Note to Moms about Reading and Writing

Moms are the greatest recognized influence on student reading and writing development by the students themselves – even teenagers!

Last week I had the privilege of helping a 10th grade collaborative* writing class with their essays. Students were writing a 2-page, typed essay on how their reading and writing has developed over the years. Nine (9) out of ten (10) 10th-Grade students attributed their reading and writing development to their mom’s influence. No other person was mentioned in any of the essays I read: not the dad, not a special teacher, grandma or nanny.

What does this say about teaching reading and writing?

   •    Moms know their children.
   •    Moms know how their kids learn best
   •    Moms know what their kids are interested in and inspired by
   •    Moms teach reading and writing in love.


"A teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops." - Henry Brooks
A mother affects eternity: she can never tell where her influence stops. (Translation for Moms)


*A "collaborative" writing class means that there were several students with learning and behavior disabilities in the class who were successfully tackling this 2 page, typed essay on their reading and writing development over the years.

To Dad’s – Father’s day is coming. You can find out how Fathers influence their children’s success.

Connecting the Dots - Learning History

History was a very dull subject in school for me that seemed to be all about the dates and other seemingly empty, meaningless facts, without any connections to anything “real” to me. As a grade-school student, I could not relate to it. For this reason, I had difficulty remembering the facts I was supposed to remember. 

But stories and movies online can help students relate new information to existing information about life: Connect the "dots" between your child’s understanding of life and the information given, in order to create a new understanding and ability to remember information better. For example, in reading about Ancient Egypt, first watch one or more short videos that depict how people lived their daily lives in Ancient Egypt.

• Use short you-tube videos to add sounds, sights, people and color to written words
• Make observations together
• From observations, make a word web (a group activity, brainstorming words related to a central topic) before reading*
• Discuss the vocabulary ahead of time. If you can, link pictures to the vocabulary.
• Read, discuss more, revert back to video images and information
• Make another word web after reading
• Maybe watch the video again and see if you can find the things in your word web in the video.
• To really solidify new vocabulary, use it again in creative stories or sentences.

The "dots" of learning are words, sounds, pictures, places, people doing things that students can relate to, and things that look like things they have seen before. The connection of words to ideas is not direct.  In true learning, these connections run through many or all of the other dots. 

Another way to make history more real is have students use the information in their own creative ways:

• Create plays  of what is happening in the story. 
• Write a song
• Write historical fiction 
• Have each student study one person from the times, and make a poster of that person with pictures and words for the hallway.

*The following website is a great place to find different kinds of graphic organizers to help make a word web: http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer