addition to Maria’s coursework and intervention regimen. Jacky Egli, the Director at Bridges Academy, explained to Maria’s mother that she personally researched every program thoroughly and only used programs that were scientifically based. Irene trusted Jacky and felt it was important to follow her recommendation, so Maria gave Fast ForWord a try.

Maria’s reading level was at least three to four years below grade level when she entered Bridges.  She also had struggled in other subjects, because every subject—even math—requires reading. But that soon began to change and, in time, Maria made significant improvements. Maria’s comprehension level increased more than two full grade levels last year. This improvement aligned with her participation in the Fast ForWord Reading and Reading Assistant programs.  Over the last 6 years, despite the odds, Maria improved on the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test 7.3 grade levels.   Because of this significant improvement, she no longer receives remedial instruction.  

Irene sought the best for her daughter and found it in the caring attitude of the staff at Bridges Academy and the innovative programs they use to make a difference for struggling students. “Jacky walks the walk and talks the talk of the school’s mission,” says Irene.

Maria has transformed from a shy, struggling child to a vibrant, engaged student who participates in class, reads aloud to her peers and conducts presentations for content area classes in front of her classmates. She is an ambassador for the school who greets and escorts new students and parents through the campus as she participates in open house and school events.

And, most exciting of all, Maria has been accepted into a local college and is thrilled about rising to meet a challenge and a future that once seemed entirely out of reach.

Related reading:

What Makes a Good Reader? The Foundations of Reading Proficiency

The Essential Nature of Developing Oral Reading Fluency

 

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Education Trends, Family Focus, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant

Tags: academic problems, academic success, accelerate learning, at-risk, auditory processing, child reading development, Florida, improving reading skills, intervention, language learning, learning disabilities, school leader effectiveness, self-esteem, struggling readers, struggling students, success stories

Squelching Curiosity: How Pre-Teaching Vocabulary Stifles Learning

• March 19, 2013 by Osvaldo Soto, Ph.D

After 17 years as a teacher and 8 as a researcher in education, I have become increasingly aware of a “gravitational force” pulling me to instruct with little attention to the most ambitious goal a teacher, parent, or administrator can aspire to—inciting curiosity. I say ‘incite’ because it seems counter-culture to do so. My goals here are to illustrate briefly this force and to provide one simple way we can begin to counteract its pull.

When I discuss the matter with colleagues, I see that we all feel the same way. Few of us seem to know why we’re teaching what we’re teaching, how to get students to be interested in it or what to do about it. After years of thinking about this, I’ve come to understand that confusion is often a precursor to learning.

Communication of ideas is a central part of learning. Language matters – especially in mathematics. So far, I’ve said nothing new. However, let’s examine a way in which typical instruction attempts to provide language for students. Even the very attempt to provide language for students can be misguided and can be seen as the source of many learning difficulties. I will attempt to illustrate with an example.

Misguided Words

Consider a typical lesson from middle school pre-algebra classes—this is a scenario that plays out across grade levels and content areas. I have chosen this example to illustrate how a common, well-intended teaching practice (pre-teaching vocabulary) can squelch curiosity, contribute to anxiety in the learner, and ultimately turn students into what I call “Do-Monsters.” (Even if you feel anxious reading this and start to break out in math hives, I encourage you to persist!)

Teacher: Today we are going to learn about: like terms, monomials, binomials, trinomials, and ultimately polynomials. Please take out your notebook and write these terms down together with the definitions I will show you. (Definitions are copied…)

Teacher: Now I will show you an example of a polynomial. Please identify two like terms in this example. Example 1: 2x – 3 + x

Take a moment to remember a similar occasion in your learning experience (if you can): your lack of curiosity or need to think critically, and the aimless feeling of the activity. Remember the worksheet with 25 mindless problems you worked on for the rest of that class?

