“I Thought We Were Losing Him”: Why We Become Teachers

• April 12, 2011 by Carrie Gajowski

A few months ago, we heard from Cory Armes, an Education Consultant at Scientific Learning, and she told her story about her experience with the Scientific Learning products and how that led her to become part of the Scientific Learning team.  Today we hear from Karen Forester, a Senior Implementation Manager in the South, about the impact of the Fast ForWord products on the life on one 13-year-old from Florida:

“Several years ago, while visiting a Fast ForWord lab at a middle school in Florida, I was working with the reading coach and teacher on data interpretation methods and real time results from the work their students had been doing in the exercises.  We were looking specifically at reading level gains and national percentile scores when I noticed one student had a four year, two month gain in only 60 days.  I pointed this out and the reading coach audibly gasped, then whispered, 'Can we look closer at his scores?' 

As we reviewed the detail report, we saw the remarkable progress this particular 13-year-old had made.  The reading coach started to say something, but her voice broke and she looked quickly away.  After a few moments, she told me how worried she had been about this student and that nothing she or his teachers had tried ever seemed to make a difference.  'Last year, he started acting out and his bad behavior landed him in the principal’s office many times; I thought we were losing him.'  Abruptly, she called the student’s name and asked him to come up to her desk.  He approached with great dread and a downcast look, but as soon as he reached her, she said, 'I am so proud of you, just look at what you’ve accomplished!' 

He looked startled and didn’t seem to understand what she just said.  When she saw his quizzical gaze, she pointed to the computer and asked him to see for himself what she meant.  He leaned in to peer at the screen and she began explaining his graphs, charts and scores.  She showed him how much his reading level had improved since he began working on Fast ForWord and praised his determination for sticking with the work and not giving up.  I asked him if he had noticed any difference.  Shyly, he said, 'Well, I like to read now and I didn’t before plus I haven’t got in trouble this year.'

With tears in her eyes, his teacher couldn’t resist placing her arm around his shoulders and announcing his success to the whole class.  I could tell the student was unaccustomed to such academic praise, but it didn’t take him long to flash a brilliant smile and I could see his whole body relax into the joy of the moment.  Both teacher and student were thrilled.

At the time, I remember thinking how that brief recognition could very well change the trajectory of this student’s life – from one with little possibility to one with infinite possibilities.  Where once there was misunderstanding, frustration and anger with learning, now there was comprehension, clarity and pride. 

And isn’t that why we become teachers?" 

Related Reading:

Our Lives Change, Too: From Fast ForWord® Skeptic to Believer

Indispensible Automaticity: How Reading Frees the Mind to Learn

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Categories: Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, child reading development, emotions in learning, improving reading skills, learning environment, learning to read, literacy, middle school learning, motivating students, reading comprehension, reading intervention, student reading growth, teacher impact, technology in education

48% More Students Newly Proficient on GA CRCT After Fast ForWord Use

• April 7, 2011 by Melissa Agocs

Every spring, the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, abbreviated CRCT, are administered to students in Georgia.  The CRCT is designed to measure how well students acquire the skills and knowledge described in the Georgia Performance Standards. Students are tested in Reading, English Language Arts and Mathematics.  It is given every spring to all students in grades 1-8 and the students included in this study were first through eighth graders.

Students who used the Fast ForWord products generally started with the Fast ForWord Language or Fast ForWord Literacy products. During the 2007 – 2008 school year, some students started on the Fast ForWord Reading products, progressing as far as the Fast ForWord Reading Level 3 product.  On average, students used the products for 60 – 70 days during a 6 month period.

The first wave of Fast ForWord participants at Clarke County started using the products between the 2006 and 2007 tests and made statistically significant improvements on the spring 2007 CRCT with continued improvements in 2008.  Students in the second wave started using the products between the 2007 and 2008 tests and made statistically significant improvements on the spring 2008 CRCT.  The third group served as the comparison group and did not use the products until after the 2008 test. The students who used the Fast ForWord products made more improvements in their reading achievement, crossing the proficiency threshold, compared to the students who did not use the products. In fact, 40% of the participants who were not proficient in 2006 reached proficiency in 2007 compared to 27% of the non-proficient students who did not use products.

