Helping Low-SES Students Thrive

• January 26, 2012 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

Studies and statistics have clearly demonstrated the link between low achievement and low socioeconomic status or SES. Still, studies have also shown that given the right conditions, every student – including those from less fortunate circumstances – have the opportunity to succeed. Not only that, but the kinds of changes that can increase achievement are available to every household, regardless of SES.

Factors linked to low-SES have been shown to have an effect upon readiness for school and achievement once a child has entered school. Circumstances include a household’s lack of financial wherewithal to devote to learning resources such as books, supplies and computers. Other contributing factors include lack of parental involvement; only 36% of low SES parents read to their kindergartners, compared to 62% in the highest SES students (Coley, 2002). In addition, parents of low SES households tend to be dual-income or single parent families who have limited time and energy at home to devote to meaningful engagement with their children.

That said, many successful students do come from low-SES homes. While some of this success can be attributed to the simple innate resiliency and drive arising from within the student, research has been able to tease out a number of common factors in such homes, where certain practices are clearly contributing to student success. 

Factors for Success

In 2006, Allison Milne and Lee Plourde studied this population, selecting six second-grade students from a Central Washington elementary school who came from low-SES homes but were also high achievers. While the number of students in the study was limited, Milne and Plourde outline a number of common factors in their homes that likely contributed to their success:

• Educational content in the home: In all households, these students as early learners all had access to learning materials, such as books, writing material and structured time. All students attended preschool or Head Start.
• Placing value on education: All parents held having an education as an important value, and made efforts to ensure that their children understood this value. Of the participant families, all parents had completed at least through the 10th grade.
• Positive, supportive relationships: Regardless of family structure (single mother, guardian, two-parent, etc.), successful children’s families demonstrated patterns of support and open communication. Such parents expressed wanting open, respectful relationships with their children, and spent time with them having more adult-like conversations. They also indicated that they spent time together and had fun with one another. Finally, these families all had support systems of friends and family nearby to lean on in times of need.
• Understanding of the parental role: When it came to questions about their job as parents, all expressed “eerily similar” answers, such as providing support and guidance at home, and making sure their children understood the essential nature of a good education. They also made sure that they set examples through their own behaviors that communicated such values to their children.

Even though this study was limited in its sample size, the implications and the opportunities are far reaching. If low-SES children have the support and understanding that we see in these households, financial status does not have to be the ultimate determinant of academic achievement.

For further reading:

Factors of a low-SES household: what aids academic achievement?

Education and Socioeconomic Status, American Psychological Association

Related Reading:

Changing the Culture of Poverty by Doing Whatever it Takes

What Educators Can Do About Poverty in American Schools

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Categories: Education Trends, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: achievement gap, at-risk, early learning, elementary school learning, emotions in learning, how children learn, learning environment, motivating students, self-esteem, student growth, title i

What Does The Marshmallow Experiment Tell Us About Self-Control?

• January 24, 2012 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

What is the mark of a good student? Is it innate intelligence? Is it attention span? Is it drive? Studies show that a major contributor to success might be as simple as having self-control. Take, for example, the marshmallow experiment.

Place a single marshmallow in front of a four-year old. Tell them they can eat it now or wait 15 minutes and have it along with a second marshmallow.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Walter Mischel of Stanford University performed this very experiment with over 500 nursery school children. What percentage do you think was able to control their impulses and hold out for marshmallow number two? In the end, fewer than one in three children were able to wait it out for the two marshmallows. At four years old, they simply had not developed the ability to delay gratification required for the challenge.

Paired with recent follow-up studies with 155 of the same individuals, the marshmallow experiment has come to shed fascinating insights on the inner workings of motivation and gratification, and how the two contribute to future success in school and life.

In the end, these studies have shown that children who were able to resist that first marshmallow were also more likely to be able to “avoid substance abuse, maintain a healthy body weight, and even perform better on the SAT than peers who couldn’t resist temptation.” In another study by Angela Duckworth at the University of Pennsylvania, self-control was a better predictor of academic success than IQ.

Self-control: Innate or teachable?

Given the proven connection between self-control and life success, the question arises: Is it possible to develop tools that help people enhance self-control?

As it turns out, self-control is the result of processes in two parts of the brain. Our rational thoughts, such as “If I wait, I get the second sweet,” take place in the pre-frontal cortex. More urgent decisions take place in the more primitive ventral striatum. Decisions like these that connect to deeper desire and reward depend on the environment around us. In this second case, the thought process might be, “Gee, that marshmallow sure looks soft, sweet and yummy, and I really want it. Right now.”  Research has shown that the rational thoughts can often be derailed by the primitive limbic system; this is no surprise, given the importance of these systems to the survival of our species over the eons.

So, can we strengthen the ability of the rational side to win out over the impulsive side? One solution might just lie in helping young people change how they focus on the environment around them, such as helping them differentiate between “hot” and “cool” cues.  The limbic system deals with “hot” cues, activating emotions like impulse, anger, sadness, happiness and satisfaction. On the other hand, “cool” cues are processed in the frontal lobe and activate cognitive systems that control functions like planning, problem solving, working memory and reasoning. Returning to a variant of our marshmallow experiment, studies have shown that students who were coached to focus on “cool” attributes like color or shape were better able to resist temptation than those who focused on “hot” cues like taste.

Toward impulse-control interventions

Research is now underway to figure out how educators can better harness some of these insights into the power of impulse- and self-control to help students better achieve success. At the KIPP Academy School in New York, the marshmallow experiment has been used as a way to initiate discussions about self-control with 6th graders and help them make better, more rational decisions.

Ultimately, the ability to produce concrete strategies and tools that help students learn to control their impulses will depend upon the results of investigations that are still in the works. But eventually, if we are taking the research to heart, success will likely follow.

For now, if your students seem a bit impulsive from time to time, a chat about marshmallows might be just the thing to get them thinking.

Further Reading:

Study Reveals Biology Behind Self-Control

Related Reading:

Tips for Teaching Positive Behavior

Building Your Child's Self-Confidence

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Categories: Brain Research, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: behavior, decision making, early learning, emotions in learning, Innate abilities, toddler

Building Your Child’s Self-Confidence

• January 10, 2012 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

As parents, we want our children to have confidence but not conceit.  That is, we want our children to monitor the outcomes of their behaviors realistically, to be polite and considerate of others, but retain a sense of self that is positive and assured. I believe the mistake parents often make is thinking that constant praise of a child is the route to self-confidence. It is an easy mistake to make, especially in a society in which so much emphasis is placed on making our children feel loved and building feelings of self-worth.

I, like most new parents, constantly praised my oldest child for everything she did from swinging at the park without falling to reading a stop sign as we drove to preschool. But the problem with that is that excessive praise may create unrealistic expectations for the child when they are in the “real world” where people do not praise them all the time. I did not realize that for my daughter this was creating tremendous pressure to be successful at everything she did. Conversely, some children who hear constant praise at home may feel confused or dejected when others are not as enthusiastic about their feats and develop a fear of failure.

A young client of mine, whose mother worked very hard to build self-confidence in her children by praising them continuously, developed a host of voice problems associated with stress in elementary school.  I have worked with other children who developed a “need” for constant praise that affected their ability to enjoy competition if they could not win.

Since a large component of human brain maturation involves increased self-awareness and improved capacity for self-monitoring of behavior, parents have the opportunity to be instrumental in helping a child develop this advanced skill. By encouraging self-appraisal that is realistic while avoiding being overly judgmental, parents help their child build confidence. 

Instead of constant praise, parents can try to use praise more naturally to encourage behaviors the parent believes are worthwhile or beneficial. Statements like, “I like the way you shared your toys today” or “You seemed to be having a lot of fun on the climber, do you feel like you are getting better at that?” may help a child learn to value effort and progress as well as to self-evaluate.

It is important to remind ourselves that to adequately develop the ability to monitor our behavior we have to understand mistakes as well as achievements. It is very difficult for a parent to watch a child fail at something, but as adults most of us are well aware that some of the best lessons we had as we grew up came from our failures, as rough as they may have been at the time.

Building your child’s self-esteem ultimately will help them succeed in endeavors both in school and in life.  One of the most important jobs for parents is to help your child successfully through life’s challenges and successes, help them feel good about themselves along the way, and learn to accept mistakes as an opportunity to do better next time. 

Related Reading:

Ok, So You Made A Mistake. But Look What You Learned!

Shaming Some Kids Makes Them Aggressive

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Categories: Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: behavior, early learning, how children learn, play, self-esteem, toddler

Six Reader-Selected Posts in Honor of Our 2nd Blogaversary

• January 5, 2012 by Norene Wiesen

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been two years since Dr. Bill Jenkins, Dr. Martha Burns, Sherrelle Walker, and a host of staff bloggers launched the Science of Learning blog.  In those two years we’ve learned a lot and had a ton of fun while creating posts we hoped you would find valuable.

In honor of the occasion, we’d like to share some of our readers’ favorite blog posts to date.  Here are just a few of the posts that readers have told us they’ve liked best: 

Kathy recommends: How Learning to Read Improves Brain Function

“As an adult literacy tutor, I was fascinated to read Stanislaus Dehaene's research showing that students who don't learn to read may experience severe difficulties with other forms of instruction as a result. This underscores the critical importance of funding such programs as Second Start Adult Literacy in Oakland, a city with a high level of adult illiteracy. And, fact-based research like this gives us a more powerful defense than emotion-based anecdotes, as we fight to protect city and state literacy funding. Thank you, Scientific Learning!”

Jennifer recommends two posts:

The Question Formulation Technique: 6 Steps to Help Students Ask Better Questions

“In a learning environment that tends increasingly towards 'teaching to the test,' our nation’s students are losing the skills crucial to a lifetime of knowledge acquisition.   Without good questions we cannot find good answers, good solutions, or grow good thinkers. This article outlines a tested method for teaching children how to go about formulating a complex and well thought out question.”

School Gardens: Sowing the Seeds of Experiential Learning

“School gardens are an invaluable interdisciplinary learning tool that gets students out of the classroom and allows them to use classroom knowledge in a real world scenario. A school garden acts as a place to learn, test out theories, and acquire life skills, as well as providing a space of beauty and an object of school pride.  In my time as a garden educator, I found the bounty of opportunity to teach in the garden near limitless, and believe that all children should have the opportunity to see what they can discover in the garden.” 

Teresa recommends two posts:

The Magical Combination of Love and Limits: Tips for Teaching Positive Behavior and Kindergarten Math Readiness and the Cardinal Principle

“All of the blogs have good information for parents, educators and caregivers, but the one I like the most is the one about love and limits. I think this post is applicable to all children.  The math readiness post is a close second, as I did not know about the "cardinal principle." If more parents knew about the information in the love and limits article, we would have happier and more well-adjusted children.”

Linda recommends: Bringing Learning to Life in the Classroom: Technology for 21st Century Schools

“I've got my backpack ready to take a 3-D field trip in learning!  This mode of education sounds incredibly exciting for students.  The sky will be the limit for learners who become engaged in this technology. Thank you Scientific Learning from a retired Maine Elementary School Counselor!”

Thanks so much for your readership and feedback.  We are already hard at work on more high quality posts for the new year, and are looking forward to sharing them with you.

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, behavior, creativity, digital natives, health and well being, math, play, science, technology in education, toddler

Corey’s Story: My Son No Longer Needs Intervention After Using Fast ForWord

• December 8, 2011 by Norene Wiesen

This post is the seventh in a series aimed at sharing the success stories, both personal and professional, that Scientific Learning employees witness every day.

“My son personally was identified in kindergarten as a struggling learner.  He is a July baby and he started kindergarten at a very young age five.   Right away, red flags were going up for the teacher.  Emotionally, academically, developmentally, we realized that he might not have been ready to acquire the skills that were being taught in the kindergarten classroom.

We worked really hard over the summer to put Zack through [Fast ForWord] Language Basics and [Fast ForWord] Reading Prep*.  These products are really appropriate for a kindergarten-aged learner. 

When he returned to school in the fall and he was re-assessed for intervention, the teacher made a comment: ‘I don’t know what you’ve done with Zack over the summer, but his scores are now above where he needs to be and we no longer will need to provide him with any intervention support. We are just going to continue to monitor him and watch and make sure he continues to grow along the right pathway.’