The situation I am referring to is, generally, one in which the topic is foreign to the students and the teacher. The reason for discussing the vocabulary (or even the concept) is that there is an impending test, a social contract that a teacher must cover the book, or a belief that knowing the vocabulary is crucial for critical thinking to begin. Learning vocabulary out of context becomes the purpose of the lesson rather than asking how these words can help us solve problems or think critically.

Questions, Problems, and Meaning

Consider an alternative. Instead of giving students meaningless terms upfront (pre-teaching vocabulary) so they can think about a question, why not give them the question first and deal with vocabulary within a context? I have found that the most meaningful lessons are those in which a student has something worth discussing; one in which there is a problem to solve. The problem with this is that the kinds of questions I have been trained to ask and those primarily found in textbooks are not really central to the topic I teach. They make language acquisition the end—instead of the means to an end.

I have also come to believe that imagination is a necessary ingredient in learning. Once it’s in play we can ask different kinds of questions that leverage existing language to create a need for new language. We might ask questions like, “Do we all imagine the same things happening in this situation? How do you see it? How do our images differ? How are they the same? What would happen next? Can we play out the scenario? What if we changed the situation?”

When a context is present, there is a chance that I can play! Playing is good. Unfortunately, in our desire to ease students’ frustrations/suffering in the learning process we (teachers/parents/administrators) often seek to give them the words they need before they need them, creating a situation in which students don’t know what to do with what has been given to them. We expect a child to wait patiently with a word for the right time to spring into action and use it.

So, what might a lesson look like in which we try to put students in a problematic situation before introducing the vocabulary necessary to describe the phenomena we want students to reason about? Consider a potential revision to the previous scenario in which the goal of the lesson was to teach students about: like terms, monomials, binomials, trinomials, and ultimately polynomials. Changing the goal from language acquisition to critical thinking might play out like this.

The Birth of Puzzlement

Teacher:  I’m thinking of a number…so that 3 less than twice my number plus my number again equals 15. What number am I thinking of?

Did you find yourself trying to answer the question? Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t. The point is that students have a starting point to imagine what could happen. A debate could break out about what that number is and students could talk to each other. The situation could be changed enough to make them think again until they are comfortable with the phenomenon – searching for an unknown number that satisfies the given condition.

Eventually, when the situation gets complicated enough, we might need the terms: like terms, monomials, binomials, trinomials, and ultimately polynomials. We know we are at that point when students see the need to refer to 3 less than twice my number as one entity instead of two. What would we call that thing? It is incumbent on us as teachers to bring students to this point through a careful selection of tasks. There is no algorithm other than asking the question, “How can I puzzle my students the right amount today?”

Overcoming Fear

One argument to continue pre-teaching vocabulary is that a student (a second language learner in particular) might not know what a word means and might not have a sense of the question at hand. In that case, isn’t it better to pre-teach vocabulary?

There are no hard and fast rules. Sometimes yes, but usually no. In fact, I have come to see that puzzlement goes hand in hand with confusion in the beginning and that this is a sign that learning can occur. It represents the possibility that something can be learned and this is what excites me most about teaching. I WANT students to raise questions about words they don’t understand and begin to ask questions about them spontaneously. I WANT students to play out the scenario under their own interpretations—whatever those interpretations are. I WANT debate.

Unfortunately, too often we see no possibility of debate because we spend far too much time focusing on the wrong lessons. The irony about language acquisition is that it happens best as we use the language we have, not when we are taught words out of context. To really learn a term, we must first have something to talk about that requires the new word itself. In short, here is where we lose our way. To quote a colleague, “We are so fearful we won’t cover the material, that we fail to uncover something meaningful.”

References

Harel, G., Fuller, E., & Soto, O., (in press), Determinants of a DNR expert's teaching, In    Transforming Mathematics Instruction: Multiple approaches and practices, (Li, Y., Ed.), Springer.

Harel, G. (2008). DNR Perspective on Mathematics Curriculum and Instruction: Focus on Proving, Part I,ZDM—The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 40, 487-500.

