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Seven Essential Steps In Reading - John Nicholson - 12-10-2010

[SIZE="3"]SEVEN ESSENTIAL STEPS IN READING[/SIZE]

[SIZE="3"]Seven Essential Steps in Reading
which are far more effective after we have taught basic arithmetic and incorporated the three dimensional models with lowercase letters.

SYSTEMATIC STEPS IN READING

STEP ONE
Learn to sing the alphabet in alphabet rhythm


STEP TWO
Learn to read the alphabet in alphabet sound


STEP THREE
Learn to read the alphabet in the alternate phonetic
Sounds


STEP FOUR
Learn to read syllables and letter combinations [COLOR="Red"]WHY? & HOW? WHERE? & WHEN ? &
our Fifth essential friend WHAT? Repetitious reading of memorable sentences. The whole point of teaching your child to count and read the words it is using to count with at the same time, is in order that they can use their natural intelligence in order to read. Repetitious reading of the Abacus will already have built the neural pathways your child will utilise in repetitious reading of memorable sentences. We simply use the child's own intelligence to decipher and locate memory it is not aware of learning but already has simply learnt, e.g. all the numbers your child needs have already become permanent perfect visual memories.
Step four is where we utilise our natural human intelligence, to develop “Repetitious reading & memorable sentences”.
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STEP FIVE
Learn to read sentences out loud without fear of
being wrong in pronunciation


STEP SIX
Learn to read aloud and self correct from the
content of the sentence


STEP SEVEN
Learn to read for pleasure and profit, knowledge and
Satisfaction

READING FOR LIFE

A child stumbling over a simple three-letter word or a confident speed-reader are dependent on the same principles for decoding any word.

“ Knowledge of the letters and sounds.”

Decoding any word is letter driven

Unless the reader knows the letters and the alternative sounds they represent, fluent reading will always be impossible.

Our subconscious mind works at the speed of light.

Every word in itself is an idea.

A child first creates a rhythmic memory, independent of sight, (vision). Then a picture and sound memory combination need to become as one.

When we see the letter the brain recognises it as a sound, and when we hear the letter the memory can identify the letter.

The human ability is to naturally convert “ words” spoken or text into image.

“Image in action.” (Imagination)

The speed with which the mind can decode any word, combining the ideas of the individual words within the larger idea of the sentence,
is at the speed of light.

It means that we have to learn all the combinations of sound that individual letters and letter combinations are capable of making.

We are establishing our first vital vocal neural pathway in formal education.

It is no accident, that in the alphabet sounds used to express the different letters of the alphabet they are in the main common sounds used within speech, capable of being formed into a rhythmic chant in order to establish the first,(in this instance vocal memory) of the alphabet.

It is quite natural for a child to be able to remember easily the sounds of the rhythmic chant of the alphabet in what I term as alphabet sounds.
Over a very short time a whole classroom or an individual child soon establish naturally a perfect sound memory of the alphabet. To establish whether the child understands/remembers the alphabet chant clearly, starting from random letters, a proficient child will automatically follow on with the next letter of the alphabet.
The rational for Systematic steps in reading.

Step one Our first systematic step in teaching a child to read under any intelligent reading system has to be the vocal alphabet sound, learnt of by heart. We are establishing our first vital vocal neural pathway in formal education.


Step two. Even before the child fully grasps, the vocal memory of the alphabet the essential forerunner of learning the letter symbols easily, the six line layout of the alphabet can be used in conjunction with establishing the verbal memory of the letter, although these two stages may be carried out to some extent together, we must never lose sight of the fact that they are, completely separate systematic stages within the process of learning to read.
Nothing will replace the automatic vocal neural pathway, which gives the child the ability to follow instantly in the vocal alphabet locking in the picture of the letter in the visual memory, linking together forever the picture and the sound within the mind.

In natural learning we copy sounds, establishing a sound memory of the alphabet, we then use our sound memory, to remember (link) the picture of the sound.

Systematic step three
Once the child has established a neural pathway of vision and sound we are able to simplify and assist the memory of the child in automatically pronouncing and memorising the phonetic alternative purely by the use of pictures.
When a child sees a picture of an apple and the word apple the subconscious memory, starts to build, the natural subconscious memory, which is vital to us in establishing ability to read words we have never seen before.