In addition to longitudinal results, data were also analyzed for certain demographic groups, including students who were receiving Special Education services and students with Limited English Proficiency. Both groups achieved statistically significant improvements on the CRCT Reading Test after Fast ForWord participation. Students who were receiving Special Education services and who used Fast ForWord products made significant gains in their reading scores, but more importantly, these gains were significantly greater than the gains made by the comparison group.  Similarly, students with limited English proficiency who used Fast ForWord products also made significant gains in their reading scores that were significantly greater than the gains made by the comparison group.

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Categories: Brain Fitness, English Language Learners, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research

Tags: academic proficiency, accelerate learning, achievement gap, child reading development, elementary school learning, improving reading skills, increased test scores, language learning, learning to read, literacy, middle school learning, reading test gains, student reading growth, technology in education

Antidotes to Summer Brain Drain (Part 1): Tips and Tools for Fun Math Skills Practice

• April 5, 2011 by Terri Zezula

Every year, educators work hard to help their students learn as much as possible, squeezing in all the high-value knowledge they can. But come summer vacation, a solid percentage of that learning is lost as students walk away from school and get anywhere from six to twelve weeks to forget about the pressures of school and just go and be kids.

So, what can we do to minimize summer brain drain while still giving kids the break they need?

Since most kids backslide in math more than they do in reading (2.6 months of grade level equivalency, on average[i]), many parents welcome ideas for keeping math skills afloat without drowning the summer spirit.  Fortunately, with a little creativity, fun opportunities to practice math skills abound.

Look for ways to incorporate math into everyday activities.  Let your child pay with cash at the store.  Or have your child figure out the tip at a restaurant – without a calculator. Include your child in figuring out how much fabric you need to make curtains.  Bake together—and double the recipe, or halve it, letting your child figure out what the new measurements are for each ingredient.

If your child enjoys reading, add some math books to her summer reading list.  Your middle or high school student might enjoy the classic Flatland, a story that takes place entirely in two physical dimensions.  If you have an advanced math learner on your hands, she might be willing to give The Manga Guide to Calculus a try.  (There are additional Manga titles on Physics, Statistics, Molecular Biology, and other advanced subjects.)  Learners in middle school or the upper elementary grades may be interested in Math Curse. Math Fables is good for very young children (K – 1), while The Grapes of Math is more appropriate for ages 6 – 10 and Math Potatoes for grades 3-6.

For the child who loves computer games, Math Playground is a web site with free multimedia math games for elementary through middle school students.  The games on Math Playground are not indexed by grade level and the site features a lot of advertising, but the games are free & reasonably entertaining. In MathHoops, kids can solve word problems for a chance to shoot some hoops (this game does specify grades 3 - 5).  There’s a “need help” button for tips on how to translate the word problem into math steps (e.g., “key words like ‘more’ tell you to add”).

The X Detectives lets kids play secret agent, driving around a training compound in the “X-mobile” to work on skills in four different locations, such as negative numbers in the Integer Room and algebra puzzles in the Gadget Shop.  Party Designer requires kids to use algebraic reasoning to design a party floor plan. 

As Thomas Haller and Chick Moorman note in their article Summer Brain Drain: Tips to Help Your Child Avoid Summer Brain Drain, the key is balancing learning with fun.  They suggest a multitude of ways to practice academic skills while enjoying summer recreational activities.  Be sure to check out the article for ideas about how to incorporate math while playing in the pool, taking a road trip, playing card games, and collecting money for charity.  Perhaps the best advice is to model learning for your child by turning off the TV or video games and picking up a book or taking an art class.  Even if your kids don’t avoid the summer brain drain – you will!

If you enjoyed this post on avoiding the Summer Brain Drain, be sure to sign up to receive future posts in your inbox and be sure to catch Part 2 later this month!