Harel, G. (2008). DNR Perspective on Mathematics Curriculum and Instruction, Part II, ZDM—The International Journal on Mathematics Education.

Related reading:

AMPing Up Our Teaching to Increase Intrinsic Student Motivation

Tapping the Source: Finding and Using the Innate Student Passion for Learning

 

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: how children learn, motivating students, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, vocabulary

Brain Myths in Education: Making Sense of Fact vs. Fiction

• March 12, 2013 by Norene Wiesen

In the nearly 25 years since Congress designated the 1990s “The Decade of the Brain,” educators have been flooded with information about how the brain learns. Some of the “brain myths” that educators have learned are actually right on target, while others are outright wrong. Some data is still open for debate and other inquiries are just getting under way.

We asked Dr. Bill Jenkins and Dr. Martha Burns for a little help in sorting fact from fiction for those of us with other things to do besides reading through the original research studies and teasing out our own conclusions. They presented a great live webinar on the topic, and here’s what we learned:

Myth #1: The Brain is Hardwired – True or False?

Until the 1990s, neuroscientists believed that the adult brain was indeed hardwired with fixed neural circuits. The Decade of the Brain revealed that this view is false—the adult brain is not hardwired and neither is the child brain. In fact, learning goes hand in hand with the re-wiring of brain circuits on the fly, a re-organizing ability that lasts throughout our lifetime.

Myth #2: There are Multiple Intelligences – True or False?

When I first heard about the idea of multiple intelligences, I responded to it immediately. I’m a visual learner! I thought. Of course. And I know I’m not alone.

The truth is more complicated. The construct of multiple intelligences falls under the category of “still open for debate” and may depend as much on our frame of reference as anything else. Regardless, what’s important for teachers is to understand individual students’ strengths and weaknesses and not evaluate students along one dimension of Smart vs. Not Smart.

Myth #3: There’s a Critical Period for Language Learning – True or False?

The widely held belief that language learning must be mastered early is an example of a fact being taken too far. True, it is typically easier to learn a new language before age 7, but we retain the ability for language learning throughout life.

In fact, intensive language training can produce large gains in oral language and reading skills even in older children who are not yet fluent. This includes in-person training or computer programs such as the Fast ForWord Language and Reading programs. They key is an individualized and intensive approach that influences brain organization through mechanisms of neural plasticity.

Further, learning a new language later in life can be good for the brain—better than, say, Sudoku or crossword puzzles.

Get the Facts About 10 More Brain Myths

Drs. Jenkins and Burns had much more to say about fact vs. fiction in how the brain learns. Watch their on-demand webinar on Brain Myths in Education and get answers about these brain myths and more:

• What role does diet play in learning?
• Are gluten-free and casein-free diets really better for brain health?
• What are the differences between boys and girls when it comes to learning?
• Can all students meet high learning standards?

Related reading:

What Educators May Not Know about the Neuroscience of Learning

Eric Jensen Links New Brain Research With Teaching in New Webinar

 

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Categories: Brain Research, Education Trends, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: brain plasticity, brain training, how adults learn, how children learn, intelligence, intensity, language learning, webinar

How to Create an Effective Summer Learning Program

• February 12, 2013 by Hallie Smith, MA CCC-SLP

For many educators, summer school planning is in full gear! Districts are determining the who, the what and the how, and all with limited resources.

When I was working in the school system, summer school left something to be desired. The students were doing the same activities from the school year (and were still bored by them), and the teachers were working with students they didn’t know, struggling to individualize instruction. Making an effective summer learning program isn't easy; I appreciate the work that goes into making any instructional plan effective. Educating our students, during the year or summer, is not for the faint of heart. It takes an enormous amount of collaboration, planning, expertise, creativity and energy (lots of energy!) to be done well. 