It brought tears to my eyes knowing that we continued to do the right things and the only one variable that changed was using Fast ForWord with him.  It built his confidence and built his self-esteem.”

*Note: Fast ForWord® Language Basics and Reading Prep are no longer available.  Current Fast ForWord products for kindergarten-aged learners include Fast ForWord Language and Reading Readiness.

Related Reading:

Sara’s Story: From 6 Months Behind In Reading to the Accelerated Reading Class

Joel’s Story: My Nephew’s Reading Skills Improved 1.5 Years in 3 Months with Fast ForWord

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Categories: Family Focus, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, child reading development, early learning, employee stories, how children learn, intervention, learning to read, oral language skills, self-esteem, student growth, success stories, technology in education, video

Sara’s Story: From 6 Months Behind In Reading to the Accelerated Reading Class

• November 17, 2011 by Norene Wiesen

This post is the sixth in a series aimed at sharing the success stories, both personal and professional, that Scientific Learning employees witness every day.

Sara’s story:

"I was a Fast ForWord coach before I came to work for Scientific Learning and I absolutely loved the program, which is one of the reasons that I came to work here.

I have one story about a young man who was in first grade and was struggling a little bit with reading.  He was about sixth months behind by the time he got through first grade and his mom recognized that immediately.   She had always read to him, but there was just something he was missing and she couldn’t figure it out.

She came and talked to me one day and asked about the Fast ForWord program. We had just started working with the kids at school and I said, 'Put him in.  We’ll see how he does.'  He finished Fast ForWord Language and when back to the regular classroom, within two months he tested again with a reading test in his classroom and he was up to grade level, which was excellent.  We were so excited and he was excited because school was easier. 

The next year when he came back, he was a second grader.  His mom said, 'I want him to do Fast ForWord again because I want him to stay with the rest of the class or even go a little bit above it.'  He worked really hard, got through another two programs, finished for that year and the next year when he came back in for third grade, he tested into the gifted class. 

Now this young man is a fifth grader and he’s been in the accelerated reading class ever since."

Related Reading:

Joel’s Story: My Nephew’s Reading Skills Improved 1½ Years in 3 Months with Fast ForWord

My Son Announced He Was Dropping Out of High School: Mary’s Story

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Family Focus, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, below grade level, child reading development, employee stories, improving reading skills, increased test scores, student growth, success stories, technology in education, video

Modeling Healthy Choices: Three Habits for Optimal Brain Health

• November 10, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

Isaac Asimov said, “The human brain…is the most complicated organization of matter that we know.”^[i] And it’s true.  Our amazing brains are both a product of biological evolution and a reflection of the world around us.

First, the stuff of the brain – grey matter, white matter, fluids, blood vessels – is made up of nutrients from the plants and animals we consume from the world around us.

Second, in terms of brain function, our interaction with our environment has a major impact on both brain structure and brain health. Extensive and ongoing research into “brain plasticity” has proven that everything we experience, everything we see or touch or hear, creates a perception that changes the wiring of the brain itself.

Given that our brains are a product of evolution (which is outside of our control) and environment (which is only partially under our control, and often less than ideal), how can we keep our brains as healthy as possible, from birth all the way through old age?

The pathway to optimal brain health comes from the small choices we make every day. By making healthy choices on a regular basis, and particularly by turning those choices into habits, we can help our brains stay healthy while also helping the young people in our lives learn positive self-care skills that can last a lifetime.

Here are three important steps everyone can take toward optimal brain health:

• Eating more healthy foods and minimizing unhealthy foods. Eating foods that provide nutrients to build healthy brain tissues is essential. Foods high in omega-3 fatty acids, such as salmon, avocados and nuts, along with foods high in potassium like bananas promote brain function. Also, lowering our intake of sodium can reduce blood pressure, a factor that can, if left unchecked, lead to stroke.
• Engaging in regular physical exercise. Like every other organ and tissue in the body, the brain needs healthy blood flow to function at its highest possible levels. Physical exercise helps improve and maintain cardio vascular health, allowing the body to efficiently and effectively deliver oxygen and nutrients to the brain. But it can do more for us. In students, educators have reported physical exercise resulting in less disruptive behavior, higher self esteem, less anxiety and greater attentiveness. Dr. John Ratey of Harvard University describes exercise as “food for the brain.”
• Giving your brain practice in the activities you want it to be good at. The neural pathways that our brains create over time, as we have said, are a direct result of the stimuli that we receive. That’s why through practice and training, a child can work to shape their brain into that of a great musician or mathematician or martial artist. At the same time, we must remember that negative input also affects our wiring. For example, excessive amounts of watching television and playing video games has been shown to have concerning chemical and biological effects, such as the suppression of melatonin release, elevated blood cholesterol and an increased chance of coronary heart disease – and these effects should be taken into consideration as we make decisions about how we spend our time.

The brain might be the most complicated organization of matter we know of, but that doesn’t make it difficult to keep healthy. By learning to choose the right foods, the right activities, and the right input, we can each take control – at any age – of building the brains we want. 

Children can begin learning to make good choices from the earliest ages, but it is up to parents and teachers to model these healthy habits of mind.  

Yes, that means you.

References:

[i] J. Hooper and D. Teresi. The Three-Pound Universe. Macmillan Publishing Company. 1^st edition 1986.

Related Reading:

Lifelong Learning and the Plastic Brain

5 Paths to Brain Health: Tips from Dr. Paul Nussbaum

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: behavior, brain plasticity, brain training, health and well being, nutrition, self-esteem, teacher impact

Shaming Some Kids Makes Them Aggressive

• November 3, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

Many people believe that youth who are aggressive and violent towards other children have low self-esteem. Youth programs are often designed to boost self-esteem in kids at risk. Does the research support this belief? A team of researchers designed a study on young teens to examine their responses to feeling shame.

The subjects were asked to compete in an easy, timed task against a competitor.  Some of the youth experienced shame when they were shown a fake list of competitors’ times and saw their own times at the bottom of the list.  The group that did not experience shame was not shown competitors’ times or their own rank.  Then all participants were given an opportunity to act aggressively by blasting their opponent with loud noise through headphones.  All participants also completed self report measures of narcissism (grandiose views of self, inflated sense of entitlement) and self-esteem a few weeks prior to the competition. 

The results of this experiment showed no evidence that the kids with low self-esteem were more aggressive.  Instead, kids with narcissistic traits were most likely to react to shame with aggression.  This is interesting to think about from the perspective of educators who want to support learning through optimizing a collaborative atmosphere as opposed to promoting a highly competitive environment.

References:

The Cracked Mirror: Features of Narcissistic Personality Disorder in Children. 2009.

Related Reading:

Of Rats and Men: How Stress Affects the Brain

Adolescence: What’s the Brain Got to do with it?

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Categories: Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: behavior, emotions in learning, health and well being, learning environment, self-esteem, teacher impact

Joel’s Story: My Nephew’s Reading Skills Improved 1½ Years in 3 Months with Fast ForWord

• October 27, 2011 by Norene Wiesen

This post is the fifth in a series aimed at sharing the success stories, both personal and professional, that Scientific Learning employees witness every day.

Joel’s Story:

“The story is about my nephew.  He has moved around a bit because his father is in the military.  He has had a little bit of a break up in his school experience and his first several years of school.

They could never quite pin down what wasn’t working for him, but he just wasn’t maximizing his potential.  His mother knew that and my sister knew that but they couldn’t ever get him long enough in one place to ever nail down what was going on. 

Finally they got a test done in the 4^th grade that showed he was two years below reading level.  He could read pretty well but he had a hard time comprehending what he was reading and understanding what it meant.  We also uncovered that sometimes he struggled with unfamiliar words so we suspected that there might be some decoding issues as well.  I said to put him on [Fast ForWord] Language v2.  He ran through Language v2.  His initial RPI scores indicated that he was two years below grade level and he was struggling with decoding and reading comprehension. 

He finished Language v2 in just over 3 months and his RPI—Reading Progress Indicator—scores went up one and a half years.  He finished his way through [Fast ForWord] Language to Reading v2 and he now is reading on grade level. 

He is in a small, small school district in the Midwest and may not be there long because of the nature of his father’s job.  Both his father and mother were amazed by the results of the Fast ForWord programs.”