Related Reading:

Fun Science Experiments for Classroom or Home

Fit Bodies Make Fit Brains: Physical Exercise and Brain Cells
 

[i] Strauss, Valerie. Active Summer, Active Minds: Educators Seek Ways to Prevent Learning Losses During Vacation. Monday, June 15, 2009.

 

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Categories: Education Trends, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: brain drain, brain training, creativity, elementary school learning, high school learning, how children learn, learning through play, math, middle school learning, play, technology in education

Opening the Classroom Through Online Collaboration: 21st Century Learning Environments

• March 29, 2011 by Sherrelle Walker, M.A.

Fifteen short years ago, our classrooms were relatively closed places. When we spoke of teaching students to collaborate with one another or exposing them to the world beyond our school walls, we were usually talking about a very limited number of options: either going out into the world to experience it first hand on a field trip, or bringing the outside world in via hosting a guest speaker. In rare and wonderful cases, students had the opportunity to go on exchange programs. In this way, “collaboration” meant working in small teams with fellow classmates.

Today, such collaboration is no longer dependent upon proximity or time of day. Online tools have brought down the many barriers to communication, allowing students, teachers and professionals to interact with and learn from one another regardless of location.

The potential for learning is mind-blowing to say the least. With a savvy educator as a coach and guide, the entire world can become the classroom, and peoples who populate it can be our co-educators. Even our students have the opportunity to become the teachers.

What do our students have to gain if we take steps to embrace online collaboration in our classrooms? We need only look to a few real-life examples to see:

• Students in New Jersey are building understanding by learning about others. Through video conferencing, they have interviewed others their age in Iowa to talk about how they perceive one another and how the economic crisis is affecting their lives and families.[i] Read about the efforts that are transforming the Van Meter Community School District in Iowa, written by Superintendent John Carver.
• Teachers in the US are using free video conferencing such as Skype to facilitate international conversations. For example, educator Silvia Tolisano put together conversations in German and English by connecting her class with one in Argentina. See this and lots more examples in this article, 50 Awesome Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom.
• If you haven’t heard of it, the ePals Global Learning Community is facilitating collaborative learning across the planet. Through their network, students and teachers come together to do everything from using digital storytelling to learn about world cultures to discussing and developing solutions to global warming. Visit the Projects section of ePals for ideas and ways to plug into great work already underway.

Of course, these kinds of tools and techniques expose our students to all that the world—literally—has to offer. But just as importantly, in using these strategies we are helping our students establish the neural connections that will make these kinds of experiences second nature to them. We are strengthening their abilities to focus more on the meaningful content and creative ideas that come from these experiences as opposed to focusing on just the superficial “wow” factor. Not only that, but we are helping them develop the habits of mind for using these tools and techniques that will serve them so well as they endeavor to solve problems in the future.

For more ideas and articles about online collaboration, check out eSchool News’ collection of articles on the subject at http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/11/21/engaging-students-through-online-collaboration/

[i] Prabhu, Maya T. Will Skype eclipse fee-based videoconferencing? eSchool News. May 17, 2010. http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/05/17/will-skype-eclipse-fee-based-videoconferencing/?ast=55

Related Reading:

Creating the Optimal "Internal" Learning Environment

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

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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: digital natives, elementary school learning, high school learning, how children learn, innovation, learning environment, middle school learning, motivating students, novelty, social studies, technology in education

The Trend to Blend: The Debate Over Online and Blended Learning

• March 22, 2011 by Terri Zezula

This month, eSchool News will come out with its annual Technology Counts report, and this year, one of the topics discussed will be blended learning. While the discussion continues as to how blended learning will affect education policy and vice versa, it is important that we all have a clear understanding of the concept so we might develop our own opinions and contribute effectively to the conversation.

According to the iNACOL National Primer on K-12 Online Learning by Matthew Wicks, blended learning is defined as “any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, path, and/or pace.”[i]

While we all understand the benefits of traditional brick-and-mortar classrooms, the benefits of the online learning piece tend to be more debatable. Given its organic development over time, myths abound about what it is and how it works. Just a few cited in the paper above are that online learning is “teacher-less,” that courses are easy, that students spend all their time in front of computers, and that they work in isolation and thus don’t get the benefits of collaboration and socialization. In reality, quality online learning programs as well as blended programs are able address these issues, and Matthew Wicks does an excellent job of clearing the air.

Online and blended learning offers flexibility, opportunity and convenience, and because of these positives, as well as the simple fact that the public is demanding it, use is on the rise. While the Sloan Consortium estimated that in 2007-8 there were just over 1 million students in the US enrolled in online or blended programs, up 47% from 2005-6. Based on this growth, estimates are that over 1.5 million students were learning through such programs in 2009-10.[ii]

Clearly, the benefits are affordability, accessibility and convenience for students and educators alike.  Not only do online and blended learning models allow learning to take place outside of classroom walls and schedules, they make the opportunity of school a more realistic endeavor for those students whose family lifestyles and needs tend to impede the ability to adhere to a more rigid school day.

What are the costs to students as well as to the educational system? Financially speaking, the costs of operating online programs vs. brick-and-mortar programs are, interestingly, about the same. Efficiencies and online strategy gains by not having classrooms and learning facilities are balanced out by the cost of the technology required to run the programs.[iii]

Most importantly, we must take the responsibility to educate ourselves and develop as comprehensive a picture of online learning as possible if we are to contribute effectively to the conversation and ensure that we are advocating (whether for or against) and implementing these strategies as effectively as possible. Nothing less than our students’ futures are at stake.

[i] Wicks, Matthew. (2010). A National Primer on K-12 Online Learning, International Association for K-12 Online Learning.http://www.inacol.org/research/docs/iNCL_NationalPrimerv22010-web.pdf.

[ii] Ibid, p. 14.

[iii] Anderson, A., Augenblick, J., DeCesare, D., & Conrad, J. (2006). Costs and Funding of Virtual Schools, Augenblick, Palaich, and Associates. http://www.inacol.org/research/docs/Costs&Funding.pdf.

Related Reading:

Creating the Optimal “Internal” Learning Environment

Video Games: A New Perspective on Learning Content and Skills

Ok, So You Made a Mistake. But Look What You learned!

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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: blended learning, curriculum, digital natives, elementary school learning, innovation, middle school learning, technology in education

4 Ways to Celebrate Brain Awareness Week 2011

• March 14, 2011 by Carrie Gajowski

It’s Brain Awareness Week! Join us every day from March 14-20 as we share information about the brain, how the brain learns, and how educators can address some of the challenges in education today.

Need some ideas for how to celebrate Brain Awareness Week and honor this most important of organs?

1. Incorporate “Brain Awareness” Into Your Classroom
   Need some ideas on this one? For starters, download some of our educational Classroom Resources for Teachers, a variety of fun and informative worksheets and experiments on topics related to the brain.  (My favorite is the Grocery Store Game, which tests memory span and mnemonic strategies.) Then have your students try our free Scientific Learning® BrainApps™ games for a brain fitness challenge!
   
   
2. Catch Up On the Best Blog Posts About the Brain
   Whether you’re new to this blog or a long time reader, there are sure to be some great posts you haven’t yet explored.  In celebration of Brain Awareness Week, here are some of the most popular brain-related posts: Educating Kids about Nutrition and the Brain – learn how you can create the ultimate brain-health meal, the "Brainiac Blue Plate Combo!” The Adolescent Brain –find out what your adolescent is really thinking and how his or her developing brain works. Benefits of Music in Schools: The Effects of Music on the Brain – check out what the latest research says regarding the importance of music education and its benefits for learning. Dr. Norman Doidge on Brain Plasticity – discover the truth…old dogs can learn new tricks, all lifelong.
   
   
3. Tweet the Brain, Learn, and Win
   This week on Twitter, we will be testing your knowledge of the brain.  Play with us for a chance to win one of our “brain” goody bags each day!  Follow @brainfitness and join in the fun! 
   
