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Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 02-12-2009

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COUNT ON ME WITH SYSTEM ONE
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[SIZE="5"]OK Why can you count on me with system one? Simply because you will take years to count properly if you think you can learn to count in the manner you learnt to speak and the manner you continue to learn most of what you need to know on a daily basis.
No system is involved just haphazard realisations you learn a bit here see a little there think about it all, use reason to work some of it out and then we go to sleep and our subconscious brain takes over, the information is naturally filed properly in the usual visual files which we are creating daily from both what we see and what we hear and what we think, simply the natural functions that have evolved over millions of years between that spark that ignited life initially and the human beings that we are today.
What happens then? we simply fall asleep and ideas are generated subconsciously where by the strands of information we have gathered haphazardly are presented to us in a creative manner concepts we would not consider consciously are being played out during our resting period we simply call it dreaming and take little conscious notice of it, but occasionally an idea springs to mind, the right idea at the right moment in time, something that had not occurred to us previously.

New information these days bombards us from television radio newspapers and today from the internet that takes over every one of us, we are continually learning.

FACTS, concepts, realisations and unsolved problems are all churning around within our conscious minds. We call that thinking.

Consider this? you are sat at world’s most beautiful piano, you clearly remember the most thrilling music you have ever heard and you wish to play it for your mother, without being trained to play the piano you cannot play her one note. She had no money for a piano or the opportunity to learn to play one, so the piano remains silent.

Your mother was unable to show you how to play and only by a sustained effort will you be able to learn to play it.

To play the piano we have to teach our brain to recognise the music and how to recreate every sound, utilising the order the creator of that music worked out was best achieved by his own fingers, before he gave it to us.
Before we can play the piano we have to be taught a great deal, before we can create music like Elder we have to know even more.

I do not know how to play the piano but I do know that every child should be taught how to play the piano.

It only took me ten minutes to realise that by utilising an abacus any child could conceive the patterns and processes we utilise to record numbers and easily understand and achieve every type of arithmetic calculation.

But it has taken me over thirteen years to understand our human brain function sufficiently in order to develop an infallible system of teaching every healthy child to count and calculate both mentally and by notation, alongside developing virtually perfect reading ability when ever stage of vital pre reading perfections have been actively proved to be part of the child’s permanent memory.

Quite obviously no one can play the piano without being taught properly as to where the notes are and just what they sound like, it would obviously be harder for someone stone deaf to play the piano than someone clearly able to hear when they made a mistake. The natural self correction ability has to be a vital part when teaching a normal child. Comparing a stone deaf pupil where the physical perfection would require perfecting under supervision.

Turning now directly to teaching a three year old arithmetic.

We simply use the two hands to build initial understanding of meaning.
That understanding obviously needs each finger to become an integral part of numeric meaning in the range of numbers one to ten. We start this quickly by naming the two thumbs as Mr Five and Mr Six, this memory is perfected easily within two weeks with any speaking child.

Once the child is able to then chant the numbers one to ten we encourage them to tap the finger being identified alongside the chanting. The initial meaning of five is a child’s first realisation of five fingers on the left hand, the child then proves with no fuss that there are two fives a second realisation, realised simply by putting their two hands together.

The main emphasis still requires the child to identify every finger. To avoid the child mixing numbers we teach them only two fingers at a time.

The second pair are the long fingers 3 and 8.

For the third pair clench your fist`s side by side then poke out number 1 and 10. Always get the child to copy the process, as with the forth pair we simply add two and nine. The child then easily recognises the visual position of 2&9.

When you are following these written instructions always make sure you can do it physically you will also then remember it perfectly.

Prove this to yourself show yourself Mr Five and Mr six, then reform your hands into fists and then stick out forwards the adjoining thumb and finger on each hand and there we easily visually identify our final numbers 4 and 7. [/SIZE]

Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 03-12-2009

[SIZE="6"]THE SECOND REALISATION[/SIZE]

[SIZE="5"]OK I am going to indulge myself here, not only for my own sake, but for everyone like me, my own qualifications are just like those of Socrates. I read and think a lot and as René Descartes said I am a man therefore I think.

All we can ever do is think,

so when we see a man with letters behind his name remember the words of Robert Feynman “ out of my area of expertise I am no better than any other man”

( in this particular case I do not quite believe him)

So I remember where and when I heard the golden rule of common sense. I was only fifteen years old. The day after my head master from our local grammar school had written to my father, telling him that he was sure I had learnt everything he could teach me, so please keep me at home.

(He was correct) and so it was in a turnip field the next day a plough man philosopher called Tommy Holmes said to me that “I should listen to everyone and every side of every argument before I made up my own mind as to just what is correct”. So it was that I heard more common sense in a turnip field than any school I have seen. Thank you Tommy for your good advice and the care you showed me when I slept on your tractor as a three year old child.

Why have I had to spend thirteen years of deep concentration when Maria Montessori was already here one hundred years ago, and most likely Socrates’ was already there two thousand three hundred years ago?

There is a very simple answer very few of us ever listen to anything properly.

Finding that any abacus used over a reasonable length of time built into the mind of any user a perfect mathematic map and taking only ten minutes to achieve this I became hooked on Brain Function.

An instant realisation started my curiosity working.

I have enjoyed my research into brain function more than anything I have ever done before. I like to think I am marrying common sense with science.

My deep realisation is that virtually every healthy person born has inherited the most powerfully loaded computer for a brain, organised to deal with virtually an set of circumstances, quite able to follow any detailed physical experiences, programmed to remember ever new face it meets in any situation and develop understanding of music mathematics art writing and reading when the symbol recognition is perfected, we humans are programmed to respond to words, the introduction of written words and symbols to be utilized instead of language has only become important in the last ten thousand years, the format representing number meaning needed no words on an abacus two to three thousand years ago every roman soldier carried their own abaci before that hieroglyphics’ was used to represent numbers.

Our modern brain is at least forty thousand years old it works at the speed of light by which it can read (convert) written words into meaning just as quickly as spoken language is absorbed. Once the highly detailed conversions of letter combinations are clearly understood our brains turn those sounds into meaning, because the reader makes no sound reading we may think that this is converted directly into images, but by the time the child can read its brain is already programmed to turn sound into meaning. The fact is that this conversion is into silent sound.

Sound recognition developed in speaking previously is the basis for written understanding of every language. Reading only mimics speech that is pre recorded and placed clearly within its target audience. When we read we turn code into sound and that sound into meaning quite seamlessly.

The secret of [SIZE="6"]dyslexia[/SIZE] is very simple. The combination of symbols we use to read with is not understood. We are trying to create a sound from a group of symbols for within that sound is the meaning of that word within our language.

The human brain works at the speed of light, if it does not recognise the letter sounds in their differing combinations of sound how can it ever read?

So we start at the beginning. First we perfect three levels of realisation regarding numbers, perfecting these easily achieved memories is an essential starting point, My Friend Winston Hagston a Professor of theoretical physics taught his two so called twin dyslexic six year old granddaughters everything he could about arithmetic in one term with my Abacus One they both achieved normal class age reading ability by the end of that term.

Then the first sound and symbol recognition following perfection with abacus One at the start of the childs fourth year or before is the alphabet and that first combination of letters and sounds is our starting point.

[SIZE="6"][SIZE="7"]
ALWAYS IN LOWER CASE
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Recognition of sounds within differing letter combinations can be learnt consciously or subconsciously but they are best taught consciously so that we may know that they have been assimilated.

Short words first like the perfect ONE, which is a perfect example of a word that has to be learnt in isolation. There are no common rules, by which we can decipher it and so are many others words. Let us find as many as we can, but let us also learn to build words.

English is the most modern language the world has and contains the most words. I believe there are now over a million words in the English language. That means over one million separate ideas.

Multiply any of the one million separate ideas together with another and then that combination of ideas is greater than the combination of all the stars in all universe`s that we are aware of.

So we simply proceed to learn every combination of sound we can make from only 26 letters in endless combinations consciously.
After that we let our sub conscious brain do the rest.

[SIZE="7"][COLOR="Red"]
REGARDING DYSCALCULIA

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We can only blame the existing system. There is simply no standard package. Clear numeracy cannot be achieved until ever small child can name its fingers from one to ten. With continued association they clearly understand the physical meaning of ten, simply by repeated realisations as we provide them with the perfect memory of quantity and symbol combined, just as with letters we can never realise at what point that information has become a perfected permanent memory. Continually write the number under each physical represent (Finger OR mark)

So we start thumbs up for Mr five and Mr six. WITHIN SYSTEM ONE we reinforce those memories every day for one week, then we ask the child to learn two more three and eight and proceed with two new fingers a week and continue daily until

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SHOW ME THIS OR SHOW ME THAT IS PERFECT.
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When this is a realisation perfect in three manners physical quantity, our symbol meaning of quantity and finally our written meaning of quantity you have all ready won the major battle against dyscalculia.
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Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 03-12-2009

[SIZE="7"]SYSTEM ONE[/SIZE]


[SIZE="6"][COLOR="DarkSlateGray"]TEMPLATE FOR SHOW ME THE TWIN FINGERS ROUTINE[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[SIZE="5"]Ok this where we should be putting the template for the twin numbers routine but my patience is not up to it today;

Anyway it is simple I have given you a previous order of learning the numbers in twins, simply because the child’s memory works best in that manner to appreciate the meaning of quantity when it first starts to learn what quantity is.

I am using another twin order FOR THIS STAGE to allow the child to remember the symbols more efficiently,

So we start in two columns with one and ten in written words first underwritten with a large numeral 1 ------------- 10 so the child shows its clenched fists side by side two small fingers pointing forwards and touches the numbers first and the written word after that.

With a four year old grandson last weekend I used a simple technique to illustrate the three and eight, starting with the eight on the right I simply drew two circles, at the left hand side I folded the paper and drew the circles with their centres on the fold open them out and the child has three.

THE CHILD HAS TO LEARN EVERY SYSTEMATIC STEP TO PROCEED IN SYSTEM ONE BUT YOU HAVE TO USE EVERY MNEMONIC TRICK WE CAN FIND TO ESTABLISH THOSE THREE PERFECT MEMORIES QUANTITY NUMERAL AND WRITTEN WORD COMBINATION


Once committed to the permanent memory they all enter the brain as the meaning of quantity

Next would be two and nine

Then four and seven

Followed finally by five and six

With a perfect template and loads of repeating how long will it take the average child to hold all thirty concepts as quantity only.


THIS IS A POINT AND PROVE EXERCISE
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Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 06-12-2009

Tonio Buonassisi is Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and heads an interdisciplinary laboratory focused on photovoltaics (solar energy conversion into electricity). Prof. Buonassisi completed his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley, with research at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems and the Max-Planck-Institute for Microstructure Physics. In addition to teaching classes focused on PV technology, Prof. Buonassisi is an author of 65 journal, conference, and workshop articles focused on PV, and has delivered over 50 invited talks and plenary/oral presentations on his work throughout the world. Prof. Buonassisi's work has been honored with awards including the European Materials Research Society Young Scientist Presentation Award, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Graduate Research Fellowship, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Graduate Student Award. More information about Prof. Buonassisis work can be found at http://pv.mit.edu/.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avIwcswZn2I

Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 06-12-2009

[SIZE="6"]OK Why have I shown something so clearly different from brain research into brain function?

Simply to illustrate how simple it is for an adult human being to grasp something new in a many-sided manner, the peripheral knowledge we are all continually building is so vast and the potential virtually unlimited. The normal manner of human learning is simply association and natural assimilation.

Professor Tonio Buonassisi is a brilliant teacher, enthusiastic knowledgeable, well prepared with easily understood graphs and fully committed to reducing the effects of climate change regarding our world, the highly detailed physics and science involved would require years of study, hours of reading and a very full grasp of mathematics.

Mathematics to a very high level of understanding is becoming one of the most vital advanced skills every normal child can easily accomplish if we teach it properly, my theoretical model envisages an extension of system one but without system one it would not be possible.

THE WORLDS ENTIRE MATHEMATICAL TEACHING PROGRAM COULD EASILY BE ACHIEVED IN A STANDARD LINIER FORM OF CHILD TEACHING CHILD NO OTHER SUBJECT COULD BE TAUGHT EASILY IN SUCH A MANNER NO OTHER SUBJECT IS EVER SO PRECISE
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Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 07-12-2009

[SIZE="6"]Let us consider how we can advise parents effectively on how to teach their own children to read,

unless we utilise a standard system.

Utilising the name System One, and recognising its relationship to counting, alongside the vital explanation on just how counting perfectly, allows every child to build up quite easily from natural familiarity, using a child’s level of association and assimilation simply gained from using an abacus and building up the clear recognition provided by the familiarity of continued provable words, used as numbers, has to be the easiest way a 3/4 year old child can build a perfect permanent memory.

Continued association and assimilation, obviously at different levels of problem complexity, is our natural way of reaching the standard of understanding we require to do anything and everything we human beings can do.

So as regarding counting and reading ability development, for the benefit of every child on earth the more proven value as regards what has to become perfect the better.

No child will ever play a piano without continued association and assimilation;

no child will ever play the game of chess without continued association and assimilation.


Why then should we ever expect any child to count and read perfectly until they have developed perfection in the vital pre counting and reading awareness’s without which very few children develop counting and reading abilities at an early age.

The vital pre counting and reading awareness’s are easily provable as essential steps in developing the mind tools necessary for mental arithmetic and reading ability.

We have to ensure that every child can develop normally within these two basic skills, so allowing them early vital access to the world of computers and literature, the most modern and the most ancient tools of mental development available to all mankind[/SIZE] [SIZE="7"]Today.[/SIZE]

Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 08-12-2009

[SIZE="5"][COLOR="black"]OK If we are to utilise our deeper understanding of brain function, first of all we need to consider that the brain is capable of understanding anything we are capable of teaching it. In the first instance we need to perfect mathematic ability, we simply cannot accept failure to perfect the simple pre counting perfections, which are essential within the broader understanding of early arithmetic.

To keep the child concentrating on establishing these permanent memories they need to be repeated continually until they are obviously perfected.

They also need to be continually utilised once they have been initially perfected. Obviously if we regard this as an essential which I do when I regard reading as a natural human right.

We obviously need to start perfecting these understandings just as quickly as we can alongside language development, that means the child’s parents need to recognise both the value of this early learning and the perfected format of it. So it simply has to be system one for everyone.

[SIZE="6"]ONE WORLD METHOD OF CONTINUED MATHEMATICAL DEVELOPMENT “SYSTEM ONE” ------ for everyone.[/SIZE]

One of the world’s highest IQ test results (230) was from Terrance Tao.

His parents emigrated from Hong Kong to Australia. He was the eldest of three children all boy`s. His mother was a physicist and by that definition a highly trained mathematician. His father a paediatrician, most probably as the first child his mother had the time and inclination to develop his mathematical skills, encouraged obviously by a fully committed father.

Terrance recorded that he learnt most from teaching his brothers, the early arithmetic lessons his mother obviously taught him placed him in the fortunate position of developing an early fascination with mathematics also creating opportunities to pass on his mathematical skills to his brothers which led to him being regarded as a child prodigy years ahead of his peer age group through his school life.

Terrance is now a notable professor at a Californian University. [/COLOR][/SIZE]

Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 08-12-2009

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REGARDING DYSCALCULIA
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[SIZE="5"]The brain is capable of understanding anything we are capable of teaching it.

Massive amounts of information both vital and none vital are absorbed perfectly naturally, simply through association with the day to day occurrences within the lives of every one of us.

The more background association we may have with anything in particular the more likely we are to understand more of what we are absorbing during our normal lives.

The more science I have read the more able I become in rationalising the possibilities within my own levels of understanding and the understanding of others, clearly realising that our powerful human mind gains ninety nine % of our individual knowledge quite naturally.

We are not being taught it we are simply absorbing it, utilising our advanced abilities within our individual reasoning abilities.

Developing our individual ability to reason is the crux of our early educational experience.

If every child is taught to play chess quite simply through playing chess with a mixture of individuals for half an hour on every (or many)school day not only will this result in a competent chess player it will also result in a child that is at ease through familiarity with ever one throughout its school.

I discovered that simply by following an experienced player move by move a five year old child quickly grasps the game.

Following this rational playing an equally complex maths game will achieve similar results.

The standard maths game can easily be created from a standard flat profile I used to teach Indian children utilising it as an abacus.

I intend to leave you two web sites that will give you an explanation and an opportunity to copy the format.
TODAY [/SIZE]

* * * * * http://www.abacusandalphabet.com/home.htm

* * * * * http://abacusone.net/

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Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 11-12-2009

[SIZE="7"]PRE ABACUS TRAINING[/SIZE]

[SIZE="5"]When your child can speak, it is time for teaching the meaning of quantity. Utilising the golden rules of system one.

When we are looking at how any child establishes a permanent memory of anything, we quickly realise that the child is simply not equipped to remember something it has seen only once and retain that memory permanently, as adults it is often quite easy for us to remember something when we have seen it only once, and most often can retain and memory of process when we have read about that process and the reasoning behind it.

I like to start by asking everyone a question how many times does the child need to hear the chant of one to 10 before it can remember it permanently?
It needs to hear it a great many times I can assure you.

When we have mentally accepted, that every child needs to understand a number in three different manners, we need to develop the simplest means of establishing those permanent memories which are associated with understanding quantity.

Regarding system one golden rule is that every child must understand those three separate meanings as regards quantity from one to 10.

System one golden rule one. The child must be able to recognise every meaning of quantity with its fingers, which means clearly establishing the number of every finger as a first step; secondly the child needs to relate the numeral with the individual finger, and thirdly the written number with each finger.

The golden rules of systems one are the truth`s we have to achieve,

The guidelines of system one may be reached by other methods, but we must achieve those golden rules. Common sense means that the method of establishing the “golden rules” are consistently under the microscope as regards their effectiveness.

Our starting guidelines are, we teach recognition of fingers in pairs. Holding up the thumbs and teaching every child by the family are Mr five and Mr six, it is easy. Next looking at the long fingers we have three and eight. Holding the fingers one and ten forwards with the fists clenched we can point to those numbers on a chart , recognising easily that one, is a part of the way we write 10, pointing to the numeral and the written word above it. So it is then quite easily remembered as a process.

If we then consider two and nine they can also be a written under the one and ten in the same manner, effectively we are then moving from the outside of this small range of numbers towards joining the thumbs eventually. Then we are looking at three and eight, when the child can then realise it has started with the outside fingers and is moving towards the centre, so again the child touches the numerals and the words with the fingers three and eight.
Holding out the fingers four and six the child simply touches the numerals and the words four and six, and finally the child uses its thumbs to point to the numerals five and six and the words five and six.

A simple wall child can be produced in a few minutes with a blank paper and pen.

Within my own research I consider this to be a very effective manner of learning all three recognition systems regarding the numbers one to ten. Depending on the age of the child some children will learn these things from the Abacus when they are older quite easily, but we must all remember with “system one” we are building a counting and reading system for eternity.

The meaning of one two three four five six seven eight nine and ten.
The physical quantity, the numeral representing the physical quantity, and finally the word representing the physical quantity.

Thinking about a description for this exercise, I can see no better way of describing it than the way and I have just written it.

Every child`s perfect introduction to numbers.

The next lesson, we can describe as " The 30 stones"
these series of lessons, represent a kinaesthetic visual and mental appreciation of a real numbers.

So we take 30 stones and make three columns of 10, but within the columns of ten, we extend the gap between two groups of five, naturally we can see five of most things simply because we do that by pointing with five fingers, once we split a column of 10 into two fives our mental ability to grasp the meaning of 10 is maximised. For instance when we create an eight we can simply recognise that we can remove to from five, in the next column we can establish a seven, of course we simply remove three from five. So we're looking at three columns quite clearly column representing eight, a column representing seven, and a column representing 10. Consistently we practice removing stones and establishing tens, taking three stones from the column with eight stones, we don't the column with seven stone into a 10 living the original eight as a five, reforming the columns as we started we take two stones from centre column with seven establishing the eight back into a ten.

With 30 stones we can demonstrate 10 columns of three or three columns of ten, six columns of five or five columns of six . Every child will benefit from physically reorganising columns and numbers assisting them greatly to mentally visualise calculation utilising the physical arrangement regarding two groups of five in every column of 10 assisting their mental visualisation. Building larger numbers but fully understanding them simply as patterns relating to the patterns fully understood by the representations of their own fingers, for the rest of their lives children taught in this manner simply visualise 10 as two blocks of five and regular association allows every child to visualise manipulating numbers into regular groups of 10, and by this time regular use of the Abacus one will have acquainted every child with a visualisation of counting tens on the central core one of the Abacus.

A SUM A SECOND

This is the third pre Abacus visualisation and a vital part of system one, of course we can demonstrate the Abacus to a very young child or an older child before we do any of these exercise, mathematic realisations, are naturally linked, once something is properly absorbed by the human brain, we can utilise it effortlessly. Quite simply to generate maximum efficiency in addition we simply utilise the two hands, face your child or a class of children, and simply begin to generate groups of numbers by reforming the two hands to represent those numbers. Children need to be confident within number, they take some time to realise that they have five fingers on each hand, so we are consistently trying to prove it to them, ones that confidence is in place adding anything to five becomes quite normal and can be achieved at high-speed, so when we first start, we simply add any number from one to five to five. Of course we need to do this with alternative hands. When these realisations fully committed to child’s mental awareness, by consistent practice, the ability to visualise the number presented on either hand becomes instantaneous, at this point every child can instantly realise the number on either hand and count the two representations of number instantaneously. Every child can achieve this quite naturally if they are of normal health and have been brought to understand every number from one to 10.