The Rand Corporation’s 2011 report on summer school effectiveness makes many recommendations; here are just a few:

1. Do something different. Often the students coming to summer school are those who have struggled during the year. Summer school is the ideal time to try something new, to include enrichment activities, and to engage these kids in a new way.  The Rand Corporation’s report recommends moving beyond remediation to “…go beyond "drill-and-kill" instruction and provide students with (1) expanded learning through innovative instruction that accelerates learning and (2) opportunities for enrichment.”
2. Individualize instruction.  This is nothing new: we know differentiating instruction leads to better learning. Summer school is an ideal time for this, but there are still only 4-6 weeks and more kids than one teacher alone can target in any given day. One effective way to individualize is through technology.  When teachers are individualizing instruction during guided reading groups, for example, let the computer differentiate for the students who are (supposed to be) reading independently. The Reading Assistant™ program is the perfect tool for this – it’s an online reading software that uses voice recognition to “listen” to each child as he/she reads aloud, providing individualized reading coaching and decoding support.
3. Incent students to show up. Attendance is key: no educational program is effective when the students don’t come to school. When students are challenged, having fun, learning something new, feeling successful, and their parents are involved, it’s a recipe for success. The Rand Corporation’s report suggests incentives such as “payments, prizes, parental pledges, parental benefits, bus passes, and enrichment opportunities.”

After all is said and done, it’s important to know whether your summer school program was effective. Did all the work you put in lead to improved reading scores, for example? For schools that used Reading Assistant in their summer school programs, the answer was a resounding yes:

• In a 4-week summer program in Marion County, GA, students who used Reading Assistant gained more than 6 months in reading comprehension, on average.
• In a 5-week summer program in Wayne County Public Schools in North Carolina, students improved from the 21^st percentile to the 30^th percentile after working with Reading Assistant—a statistically significant improvement. They also improved their average reading level, moving from “struggling readers” to “emerging readers.”

Is your district on track to make this the best summer school yet? If there were two recommendations I’d make, I’d say:

1. Read the Rand Report and
2. Use the Reading Assistant program.

For further reading:

Rand Report:  Make Summer Count 

Results on Reading Assistant: 

Students jump from 21st to 30th percentile in reading after summer school with Reading Assistant

One-half year increase in reading after a one-month summer program using Reading Assistant

 

 

 

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Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Scientific Learning Research

Tags: accelerate learning, how children learn, improving reading skills, increased test scores, reading intervention, struggling readers, struggling students, success stories, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, technology in education

Early Childhood Education Funding: Federal, State, and Private Resources

• February 5, 2013 by Joseph Noble, Ph.D

With the increased focus in recent years on Pre-Kindergarten learning, you may be asking where you can find funding for early childhood education.  Your school may be looking to establish or expand a pre-school program, or you may need funds for an independent pre-school program.  Public funding for Pre-Kindergarten education mainly comes from three sources: state funding, federal Special Education (IDEA) funds for Pre-K, and federal Head Start funding.

Federal Funding

One way in which the federal DOE has shown its commitment to early learning is by increasing the funding to both IDEA for Pre-K and federal Head Start over the last two years.  In addition, there are other federal funding sources for Pre-K: social services programs, like the federal Child Care and Development fund, and federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.  And there are provisions in Title I that allow schools to use some Title I funds for Pre-Kindergarten programs, such as the stipulation allowing schoolwide Title I programs to “establish or enhance prekindergarten programs for children below the age of 6.”  According to the federal non-regulatory guidance, Serving Preschool Children Through Title I, “The use of Title I funds for a preschool program is a local decision.”

Some new federal sources of Pre-K funding have also been created: Promise Neighborhoods (which has an early learning component) and the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grants are likely to continue in some form as signature programs of the Obama administration. During the next four years, the federal DOE will focus more intently on the full Pre-K – Grade 3 continuum, especially working with Congress to embed Pre-K-3 strategies in a new ESEA.

But some Pre-K programs have also been cut from the federal budget, such as Even Start and Early Reading First.  The purpose of the latter – “to enhance the early language, literacy, and prereading development of preschool age children” – has been absorbed into the newer Striving Readings Comprehensive Literacy grant, which provides a continuum of reading from birth through twelfth grade, though the future of SRCL is somewhat in question.

State Funding

In 2011, 39 states provided Pre-K funding (the other 11 states were: Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming).  In fact, more children are enrolled in state funded Pre-Kindergarten programs than in any other publicly funding Pre-K program, though the per-student amount varies dramatically in states from $2,000 to $11,000.  State Pre-K funding goes to both community based organizations and school districts.

Want to Research Further?

1. State Pre-K Funding: http://nieer.org/yearbook.
2. Federal, State, and Private Pre-K Funding: http://febp.newamerica.net/background-analysis/pre-k-funding.
3. Special Education/Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
   • Office of Special Education Programs: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/osep/index.html.
   • Special Education – Grants to States Home Page: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/osepgts/index.html.
   • Special Education, Parts B and C State Allocation Tables: http://www2.ed.gov/fund/grant/apply/osep/2012apps.html.
   • Special Education State Contacts: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/monitor/state-contact-list.html.
   • IDEA, Title I, Part B, Section 619: Preschool Grants: http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/%2Croot%2Cstatute%2CI%2CB%2C619%2C.
   • IDEA, Title I, Part C, Sections 631-644: Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities: http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/%2Croot%2Cstatute%2CI%2CC%2C.
   • State and Local Funding Formulas: http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/%2Croot%2Cdynamic%2CTopicalArea%2C9%2C.
4. Title I
   • Title I Home Page: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/titleiparta/index.html.
   • Title I State and District Award Amounts: http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/titlei/fy11/index.html.
   • Non-Regulatory Guidance, “Serving Preschool Children Through Title I”: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/preschoolguidance2012.pdf.
   • Title I Law: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg2.html#sec1112, in particular, Sections 1112(b)(1)(E)(i), 1112(b)(1)(K), 1114(b)(1)(B)(iii)(I)(bb), 1114(b)(1)(G), 1114 (c), 1115(b)(1)(B), 1115(b)(2)(B), and 1115(c)(1)(D).
5. Head Start
   • Office of Head Start: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ohs.
   • Head Start Funding Opportunities: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ohs/funding.
6. Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge
   1. Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge Home Page: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-earlylearningchallenge/index.html.
   2. Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge Applicant Info: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-earlylearningchallenge/applicant.html.
   3. Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge Awards: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-earlylearningchallenge/awards.html.
7. Promise Neighborhoods
   1. Promise Neighborhoods Home Page: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/promiseneighborhoods/index.html.
   2. Promise Neighborhoods Applicant Info: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/promiseneighborhoods/applicant.html.
   3. Promise Neighborhoods Awards: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/promiseneighborhoods/awards.html.
8. Child Care and Development Fund: http://www.hhs.gov/recovery/programs/acf/childcare.html.

Though Pre-Kindergarten education has in the past sometimes languished as the stepchild of K-12 education, its importance is now being realized, resulting in resources increasing for early learning and programs growing.

 

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Categories: Education Funding, Grants, and Stimulus, Education Trends, Special Education

Tags: early learning, IDEA, title i, toddler

"What’s in the Common Core, but Missing in Your Curriculum” webinar by Dr. Martha Burns

• January 29, 2013 by Scott Sterling

Earlier this month, Dr. Martha Burns presented a webinar titled “What’s in the Common Core, but Missing in Your Curriculum.” One of the exciting new changes that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) bring is a great deal more emphasis on how students learn rather than focusing solely on what they learn. The emphasis of previous standards have focused more on memorization of facts rather than on higher order thinking skills. In this webinar, Dr. Burns reviews the learning capacities spelled out in the CCSS and describes the skills that students need to be successful as lifelong learners, e.g., the ability to evaluate, to adapt, adjust and critique, etc. At the foundation of these higher order abilities lie the foundational skills below. Together, these skills can be termed the “process of learning.”