Related Reading:

Building Fluent Readers: How Oral Reading Practice Helps Reading Comprehension

The Essential Nature of Developing Oral Reading Fluency

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Categories: Family Focus, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, child reading development, employee stories, improving reading skills, reading comprehension, student growth, success stories, technology in education, video

Kindergarten Math Readiness & The Cardinal Principle

• October 20, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

Something very interesting happens in the brains of young children when they reach age four, or thereabouts.  They start to understand “how many” items are in a set—and in particular, they begin to be able to differentiate sets of “four” items or more.  This ability signals that they have discovered “the cardinal principle,” the idea that the last number reached when counting the items in a set represents the entire set.

Of the many challenging concepts that preschoolers need to master for kindergarten math readiness, the cardinal principle is one of the harder ones, and it takes about a year to develop. It is a major milestone in a child’s mathematical development, after which the child is able to demonstrate a good understanding of “how many” in a variety of ways, such as matching sets of unlike items when the number of items in each set is the same.

Most parents believe that their child’s mathematical skills are developed largely by formal schooling, but research indicates that certain kinds of parent-child interactions in the preschool years, commonly referred to as “number talk,” are a primary driver of children’s mathematical ability through at least 5^th grade. Number talk includes activities such as rote counting (counting “one, two, three, four,” as when playing hide and seek), counting tangible objects such as Cheerios (“one, two, three, four Cheerios”), and labeling the number of items in a set (“there are four Cheerios”).

As with verbal literacy, there is wide variation in the math knowledge of four year olds, with a one to two year gap between children who are more mathematically advanced and their less advanced peers.  Children with more exposure to number talk, and specifically to number talk about sets of four or more items, catch on to the cardinal principle faster than those who engage in less number talk or in number talk that focuses mostly on smaller sets of one to three items.

Unfortunately, few parents are informed about how kindergarten math readiness develops, and they tend not to know which math skills are developmentally appropriate for their child in the preschool years.  For example, parents often do not realize that their young child, who can easily count to 10, may not be able to identify a group of 10 objects.  Parents also tend to spend more time engaged in number talk around smaller sets of one to three items instead of larger sets of four and more, while the opposite has been shown to be more beneficial.

How to Encourage Kindergarten Math Readiness

There are simple things that parents and caregivers can do to help preschoolers learn about numbers and prepare for kindergarten math:

• Ask children to count objects they can touch, such as Cheerios, pieces of cheese, or blocks, and objects they can see, like pictures of dogs on a page of the book Go, Dog. Go!
• Label the number of items in sets of objects children use throughout the day.  For example, “You have six crayons.”
• When counting tangible objects, label the number of items in the set, too, to point children toward the crux of the cardinal principle—that the last number counted represents the entire set of objects.  For example, “one, two, three, four crackers; you have four crackers.”
• Talk about larger sets more often.  What children learn about larger sets helps them perform better on tasks involving smaller sets as well.
• Expose children to age-appropriate, educational math games for preschoolers, such as the Eddy’s Number Party!™ game, a new iPad app from Scientific Learning that develops counting, number matching skills, and more.  The game, designed with cognitive scientists and educators, is based on research into how the brain learns.

Perhaps one day in the not-too-distant future, public awareness of the importance of building preschool math literacy will match that of building preschool verbal literacy.  But for now, parents and caregivers who are in the know can begin to engage preschoolers with the right kinds of activities to give them an edge in developing the early childhood math skills needed for success throughout the elementary grades. 

I encourage you to try the some of the tips outlined above if you have young children of your own and to share this article with other parents of preschool-age kids, as we work together to raise our children’s opportunities for future success.

For further reading:

Gunderson, E. A., Levine, S. C., Some types of parent number talk count more than others: relations between parents’ input and children’s cardinal-number knowledge. Developmental science. 14:5 (2011), pp 1021–1032.

Related Reading:

Introducing the Eddy's Number Party! Game - the First iPad App from Scientific Learning

Still the Write Stuff: Why We Must Continue Teaching Handwriting

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: accelerate learning, cognitive skills, early learning, how children learn, learning through play, math, play, toddler