Here is Rosemarie Hester back again with helpful learning tips.

Studying definitions for words represents one way of attempting to learn new vocabulary, but are there ways to help a child incorporate new words into speech, writing and comprehension?

 If a child has a list of words to learn, one strategy is to group them by categories.  Some words may relate to feelings, others to description or behavior.  If words can be grouped, study one group at a time. 

After having a child note the meaning of each word, it often helps to write a story using the new words, so that a student can visualize characters and a situation.  For example: “The children were disheartened when they lost their first game and felt reluctant to try again.  But their coach insisted, even though their next opponents seemed very intimidating.  In fact, they defeated the other team and were ecstatic!
 

Writing the story out several times and having the child fill in the blanks is a useful tool.  It also helps for the child to use alternative words—“hesitant” for “reluctant” and “overjoyed” for “ecstatic.”

Afterward, a child can take the story apart by listing the words and writing his/her own definition or synonym next to it.  If a vocabulary test including a long list is approaching, working on one group of words a day and reviewing the next day is best–and helps a student remember the words after the memory of the test itself is long gone.

Years ago, teachers used to tell students to “put on their thinking caps.”  It seemed to me that students, like all people, were already always thinking, so what were teachers really trying to tell us to do?

After years as a teacher, I understand that the directive was about getting out of our own thoughts and into the teacher’s lesson.  It was about engagement with something outside of ourselves.

In fact, this is always the first step in the multi-step process of taking responsibility for school work.  The other steps include planning, execution or follow-through and self-checking.

To engage, often we must overcome anxiety, sometimes leaning into an area of discomfort.  Once engaged, we must make a plan.  Once we have a plan, we must follow-through.  Once, we’ve followed through, we must check to see if we have done what was required.  During the self-check stage, we make changes and improvements.

This set of management skills is what psychologists and others refer to as “executive function.” Some students benefit from thinking of themselves as “their own boss.” Others think of themselves as both the boss and the employee; they must give–and take– direction.  However one visualizes or discusses the process, the point is this—large projects need to be broken down into smaller pieces, and each piece needs to be managed as its own endeavor.

More learning tips from Rose Marie Hester, who runs a monthly Q&A session about learning issu on the first Monday night of the month at the Community Bookstore. She can be reached at rosemariehester(at)mac(dot)com.

Words like said, was, where and they can vex young students.  Here’s a way to draw on the memory potential of the mind’s eye to make spelling easier.

Ask your child about his/her favorite food.  Then have the child close his/her eyes and draw in the air, pretending that the letters are the favorite food. 

Start with a challenging word and say each letter one-at-a-time, as the child draws and names the letter.  “S —- A —– I —– D.” 

You will need to repeat the word several times until the child firmly sees each letter in his mind’s eye and is able to say the letters with you. 

When he/she’s ready, ask the child to “skywrite” the whole word and say the letters one-by-one. 
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Then, with the child keeping his/her eyes closed, ask, “Which is the first letter?”   “Which is the last letter?”  “Which is the second letter?”  “Which is the third letter?”  “Spell from back to front.”  “Say the letters front to back.”  Repeat the questions a few times. 

Work on only one word at a time and keep it light. Your role is to be a coach and cheerleader.

The next time you work together, review the previous word or words.  Add only one word at a time.  Review is key.  Some days don’t add words.  Just review.  

It’s also important to have a child write the words on paper after visualizing. Putting the word in a sentence and drawing an illustration is also very useful.

Practice sessions can last five to ten minutes and are much more effective in the long run than having a child rewrite the word over and over, as the visualizing method brings ALL the child’s learning channels into play—hearing, saying, visualizing, writing, memorizing, drawing, discussing, emotional connection, creating, using color and associating with food! 

Eventually, ask the child to write three-sentence story using a few of the words that had been challenging. 

These kinds of exercises may seem tedious, but you can make them a party.  In the long run, they will help a child’s growth as a writer tremendously and will also help to stimulate all the learning channels.

IF you are the parent of a high school student, you may have concerns about your son or daughter’s writing skills.  This is one of the toughest nuts for a parent to crack. In general, high schoolers do not respond well to support from parents, and, yet, with just a little bit of focused attention, they can improve by leaps and bounds very quickly.

    Writing comes down to a few things. Primarily, it is rooted in a persons’s ability to organize and plan at the beginning of the writing process and the ability to proofread and edit at the end. 

    Organizing and planning may include jotting a word or idea bank and making a web.  I am not a fan of outlines because many students are simultaneous rather than sequential processors.  If a student does not think “in sequence,” an outline can become a serious obstacle. 

    The editing process requires a student to have grammar, punctuation and spelling skills.  Students need to understand and identify the different types of sentences—simple, compound, complex and compound-complex.  It requires them to understand how sentences make paragraphs and how the function of each new paragraph is to add new information.  It requires them to understand the seven uses of the comma!

    Writing, then, requires creative or generative skills in combination with the skills of an analyst or critic. 

Most students are helped by learning to break large tasks down into smaller ones.  Identifying the individual steps in the writing process and becoming proficient in sub-skills will help a high schooler avoid the feeling of being overwhelmed that often accompanies writing.. 

Contact me—rosemariehester@mac.com–if you would like to discuss your high schoolers writing. 

Here's the latest entry from Rosemarie Hester, who is a learning specialist in Brooklyn. If you want to get in touch with Rosemarie you can email her here; rosemariehester(at)mac(dot)com.

“My child can read the words perfectly, but doesn’t know what they mean!”

Many children are empty readers.  They decode beautifully, but do not derive meaning from what they read. 

This problem can be effectively addressed through active reading strategies.  Here’s what to do:

Choose a short passage at your child’s level.  Two or three paragraphs will do, and non-fiction usually works better than fiction. 

Ask your child to read one sentence at a time.  Then, ask him/her to choose the most important words in the sentence.  Have him/her underline, highlight or circle those “key words.”  Discuss any questions that might arise.  For example, if a pronoun is used (they, he, she…), ask what the word might be referring to. 

If a child is confused about anything in the sentence, give him/her time to reflect and ask questions.  Learning to pause and ask questions often takes time.  It is an important, separate skill. 

When the child is ready, go on to the next sentence, highlighting and discussing. 

The point is that the child should be doing two things—visualizing the sentence in his/her mind’s eye and discriminating information by answering what’s important, what’s “key.”
These two habits contribute greatly to comprehension.  (For an early reader, I would suggest he/she be encouraged to draw each sentence.)

As with everything, active reading needs to be practiced.  But be sure to break sessions down into small, kid-sized time slots–thoroughness and depth is more important than volume–and never get started when a child is already tired! 

There are other active reading strategies to add over time.  If you have questions or would like to discuss your child’s reading, please e-mail me:  rosemariehester@mac.com
I’ll be happy to share what I know.  

Rosemarie Hester is a Learning Specialist living and working in
Brooklyn. A learning specialist can often pinpoint where and why a
child is stalled and offer a tune-up that sends a child on his or her
way.

As a Learning Specialist focused mostly in Park  Slope, Rosemarie has her finger on the pulse about kids, families and reading/writing
instruction. 

She asked me if I would be interested in running a weekly column. Of course I am.

I thought this column could be a real service to OTBKB readers because Rosemarie is aware of the full
range of issues and themes in education and can mix up the columns,
so that they are not all just about the nuts and bolts of providing
support. There are many directions in which to take this idea. Here is Rosemarie’s first column.

The process of learning to read and write is scattered with ‘red light/green light moments’ — moments in which a child can either move forward or experience some sort of confusion, no matter how bright the child, literate the family or good the school. 

If you sense your child is ‘stopped at a red light,’ there are a few things you can do.

–Help him or her to look at the first two or three letters of a work in order, literally saying the names of the letters out loud.  Often, the child is then able to finish the word.

–Learn the seven different types of syllables with your child and help him or her to divide words by syllable, always stopping at unfamiliar words rather than rushing through them.  Here are the syllable types:

           Closed,   as in                           cat,    Ted,   sit,   cot,   cut

            Magic E,   as in                        rake,  eke,  fine,  rote,  cute
, 
            Open,   as in                             no,  so,   ze-ro,  hel-lo

            Consonant LE,   as in               wig-gle,    pur-ple,    bun-dle

             Final Stable                              na-tion, station, na-ture, cul-ture

             Bossy R                                    or-der,  form, form-er,  corn, fern

             Vowel Pairs                              Au-gust, team, rain, field, group

–also very useful to have a pencil handy when reading for marking in a text.  (If that is not an option, have a xerox copy available, with enlarged text, if that is appropriate)  Child or parent can learn to loop under syllables which will train the eye through practice.  Most words are combinations of different syllable types. 

These three strategies will be useful for many kinds of learners if practiced in small sessions and repeated over time.  Think of these as your child’s ‘power hours,’ for education is certainly empowerment!  More next week about how to support your child’s learning.