· Attention

· Memory

· Executive control or self-control

· Adaptability

Students with deficiencies in these foundational skills may be labeled as “trouble makers” or “at risk” and have difficulty keeping up in today’s growing classroom. Experienced educators have always recognized the importance of these skills, but the idea that they can be specifically addressed and improved is relatively new. Without the ability to remember the details of a non-fiction text, how would a student be able to evaluate and critique it?

Dr. Burns describes new insights in neuroscience that are contributing to our understanding of the process of learning and what can be done to strengthen these skills in all learners, even those with learning disabilities and other challenges. The idea that these skills are inherent in students and cannot be changed is simply untrue. With the right training, all students can become stronger, more capable learners.

One efficient way for students to practice the skills needed to meet the rigor of the Common Core Standards is through the research-based learning tools employed by Scientific Learning’s Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant programs. Dr. Burns concluded her presentation with a walkthrough of the programs, highlighting the aspects of the programs that speak directly to the foundational skills needed to create college and career ready students. She also describes what happens in the student’s brain when they are engaged with the software and the results that can be expected.

This new approach by the Common Core State Standards to draw attention to the “process” of learning, rather than just content, is important for all stakeholders to understand. With this new understanding comes a greater importance to use all of the tools at our disposal to help all learners succeed.

Related reading:

Teaching Reading in Science Class: A Common Core Trend?

Common Core Reading Recommendations and the Role of the Teacher

 

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Education Trends, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Special Education

Tags: academic problems, academic success, accelerate learning, at-risk, attention, cognitive skills, Common Core, curriculum, executive function, how children learn, improving reading skills, increased test scores, innovation, literacy, memory, reading intervention, struggling readers, struggling students, teacher effectiveness, webinar

Learning How to Learn

• January 15, 2013 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

In early elementary school, Louise was described as a sweet but somewhat passive child. She was an average student who never made trouble so her teachers did not worry about her, but at the same time she was rarely chosen for special duties or called on in class. When Louise's parents asked about her somewhat mediocre progress in school (given that her siblings were all excellent students), the school principal, Mr. Henry tried to reassure them that she was a bright little girl but would never get an ulcer worrying about school achievement; she just was not an "active learner".  Often children like Louise are described as underachievers.

But for Louise, that description of her began to change in the third grade under Mr. Stevens.  He was a teacher that some parents hoped their children could avoid because he was a stickler for neatness, organization, planning, paying attention and punctuality. He referred to himself as "Hurricane Stevens" for his proclivity, without warning, to check students' desks randomly for disarray or to confiscate items that might distract a student from getting work done. One day Louise succumbed to his watchful eye during class when she was admiring a yo-yo she had won during lunch recess. With one fell swoop the yo-yo became part of Mr.  Stevens'  "cyclone stash" of toys and comic books - all to be returned each Friday with a wry smile and gentle warning that sometimes objects get lost in cyclones. “Class time is your job," Mr. Stevens extolled her, "you can think about recess during recess, during class you need to focus on learning."

Mr. Stevens also had a memory game he called "fun facts", starting each day with a list of new history or science facts, vocabulary words, or current events details. They were always relevant to one of the class lessons, and during the day more information about the facts would be part of the daily lessons.  Students were told to pay close attention to the list and knew they would need to apply the facts in a later lesson, but were not permitted to write anything down.  Sometime during each day, never predictably, Mr. Stevens would quiz the class on a few of the morning's facts and how they applied to that day's lesson. At random and without warning (in case a student surreptitiously jotted a few notes somewhere) students were asked a question about one or more of the facts. The first student called on who answered correctly got to wear a prized star pin the entire day.

In September, Mr. Stevens began with five facts each morning. By October, none of the students missed any of the questions when called on so Mr. Stevens increased the list by one each month and the application of the facts became less predictable. When the list became longer and the application more subtle, Mr. Stevens would ask students how they were able to remember. Students told of using different strategies. One student said that since she was not allowed to write the facts down, she just pictured what they looked like if she did write them! Then she could recognize them if she saw them later or could read them back to herself in her mind. Another boy said when there were names, he tried to imagine how they looked. When he learned later about  what they did in history he could see them doing it. Like most of the children, Louise figured out her own strategies to help remember the facts and tried to predict how they might apply to class or what kind of questions he might ask. She found herself listening carefully throughout the day for more information. And like most of the students in the class, she couldn't wait to be called on -- later in the year, she too won the star pin every time she was selected to answer one of Mr. Stevens' questions.

Mr. Stevens understood that children need to take an active role in the learning process. Some children are natural students; they focus easily on content, can stick to one task, and retain information without effort. Those students achieve easily so they are a joy to teach. But to other children like Louise the "how" of learning does not come naturally. Their mind wanders or they are easily distracted in class. They don't realize that they may need to "try to remember" information. They might seem lazy because they have trouble sticking with a task when it is repetitive or boring. Mr. Stevens understood that in addition  to teaching information, he could also teach students how to learn. Louise and the other students learned to focus on relevant details in class, plan for how they were going to hold on to information during the day, and predict how they might apply to the lessons. After a year with Mr. Stevens, his students were not just better at reading, math, and writing, they were active learners.

Teaching approaches like those of Mr. Stevens may be thought of as emphasizing the process of learning as much as the content. His goal was not just that students acquire information but also apply it. In that regard he was years ahead of his time. The Common Core State Standards, that a majority of states have now adopted, emphasize application of knowledge.   Key points of the Common Core State Standards for reading, for example,  mandate that through reading students not only "build knowledge" but also "gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspective*." To that end, Roger Schank at Northwestern University, author of "Teaching Minds" argues persuasively that there are twelve cognitive processes which underlie learning, including prediction and analytic processes like planning or judgment. 

The problem of course is that today's teachers have been increasingly evaluated on their students' mastery of the curriculum, which might be considered the "what of teaching". With Common Core State Standards and educational research now emphasizing the learning process as well as mastery of content, teachers find gaps in the curriculum. Many state standards do include critical thinking skills like application of knowledge and drawing inferences.  But, most state curriculum standards do not include underlying learning processes like teaching students how to attend better to relevant information, stick with a task to completion, or develop retention strategies.

Fortunately, neuroscience has been grappling with the learning process issues like focused attention, perseverance and memory enhancement for over a decade.  As a result of neuroscience research, breakthrough technologies like the Fast ForWord brain fitness and reading products are now available to supplement classroom instruction through curriculum-based attentional and memory training. By supplementing classroom tasks with these types of technologies, teachers don't have to devote as much planning and instructional time to the kinds of activities "Hurricane Stevens" employed. 

Breakthrough technologies are also available to free up classroom time so that teachers can focus instruction on Common Core State Standards like those for speaking and listening which "expect students [to] grow their vocabularies through a mix of conversations, direct instruction, and reading*."  With technologies like Reading Assistant, for example, students independently read aloud to a computer which corrects their errors through speech recognition software, provides vocabulary definitions on request, and quizzes for application of information at the same time as measuring reading fluency. These kinds of technologies in the classroom enable teachers to do what they love, impart content as well as encourage their students to think about how the content applies to other information they have learned and their daily lives. The Common Core State Standards can be a welcome contribution to classroom education with breakthrough technologies that enhance students' capacity to learn.

And by the way, with Mr. Stevens' help you might have expected that Louise eventually became a prodigious student and teacher herself. Perhaps you can guess who she was. (HINT: My full name is Martha Louise Stoner Burns - the teacher and principal's names were changed though.)

For further reading:

*Key Points In English Language Arts

Related reading: 

Endorsing the Common Core State Standards Initiative

Common Core Reading Recommendations and the Role of the Teacher

 

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Education Trends, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant

Tags: academic problems, academic success, Common Core, elementary school learning, motivating students, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, technology in education