   
4. Subscribe to Receive All of Our Brain Awareness Week Posts
   Subscribe to this blog (below) to have our blog posts show up in your inbox during Brain Awareness Week and beyond. Thanks for joining us for Brain Awareness Week!  All of The Science of Learning bloggers look forward to sharing it with you!

Subscribe to this blog to get new blog posts right in your inbox and stay up to date on the science of learning!

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

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

Tags: brain plasticity, health and well being, high school learning, middle school learning, motivating students, musical training, nutrition, science, Scientific Learning events

Test Scores Exceed State Average in 4 Subject Areas After Fast ForWord

• February 15, 2011 by Andrew Ostarello

St. Mary Parish began using Fast ForWord products in the 2006-2007 school year with eight elementary schools.  Over the next few years they continually expanded until they had a full district implementation by 2009-2010.  Overall, Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant products were used by almost 6,000 St. Mary Parish students by 2010.

This study investigates the changes during that time to the district’s performance on the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program, or LEAP for short.  This test is given to 4^th and 8^th grade students.  The following analyses consider four main subtests: English/Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science.

After implementing Fast ForWord products, the St. Mary 4^th grade passing rate for ELA converged upon, and then exceeded the state average.  After Fast ForWord was introduced, the percentage of the district’s students passing the LEAP Math test increased dramatically.  The 4^th grade Science test exhibits the same trend as does the 4^th grade Social Studies test.

The gap in passing rates between black and white students has also been reduced for both the elementary English and elementary Math LEAP tests.  There has also been a longitudinal increase in the percentage of 4^th graders meeting the overall promotion standard since Fast ForWord products were introduced - from 65% in 2006 to 85% in 2010. 

Following Fast ForWord implementation, district LEAP performance approached and then exceeded the state average in all four subjects.  The performance gap between black and white students closed significantly.  And finally, the 4th grade promotion rates steadily increased.

For more information, please see the Educator Briefing on this study as well as any of our 200+ additional reports on Fast ForWord software results. If you have questions about any of our research studies, please contact us.

Related Reading:

Can Scientific Learning Products Improve School Test Scores?

Over 45% Relative Improvement in Students Reaching Proficiency

Dr. Donald Aguillard: Improving Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) Scores in St. Mary Parish Schools

 

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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: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Scientific Learning Research

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, achievement gap, assessments, brain training, child reading development, elementary learning, elementary school learning, how children learn, improve test scores, improving reading skills, increased test scores, LEAP, learning to read, literacy, Louisiana, middle school learning, reading comprehension, reading intervention, reading test gains, student reading growth, technology in education, video

6 Ways to Empower Your Students as Contributors in the Classroom

• February 8, 2011 by Norene Wiesen

If you attended our Fall Brain Fitness Webinar by Alan November, Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning, you know what an inspiring thinker and speaker he is.  It should come as no surprise, then, that he’s an inspiring writer as well. 

I recently discovered an article on his website outlining 6 ways to engage students as contributors in the classroom as a way of supporting their natural drive to participate in an active and meaningful way.  Here are the first 3:

1. 1. Engage students as tutorial designers to create supportive content for each other
   2. Assign official student scribes to take collaborative class notes
   3. Designate a student researcher to find the answers to classroom questions

This partial list is just the tip of the iceberg.  Be sure to read the full article, Students as Contributors: The Digital Learning Farm, on the November Learning website to discover 3 more ways that educators are empowering their students in the classroom right now, and find out what tools are available to bring these ideas into your own classroom or school.

Be sure to join us for our Spring Brain Fitness Webinar Series featuring Alan November (April 12) and Bill Daggett (March 18), thought-leaders in education that you don’t want to miss.  Subscribe to this blog to receive all the details about upcoming webinars in your inbox!

Related Reading:

How to Motivate Students: The Psychology of Success 

Using the Human Element to Make Science Fun and Approachable

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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: Brain Fitness, Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, Alan November, creativity, decision making, how children learn, middle school learning, motivating students, Scientific Learning events, technology in education

Our Lives Change, Too: From Fast ForWord® Skeptic to Believer

• December 21, 2010 by Carrie Gajowski

I often hear from customers and other Scientific Learning employees that our company is distinguished by the passion and commitment of those who work here.  One reason for that palpable passion is that many have been personally and deeply touched by the life-changing experiences that their own family members, students, or customers have experienced with Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ products.  We have seen children’s lives be changed forever by these products.  Students who may not have had opportunities in school now can succeed in ways that wouldn’t have been possible even 15 years ago.

I have my own story to tell—about my nephew—and I will tell it here soon, but today I want to share a personal story from Cory Armes, one of our Education Consultants, who was so impacted by her experience with the Fast ForWord products that she left her teaching job to work for Scientific Learning:

“ I began my experience with the Fast ForWord products, or in my case, product, several years ago.  On a cloudy afternoon in February 1999, our Special Education Director gathered the diagnosticians (of which I was one) and speech pathologists to hear a presentation about a new product called Fast ForWord.  After the presentation, my mind was spinning to think that there might be even a modicum of truth to the research that he had shared…

As a certified skeptic, I had some serious questions about the claims he made that day.  After all, I knew as a teacher that if I made a year’s gain with my students in a year’s time, we were doing a good job.  My problem was that many of the students I worked with throughout my career came to me two-to-three years below grade level.  If we made a year’s progress in a year’s time, it was great but they still were two-to-three years behind.  So to have someone tell me that there was a product available that could help students make one-to-two years gain in a few weeks time was questionable at best.  I couldn’t imagine that brain fitness exercises actually could change a student’s ability to focus and retain information much less improve the way the brain processes.  But we had a recent article from ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) that supported his claims along with other research information so decided to implement Fast ForWord as our summer school program.

After the meeting, I called the Special Education Director to ask if there was something that I could do, beyond the pre-and post-testing, to learn more about the program and how it worked.  She very graciously said, “Of course.” and promptly put me in charge of the implementation for the district.  Now, there were a few things to consider: first, I wasn’t convinced that this program would even work and, second, I’m a bit of a perfectionist.  So, I decided that there was only one thing to do and that was to run the implementation exactly as the company suggested with a strict fidelity to the protocol and a good motivational system in place so if we didn’t get the results they advertised, it wouldn’t be my fault!

Our first implementation included 25 first to eighth graders who had been through multiple reading products with little improvement.  I had a great team who loved kids and we had a blast for the six weeks that we ran the program.  I learned a lot about running Fast ForWord (such as you don’t need to allow ten minutes between exercises for breaks because you can’t get them to stop working!) and at the end of the fourth week at 100 minutes a day; we had some students reach completion.  In week five, we began post-testing those students and could not believe the results.  By the end of the six-week session, our students averaged a 1.5 year gain in language (using the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals and Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization assessments) and 1.5 years in reading (Gray Oral Reading Test)!

The rest, as they say, is history.  An eighth grader with an extremely high IQ but who, as a student with severe Dyslexia, had been reading on first grade level now tested at the fifth grade reading.  One of the third graders who essentially was a non-reader, went to fourth grade with improved reading skills and, after completing the second Fast ForWord product the following summer, was reading on grade level in fifth grade and passed the state reading assessment.  A fifth grader who was reading on first grade level became engaged in school the next year and after completing additional products over the next two school years, was on the A-Honor Roll, no longer required Resource assistance and, according to her mother, read everything she touched.  Many stories, many changed lives and my sincere regret that I didn’t have Fast ForWord much sooner in my career. 

After two years of supervising and implementing Fast ForWord for the district, I believed so strongly in the products that I joined Scientific Learning as a trainer.  Over the last ten years, I’ve seen wonderful product additions, large numbers of students using the products and a worldwide impact in accelerating learning. 

As my 4 -year-old granddaughter would say, “How cool is that”?

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

Tags: academic problems, academic success, accelerate learning, attention, below grade level, brain training, cognitive skills, dyslexia, elementary learning, elementary school learning, increased test scores, intervention, memory, middle school learning, reading intervention, struggling readers, struggling students, student reading growth, technology in education

Building Unstructured Play Into the Structure of Each Day

• August 20, 2010 by Sherrelle Walker, M.A.

As educators, we carefully design connections between what we teach and our students' future success. Practically every aspect of our young people's school day is designed with a specific learning purpose in mind. Along with helping them learn foundational, essential content, we also employ classroom experiences to help students learn to apply knowledge to creative solutions, analyze situations to make smart decisions, and learn to collaborate with others.

Now, stop for a moment and think about the skills I just listed: analyzing challenges; making decisions; creating; collaborating. As it turns out, these are all benefits that young brains get out of the simple experience of good old-fashioned unstructured play.

Today, 21st century society has evolved into one where our children's time is over-scheduled and over-structured. A recent poll of 2,000 parents in the UK indicated that, after figuring in school, homework, extra lessons, after-school activities and television and computer screen time, the average child gets a seriously inadequate 69.77 minutes a day for unstructured play.

Why is unstructured playtime so essential? In the 2007 clinical report, The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds, published by The American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg outlines the key benefits of play, which include:

• The development of creativity, imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength
  
• The ability to engage, interact with and manipulate the surrounding world
  
• The opportunity to conquer fears and practice adult roles
  
• The ability to develop self-confidence and resiliency
  
• The chance to work in groups, share, negotiate, resolve conflicts and learn self-advocacy
  
• The opportunity to build healthy, active, coordinated bodies

The list goes on and on and on. And yet, even with that understanding of the importance of such play for healthy development, we find it challenging--both as parents and educators--to make that time. But we can and we must, so let us assume that you can successfully "unplan" some time each week. Once we flip the switch to the "off" position, then what? Here are a few ideas just to get you started:

• Spend a day in the park. But for goodness sake, don't plan anything! Just bring a picnic and let the rest happen. (It will, you'll see.)
  
• Pay a regular visit to the library and let those budding brains explore.
  
• Revisit your back yard. Remember that place? You will be amazed and what a few youngsters will devise with just some sticks, a garden hose and some nice, yummy mud. (Notice: Getting dirty is part of the fun and the learning. It'll be even more fun if you get into it with them.)
  
• Plan more play dates. Not only will friendships become more and more solid, but the negotiation and collaboration skills learned will be invaluable.
  
• Keep those art supplies stocked. Get a simple plastic cabinet, box or trunk that you can keep stashed in a closet, and FILL IT with art supplies. Then, maybe when it is least expected, open that treasure chest and let the magic happen.

As the grownups and educators, we want to plan with purpose. In the case of play, we need to relax and take it easy. If we can simply present some options, children and play will find their way.

Now, what about teens, who are by nature struggling to find their way? In general, teens' time is much more structured than that of younger children, considering that they are juggling school, homework, sports, music lessons, clubs, etc. While the general opinion is that teens have a greater propensity for getting into trouble when they have too much unstructured time, we must not forget that there are still benefits to unstructured time. Given reasonable boundaries, teens will continue to reap the benefits of unstructured time by stretching and exercising their mental wings. Think about all the great things that teens are doing through YMCAs, Boys and Girls Clubs of America and similar organizations that give them the time and space to just be themselves in a safe, stimulating environment. Home can and should be just as safe, positive and creative.

While the research available is extensive, here are a couple of articles just to get you started:

• The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds, Kenneth R. Ginsburg, MD, MSEd, American Academy of Pediatrics (January 2007)
  
• Make Way for Play, Walter F. Drew EdD, Scholastic (June 2007)

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Family Focus

Tags: cognitive skills, creativity, development, elementary learning, elementary school learning, emotions in learning, health and well being, how children learn, imagination, learning through play, middle school learning, play, self-esteem