So within these three exercises we have brought every child to a point of mental mathematical perfection, before it begins regular exercises utilising Abacus one.

There is a massive value of teaching a child its times tables by wrote, nine times nine is 81, or seven sevens are forty nine, but simply we have brought our child, to a powerful understanding of mathematics, and for a child using an Abacus, at this early age, it is simpler just to get the child chanting numbers utilising the Abacus to visualise the addition, for instance using two fingers the child moves two counters, starting with 10 and the number one.
Chanting 11, repeating it reading 22, repeating it again reading 33 and again reading 44 and again reading 55.

Chanting in tens 10 20 30 40 50 60 and so on, learning the nine times tables the child sets the Abacus with 10 and removes one counter, this method of learning the times tables is an essential visualisation rather than a wrote learnt fact.

Once the Abacus has been demonstrated properly over a number of weeks, it is then essential for the child to work independently proceeding to utilise the Abacus to calculate with, simply moving numbers with an Abacus presents symbolic representation of numbers in a written in words form where the child is then utilising the written in words Abacus. The child becomes extremely confident both in ability regarding mental arithmetic and extremely confident in reading any number and knowing exactly the meaning of that number.

It is my job to bring you and your child to this point within its early education, once your child demonstrates perfect ability within all these early mathematic realisations, it will be at an ideal starting point to commit itself to learning the alphabet, many of the words it is reading in mathematics are being simply read as a mental picture, but that confidence is part and parcel of reading for instance the word one, cannot be committed to memory by utilising the sounds of the alphabet or the alternative phonetic sounds, as far as parents are concerned, teaching their own children to read is simple when they rely on small words and syllables. Subconscious memory and the realisation of meaning quickly begin to perfect every child's ability to read

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ONCE THE GOLDEN RULES OF SYSTEM ONE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT AND ASSIMILATED.[/SIZE]
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Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 22-12-2009

[SIZE="7"]Brain-Based Suggestions for Teaching Reading[/SIZE]

[SIZE="5"][FONT="Comic Sans MS"]Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention
December 15, 2009
Scientists’ understanding of how our brains enable us to read has advanced significantly in the past two decades. In Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention, French neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene points out that humans did not have time to evolve reading-specific brain circuitry; instead, our brain “recycles” existing networks for the task. Dehaene not only explains how we learn to read (and what causes reading problems such as dyslexia) but also analyzes scientific insights in the contexts of education and culture.

In this excerpt, Dehaene points out that although caution is necessary when applying the science of reading in the classroom, certain elements of how we learn to read are firm. For example, he challenges the notion “that there are hundreds of ways to learn to read.” As for how teachers might put scientific advances to use, Dehaene says the first step is to make sure children learn how to take words apart and recompose them, associating letters with sounds. Ensuring that students understand not just the mechanics of reading but what the words mean is vital for helping them master this uniquely human ability, he writes.

EXCERPT
From READING IN THE BRAIN by Stanislas Dehaene.
Copyright © 2009 by Stanislas Dehaene.

Reprinted by permission of Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
From Neuroscience to Education

What we have seen so far is that the acquisition of reading entails massive functional changes in children’s brains. They must first discover phonemes, then map letters onto sounds, and then establish a second lexical reading route. Learning to read implies a literal search for a proper “neuronal niche” for written words in the patchwork of cortical areas for face, object, or color perception.

From a practical standpoint, it is essential to examine whether we can take advantage of these scientific advances to improve teaching. Does our growing understanding of reading lead to clear indications concerning optimal teaching methods? Do some educational techniques ease the transition toward the adult state better than others?

A great deal of caution is needed here. My own impression is that neuroscience is still far from being prescriptive. A wide gap separates the theoretical knowledge accumulated in the laboratory from practice in the classroom. Applications raise problems that are often better addressed by teachers than by the theory-based expectations of scientists. Nevertheless, brain imaging and psychological data cannot be detached from the great pedagogical debates.

[SIZE="6"]Relativism notwithstanding, it simply is not true that there are hundreds of ways to learn to read. Every child is unique ... but when it comes to reading, all have roughly the same brain that imposes the same constraints and the same learning sequence. Thus we cannot avoid a careful examination of the conclusions—not prescriptions—that cognitive neuroscience can bring to the field of education.258[/SIZE]

To define what reading is not is a good starting point. As overtrained readers, we no longer have much perspective on how difficult reading really is. We tend to believe that one glance at a word will allow its immediate and global identification in a single step.

[SIZE="6"]Nothing could be further from the truth. The brain does not go straight from the images of words to their meaning.[/SIZE]

[SIZE="7"]An entire series of mental and cerebral operations must occur before a word can be decoded. Our brain takes each string apart, then recomposes it into a hierarchy of letters, bigrams, syllables, and morphemes. [/SIZE]

[SIZE="6"]Effortless reading simply serves to show that these decomposition and recomposition stages have become entirely automatic and unconscious.[/SIZE]


With this definition in mind, the goal of reading instruction becomes very clear. It must aim to lay down an efficient neuronal hierarchy, so that a child can recognize letters and graphemes and easily turn them into speech sounds.

All other essential aspects of the literate mind—the mastery of spelling, the richness of vocabulary, the nuances of meaning, and the pleasures of literature—depend on this crucial step. There is no point in describing the delights of reading to children if they are not provided with the means to get there.
Without phonological decoding of written words their chances are significantly reduced. Considerable research, both with children and with illiterates, converges on the fact that grapheme-phoneme conversion radically transforms the child’s brain and the way in which it processes speech sounds. This process whereby written words are converted into strings of phonemes must be taught explicitly. It does not develop spontaneously, and must be acquired.
Reading via the direct route, which leads straight from letter strings to their meaning, only works after many years of practice using the phonological decoding route. ...
The punch line is quite simple: we know that conversion of letters into sounds is the key stage in reading acquisition. All teaching efforts should be initially focused on a single goal, the grasp of the alphabetic principle whereby each letter or grapheme represents a phoneme.

In kindergarten, very simple games can prepare children for reading acquisition. At the phonological level, preschoolers benefit from playing with words and their component sounds (syllables, rhymes, and finally phonemes). At the visual level, they can learn to recognize and trace letter shapes. The Montessori method, which requires tracing sandpaper letters with a fingertip, is often of considerable help at this early age. It helps children figure out each letter’s orientation, and makes it clear that “b,” “p,” “d,” and “q” are different letters.
After this preparatory stage, children must be taught, without fear of repetition, how each letter or group of letters corresponds to a phoneme. The child’s brain does not automatically extract these correspondences by dint of seeing a great many words. It must be explicitly told that each speech sound can be represented in different “clothes” (letters or groups of letters) and that each letter can be pronounced in one of several ways. Because English spelling is complex, introduction of graphemes must occur in logical order. Their presentation must start with the simplest and most frequent ones that are almost always pronounced in the same way, such as “t,” “k,” and “a.” Less frequent graphemes (“b,” “m,” “f”), irregular ones (“i,” “o”), or complex ones (“un,” “ch,” “ough”) can be introduced gradually.
Children’s attention must be drawn to the presence of these individual elements within familiar words. This can be done by assigning each grapheme a distinctive color, or by moving them around to create new words. It should also be explained that letters unfold in a fixed order, from left to right, with no gaps. The ability to attend to the various subcomponents of words is so essential that this must be taught explicitly by, for instance, covering words with a sliding window that reveals only a few letters at a time.
Of course, learning the mechanics of reading is not an end in itself—in the long run, it only makes sense if it leads to meaning. Children must know that reading is not simply mumbling a few syllables—it requires understanding what is written. Each reading period should end with reading words or sentences that can be easily understood and that the child can repeat, summarize, or paraphrase.
A great many teachers will consider my recommendations redundant and obvious—but it does no harm to specify them. I once tried out reading software that was supposedly “award-winning,” where the very first word introduced to the beginning reader was the French word oignon, pronounced onion almost as in English—probably the most irregular spelling in the French language!
Errors as ridiculous as this one clearly show that even the most basic principles of teaching have not yet been absorbed by everyone. Stressing what parents and teachers should not do is equally important. To trace the global contours of words is useless. Likewise, to draw children’s attention to ascending and descending letter patterns is not particularly helpful.
Exercises like these may even be detrimental to reading, inasmuch as they mislead children into paying attention to the global contour of words. This makes them conclude that they can guess at words without examining their component letters one by one. The contours of the words “eight” and “sight” are almost identical. Children need to understand that only the analysis of letters one by one will allow them to discover a word’s identity.
Because of the essential need to avoid distracting the child’s attention from the letter level, I am wary of the many richly decorated reading manuals that contain more illustrations than text. Word posters displayed in classrooms all through the school year, with the same words appearing at the same place, can also create problems. Some children, often the most gifted, merely memorize the fixed position of each word and the general layout of the page and no longer attend to the actual letters in the individual words. This strategy can give teachers and parents—and worst of all, the child himself—the illusion that he knows how to read. Illustrations also divert attention from text.

Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 22-12-2009

[SIZE="6"]A Few Suggestions for Educators
In the final analysis, what can psychology and neuroscience recommend to teachers and parents who wish to optimize reading instruction? The growing science of reading has no ready-made formulas, but it does offer a few suggestions.

Children now live in a world of constant overstimulation and distraction, so that some no longer learn to sustain attention for long periods of time. A return to sober texts, written on a blackboard during class (so that gesture is also memorized) might be beneficial. It might also be worthwhile to remind the child that although reading is hard work, it has its own inherent reward in the decoding and understanding of text.

Going too fast can also be a handicap. At each step, the words and sentences introduced in class must only include graphemes and phonemes that have already been explicitly taught. Reading lessons provide little room for improvisation. A teacher cannot simply decide, at the last minute, to work on a few unprepared words or sentences. A haphazard choice of this kind will be confusing, because it is very likely to require advanced knowledge that the child has yet to learn.

As expert reading adults, we systematically underestimate how difficult it is to read. The words given to beginning readers must be analyzed letter by letter in order to ensure that they do not contain spelling problems that are beyond the child’s current knowledge—for instance, unusual pronunciations, silent letters, double consonants, or peculiar endings such as the suffix “-tion.” All of these peculiarities, if they are introduced too early in the curriculum, can make children think that reading is arbitrary and not worth studying.

[SIZE="7"]As a scientist and a professor myself, I expect the teachers and educators to whom I entrust my children to invest as much obsessive care in the design of lessons as my colleagues and I do when we prepare a psychological experiment.[/SIZE]

Finally, guardians of children with reading problems should not give in to despondency. Reading difficulty varies across countries and cultures, and English has probably the most difficult of all alphabetic writing systems. Its spelling system is by far the most opaque—each individual letter can be pronounced in umpteen different ways, and exceptions abound.

Comparisons carried out internationally prove that such irregularities have a major impact on learning.270 Italian children, after a few months of schooling, can read practically any word, because Italian spelling is almost perfectly regular.

No dictation or spelling exercises for these fortunate children: once they know how to pronounce each grapheme, they can read and write any speech sound.

Conversely, French, Danish, and especially British and American children need years of schooling before they converge onto an efficient reading procedure. Even at the age of nine, a French child does not read as well as a seven-year-old German. British children only attain the reading proficiency of their French counterparts after close to two full years of additional teaching.


Barring major spelling reform, there is not much we can do to simplify the acquisition of reading in English. All we can do is encourage our children to practice reading daily ... and to remind ourselves that our situation could be worse. In China, reading lessons extend well into the teens, in order to acquire the several thousand characters needed to read a newspaper. Chinese children’s plight is all the more surprising in that it could be avoided, since most of them nowadays start by learning the simple alphabetical Pinyin notation, which is acquired in a matter of months.271

Teachers can also derive some consolation from bearing in mind that the time spent on learning to read has an extraordinarily profound and useful impact on the child’s brain. Try to picture the ceaseless activity of new connections building up after each reading lesson.

Every young reader’s letterbox area is called on to integrate a hierarchy of neurons coding for letters, bigrams, graphemes, and morphemes. This effort creates tremendous neuronal effervescence throughout the reading circuitry. Hundreds of millions of neuronal wires must find their proper targets within other regions coding for speech sounds and meaning.

Whether we like it or not, this neuronal hierarchy is far more complex for English or for French than for transparent languages like Italian. The amount of neuronal recycling required for English is so impressive that we must relentlessly teach children to cope with each of its countless spelling pitfalls—even long after the end of elementary school.


My firm conviction is that every teacher should have some notion of how reading operates in the child’s brain. Those of us who have spent many hours debugging computer programs or repairing broken washing machines (as I have done) know that the main difficulty in accomplishing these tasks consists in figuring out what the machine actually does to accomplish a task.

To have any hope of success, one must try to picture the state in which it is stuck, in order to understand how it interprets the incoming signals and to identify which interventions will bring it back to the desired state.


Children’s brains can also be considered formidable machines whose function is to learn. Each day spent at school modifies a mind-boggling number of synapses. Neuronal preferences switch, strategies emerge, novel routines are laid down, and new networks begin to communicate with each other.

If teachers, like the repairman, can gain an understanding of all these internal transformations, I am convinced that they will be better equipped to discover new and more efficient education strategies. Although pedagogy will never be an exact science, some ways of feeding the brain with written words are more effective than others. Every teacher bears the burden of experimenting carefully and rigorously to identify the appropriate stimulation strategies that will provide students’ brains with an optimal daily enrichment.[/SIZE][/FONT]

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With this definition in mind, the goal of reading instruction becomes very clear. It must aim to lay down an efficient neuronal hierarchy, so that a child can recognize letters and graphemes and easily turn them into speech sounds

[SIZE="6"][COLOR="DarkRed"]EXCERPT
From READING IN THE BRAIN by Stanislas Dehaene.
Copyright © 2009 by Stanislas Dehaene.
Reprinted by permission of Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
From Neuroscience to Education
Here at last is a man having spent his whole life within education who says everything I realise about reading, after thirteen years of studying the function of our human brains. Forgive me for being a little pleased with myself. [/COLOR][/SIZE]

Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 28-12-2009

[SIZE="6"]Chumki Hajra, a pupil at Babar Ali's school, describes her day

Every morning, instead of going to school, she scrubs the dishes and cleans the homes of her neighbours. She's done this ever since she was five. For her work she earns just 200 rupees a month ($5, £3). It's not much, but it's money her family desperately needs. And it means that she has to work as a servant everyday in the village.

"My father is handicapped and can't work," Chumki tells me as she scrubs a pot. "We need the money. If I don't work, we can't survive as a family. So I have no choice but to do this job."

But Chumki is now getting an education, thanks to Babar Ali. The 16-year-old has made it his mission to help Chumki and hundreds of other poor children in his village. The minute his lessons are over at Raj Govinda school, Babar Ali doesn't stop to play, he heads off to share what he's learnt with other children from his village.

At four o'clock every afternoon after Babar Ali gets back to his family home a bell summons children to his house. They flood through the gate into the yard behind his house, where Babar Ali now acts as headmaster of his own, unofficial school.

Lined up in his back yard the children sing the national anthem. Standing on a podium, Babar Ali lectures them about discipline, then study begins.

Babar Ali gives lessons just the way he has heard them from his teachers. Some children are seated in the mud, others on rickety benches under a rough, homemade shelter. The family chickens scratch around nearby. In every corner of the yard are groups of children studying hard.

Babar Ali was just nine when he began teaching a few friends as a game. They were all eager to know what he learnt in school every morning and he liked playing at being their teacher.

Without this school many kids wouldn't get an education, they'd never even be literate Babar Ali

Did school change your life?
Now his afternoon school has 800 students, all from poor families, all taught for free. Most of the girls come here after working, like Chumki, as domestic helps in the village, and the boys after they have finished their day's work labouring in the fields.

"In the beginning I was just play-acting, teaching my friends," Babar Ali says, "but then I realised these children will never learn to read and write if they don't have proper lessons. It's my duty to educate them, to help our country build a better future."

Including Babar Ali there are now 10 teachers at the school, all, like him are students at school or college, who give their time voluntarily. Babar Ali doesn't charge for anything, even books and food are given free, funded by donations. It means even the poorest can come here.

"Our area is economically deprived," he says. "Without this school many kids wouldn't get an education, they'd never even be literate."

Seated on a rough bench squeezed in with about a dozen other girls, Chumki Hajra is busy scribbling notes.

Her dedication to learning is incredible to see. Every day she works in homes in the village from six in the morning until half past two in the afternoon, then she heads to Babar Ali's school. At seven every evening she heads back to do more cleaning work.

Chumki's dream is to one day become a nurse, and Babar Ali's classes might just make it possible.

The school has been recognised by the local authorities, it has helped increase literacy rates in the area, and Babar Ali has won awards for his work.

The youngest children are just four or five, and they are all squeezed in to a tiny veranda. There are just a couple of bare electric bulbs to give light as lessons stretch into the evening, and only if there is electricity.

And then the monsoon rain begins. Huge drops fall as the children scurry for cover, slipping in the mud. They crowd under a piece of plastic sheeting. Babar Ali shouts an order. Lessons are cancelled for the afternoon otherwise everyone will be soaked. Having no classrooms means lessons are at the mercy of the elements.

The children climb onto the porch of a nearby shop as the rain pours down. Then they hurry home through the downpour. Tomorrow they'll be back though. Eight hundred poor children, unable to afford an education, but hungry for anything they can learn at Babar Ali's school.

Original article[/SIZE]

Count On Me With System One - John Nicholson - 07-01-2010

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“System One”
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Why the Childs own hands are so important for understanding mathematics.
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[SIZE="6"]Your Baby Is Smarter Than You Think [/SIZE]

[SIZE="5"]New studies, demonstrate that babies and very young children know, observe, explore, imagine and learn more than we would ever have thought possible. In some ways, they are smarter than adults. Three recent experiments show that even the youngest children have sophisticated and powerful learning abilities. By ALISON GOPNIK psychologist and philosopher. Published: August 15, 2009 Berkeley, Calif.

I believe we have never previously understood just how much natural intelligence children are born with. Our species brain is highly developed and possesses rapid natural abilities, broadly spread over the entire human race. We learn our natural language quite easily, developing our vocabulary in direct association with every experience we have. Building arithmetic ability in a systematic manner can be utilised in order to easily make children aware of the symbols we utilise universally to represent number. The first realisation we can utilise to illustrate quantity, is perfectly naturally achieved by naming our own fingers, looking at the back of our hands, create a permanent memory of five and six, simply by showing the two thumbs up and naming them Mr five and Mr six. Often a child can remember Mr five and Mr six even before it can exclaim every number from 1 to 10.

Clearly those two numbers 1 and 10 have an important visual link.



So we create a simple “Finger Proving Map” the child holds its hands clenched and points with its little fingers to 1 and 10 leave that map with room for 2 and 9 also 3 and 8 but set out 5 and 6

Every day we add two more fingers, every day we point and prove the whole series of numbers.

THE FINGER PROVING MAP can be a permanent feature on child’s home wall or a classroom wall, but developing permanent memory is easier to achieve in small quantities,



Once the child has built a permanent memory of the numerals, we simply add the words above the numbers. Even a child under three can be taught like this. Also simple counting can be started on My

Abacus One, by moving words that a very young child sees as differing pictures, but always understands the quantity, when it has learnt quantity perfectly from its own two hands.



A SUM A SECOND

This is the way we build high speed realisations of quantity; a child has to build trust in its own fingers. Having proved that each hand can represent any number from one to five simply by folding down fingers, and instantly recognise any number represented. The child quickly learns to add the two numbers represented on both hands at the rate of one sum a second. Children can do this with their own parents, friends or in hundreds copying a teacher changing numbers at high speeds.



THE THIRTY STONES

This is an exercise where children build the visualisations vital in building the mental ability to add numbers together utilising columns of ten, purposely leaving an extra gap in the tens to represent the child’s own hands, (WE POINT NATURALY WITH FIVE FINGURES) we illustrate additions of numbers (in their teens) by reforming the added numbers into tens.

This number of stones or any similar counter lends itself to developing mental arithmetic ability which builds into permanent memory quite easily. Thirty gives us six different ways to make columns.

Columns of 2 – 3 – 5 – 6 -10 – 15

This is a brief explanation expanded in other information.



ABACUS ONE

Is a unique teaching tool of low cost and with maximum Teaching ability which when combined with the three previous exercises provides the perfect starting point for reading,



PERFECT COUNTING ABILITY IS THE NATURAL FORERUNNER OF READING

Using symbols and words to represent meaning is creating the neurological pathways the child needs to build words with.



THE NEXT MOVE IS TO THE COMBINED ABACUS ONE MAP ILLUSTRATING NUMBERS UP TO ONE MILLION AND THE ALPHABETIC RHYTHMIC MAP



Chance encounter is an easily developed process to utilise counting numbers up to ten million in words and the alphabetic map can be utilised to let children follow the chanting of letters and combining this by following the shape of the letters with their fore fingers. :adder:
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