Eventually every word becomes a picture.

That picture instantly holds meaning within someone hearing it or seeing it, listening to words within our natural language, we clearly establish a memory of the meaning, recognising a written word as a picture, means that we see a picture built up of letters where our subconscious automatic ability decodes the word instantly.

Once the brain as established initial recognition of a letter the subconscious memory starts to be built around it, the alternative sounds of letters in different combinations develops quite naturally with constant use, establishing automatic memory of sounds where pictures can be used to represent words is a good starting point for the third systematic step. The automatic memory of the picture of an ever growing memory, that involves thousands of common words where automatic decoding takes place instantly, creates the instant ability to make the sounds of letters in words the reader has not previously read or in some cases heard before.


The fourth systematic step
Learning to read syllables and letter combinations, are naturally linked together with the third step, just as the two first steps are heavily linked together so are the third and fourth steps.

It is relatively simple to use pictures to automatically trigger alternative sound awareness once a letter is clearly established in the original alphabet sound, small words and vital syllables are beginning to be recognised as pictures, regular association forms an instant combined neural link, between the picture and the sound of the word.

Initially the child has to process letter sounds until a perfect picture memory of the word is instant, but thorough grounding in the first three steps develops the processing ability and once the processing is automatic (it always taking place subconsciously and INSTANTLY WITH WORDS WHERE THE PICTURE IS PERFECT) we are aware of it the moment a word is unfamiliar and mental or vocal pronunciation allow us to confirm it when we use it within our vocabulary.

Step five A great many things from the first four systematic steps can be practised and done together in a classroom situation but the next stage requires a listening partner, virtually every child benefits enormously the longer this stage goes on, and just as the first and second steps have a close relationship along with the third and fourth, so have the fifth and sixth systematic steps. The child will gradually move into the sixth stage as soon as it discovers more interesting material.

Step six Learn to read aloud and self correct from the content of the sentence.
The subconscious mind quickly sorts the potential meaning and reconciles it with written word, building it into the automatic memory.

Eventually every word becomes a picture.


The seventh step is entirely within the hands of teachers and parents; if a constant supply of interesting material is unavailable the child will quickly discover more exiting and vastly less worthwhile pastimes.







Chinese children guided me to the realisation that the abacus was the best natural maths teacher. I am at the present time working in conjunction with Emeritus Professor of theoretical physics, Winston Hagston. We are developing a world standard mathematics teaching program that can be adopted for teaching by parents or older children, so ensuring the possibilities of equality in education. Once any child is perfect in mathematics, and can read its own language well, with the use of a computer and internet, and provided with an older mentor or teacher, it can educate itself to any level its natural ability and determination strive for. My thinking is for the future, our children and Grand children. The problems we all face are democracy, world food supplies, energy sources, and education.

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THE POSSABILITY OF EQUALITY FOR EVERY CHILD NOW TODAY WITHIN EDUCATION
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Seven Essential Steps In Reading - John Nicholson - 15-12-2010

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Reading and Writing Difficulties

Here is a collection from the latest research into reading difficulties, they indicate to me clearly the lack of systematic training. Any healthy child learning to read systematically early arithmetic first, reading every word on Abacus one and then progressing through these seven steps will read.
The letters and sounds have to become part of every child’s visible/sound memory, clearly understanding the meaning of the whole words produced but able break larger words in syllables.
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Widening Our Perceptions of Reading and Writing Difficulties
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[SIZE="5"][COLOR="Black"]ScienceDaily (Dec. 8, 2010) — Learning to read and write are complex processes, which can be disrupted in various ways, leading to disorders known as dyslexia and dysgraphia. Two new studies, published in a recent special issue of Elsevier's Cortex provide evidence of this variety, suggesting that effective treatment needs to take it into account.
A group of researchers from the Universities of Bari and Rome in Italy studied the reading and writing abilities of 33 Italian dyslexic children, comparing their performance with that of children with normal reading ability. Italian is an "orthographically transparent" language, meaning that letters tend to correspond to the same sounds, whereas many letters in the English alphabet change their sound from word to word (like the "c" in car and city). However, the new study showed that even in Italian, in which it is relatively straightforward to convert sounds into letters, children still have difficulties in spelling.
Younger children with dyslexia generally performed worse than proficient readers; however, the older ones showed a more selective impairment when spelling words, suggesting that knowledge of vocabulary may be more important in spelling than previously thought.
The other study, from Tel Aviv University, Israel, provided the first systematic description of a type of reading disorder called "attentional dyslexia" in which children identify letters correctly, but the letters jump between words on the page, e.g., "kind wing" is read as "wind king." Teachers and neuropsychologists often notice that children substitute letters when reading, but in this type of dyslexia the substitutions are not caused by inability to identify letters or convert them to sounds; they result from migrations of letters between words. The findings showed that letters would mostly migrate to the same position in another word, so the first letter of one word would switch places with the first letter of another word. Awareness to the existence of this type of dyslexia is important, because it suggests a straightforward way to assist these children in reading -- by presenting a ‎single word at a time, e.g., with the help of a word-sized window cut in a piece of cardboard.



Learn To Read Through Sound

Cognitive Neuroscientists Use Sound Training To Help Dyslexic Children Read
May 1, 2008 — Cognitive neuroscientists monitoring brain activity with fMRI found that children with dyslexia are often unable to process the fast-changing sounds used in spoken language. Sound training dedicated to teaching children to better process these sounds improves their ability to manipulate words and their phonetic components, which translates into better reading.
Dyslexia can be a frustrating condition, making it difficult for children to read. Many think it is a visual issue, but a new study using a computer game reveals the problem may not only be with sight, but also sound.
Jake Lo Giudice is dyslexic and some words can be tough to identify. "I felt like I was different," Jake recalls. I felt like I was outside of the group." Jake's mother Karen uses clay models to help her son visualize non-sight words. "It's because they are picture thinkers and those words do not have a picture," Karen explained. But researchers believe the problem could also be with how the brain "hears" sounds. "We believe that these children -- from being toddlers or even earlier as infants -- have problems with processing these changes in sounds," Nadine Gaab, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass., told Ivanhoe.
Cognitive neuroscientists believe dyslexic children's brains have problems interpreting fast-changing syllables like "ba" and "da" because their brains are wired differently. This makes reading more of a challenge. Dr. Gaab is using "sound training" through computer exercises to monitor how dyslexics process fast and slow-changing sounds. While children play the game, Dr. Gaab monitors their brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). But after eight weeks of intensive training, a dyslexic child's fMRI image shows more activity. "The brain is very plastic and so the brain learns and reconnected and built a new network," Dr. Gaab explained.
That possible reconnection could hold the key to helping dyslexics read. Researchers hope as children are diagnosed with dyslexia earlier, they can start sound training sooner and possibly reduce the severity of their condition.
LANGUAGE PROCESSING IS THE KEY: It is worth noting that dyslexia is not clinically identified by seeing letters backward or out of order. When dyslexics hear speech, they are not necessarily able to hear the sound accurately. Recent research showed that the brains of children with dyslexia are not able to process fast-changing sounds. Based on data obtained via fMRI, the findings suggest new ways to treat dyslexia and may help doctors to diagnose the disability earlier in life, before reading begins. This causes problems later when kids attempt to sound out words while reading.
THE EXPERIMENT: Researchers agree that dyslexics have problems manipulating words and sounds – that the primary problem is processing the sounds that make up words. Using a computer program that plays fast-changing and slow-changing sounds, Dr. Gaab used fMRI to monitor how children's brains respond to the sounds. Children with dyslexia use the same brain areas to process both fast and slow changing sounds, as opposed to other readers, who use a certain array of 11 areas more extensively when processing fast-changing sounds.
WHAT IS fMRI? Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses radio waves and a strong magnetic field rather than X-rays to take clear and detailed pictures of internal organs and tissues. fMRI uses this technology to identify regions of the brain where blood vessels are expanding, chemical changes are taking place, or extra oxygen is being delivered. These are indications that a particular part of the brain is processing information and giving commands to the body. As a patient performs a particular task, the metabolism will increase in the brain area responsible for that task, changing the signal in the image. Analyzing the images to understand how responses are similar or different for different tasks allows scientists to better understand the patient as an individual, and also to learn more about the human brain in general.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

Seven Essential Steps In Reading - John Nicholson - 15-12-2010

Pre-School Age Exercises Can Prevent Dyslexia, New Research Shows
ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2008) — Atypical characteristics of children’s linguistic development are early signs of the risk of developing reading and writing disabilities, or dyslexia. [SIZE="7"]New research points to preventive exercises as an effective means to tackle the challenges children face when learning to read.[/SIZE]The results achieved at the Centre of Excellence in Learning and Motivation Research were presented at the Academy of Finland’s science breakfast on 21 August.
Headed by Professor Heikki Lyytinen at the University of Jyväskylä, the research has dug deep into how to predict and prevent difficulties in learning to read and write. The study involved a comparison between 107 children whose either parent is dyslexic and a control group of children without a hereditary predisposition to dyslexia. The researchers followed intensively the development of the predisposed children, from their birth through to school age.
“Half of the children whose parents had difficulties in reading and writing found learning to read more challenging than children in the control group. The atypical characteristics of these children’s linguistic development indicated the risk at a very early stage, and we were also able to draw a clearer picture of the typical progression of a development that indicates reading and writing difficulties,” says Lyytinen.
According to Lyytinen, the predictors of reading and writing difficulties are evident primarily in two contexts: on the one hand as a delayed ability to perceive and mentally process the subtleties of a person’s voice, on the other hand as a sluggishness in naming familiar, visually presented objects. When approaching the age when they acquire the ability to read, the children seem to have more difficulties than expected to store in their memory the names and corresponding sounds of letters.

[SIZE="5"]“Acquiring the ability to read demands much more practice from these children than from their peers. The automatisation of reading poses an additional challenge. Also, a fluent ability to read is a prerequisite to be able to understand a demanding piece of text,” says Lyytinen. “A slow reader isn’t able to grasp a given text as a whole, and therefore has a hard time following the storyline. This is why we should pay special attention not only to the accuracy of reading and writing but also to the comprehension of texts even with quite long sentences.”[/SIZE]Computer game to aid learning
The difficulties children experience when learning to read can be significantly reduced through training – “and in a way that children find amusing, even if they do have difficulties in learning to read,” Lyytinen points out.
The CoE in Learning and Motivation Research has developed computer game-like learning environments to aid preventive training, and made them available on the internet free of charge. They are especially recommended for children with a perceived risk of developing reading and writing disabilities or who have had a hard time learning to read already in first grade.

[SIZE="6"]“The best time to start these exercises is the latter part of the pre-school age, but it’s not too late even after the children have started school. The learning result, of course, improves with repeated training: more than once a day and in short sessions. The optimal time for a single playing session is however long the children find it enjoyable.”[/SIZE]Researchers at the CoE in Learning and Motivation Research have made good use of a wide range of scientific disciplines in creating the learning environment. Apart from psychology, the exercises include elements from phonetics, mathematics and information technology. This has allowed the researchers to make the learning environment more effective than traditional educational games.
With funding from the Ministry of Education and in collaboration with researchers of the Niilo Mäki Institute, the researchers at the CoE are also working to create constantly-developing, game-like exercises as well as tools with which to identify risks and detect learning disabilities. The exercises and tools are all available at the same address http://www.lukimat.fi.

[COLOR="darkred"][SIZE="6"]Early Word Recognition Is Key To Lifelong Reading Skills Says New Study
ScienceDaily (May 12, 2009) — Children’s early reading experience is critical to the development of their lifelong reading skills a new study from the University of Leicester has discovered.[/SIZE][/COLOR]

It found that the age at which we learn words is key to understanding how people read later in life.
The study addresses a 20-year riddle: When researchers investigate reading behaviour in children they find different patterns. Some researchers have found children’s reading mimics that of adults, but others have seen a different pattern of reading behaviour. Psychologists have struggled for twenty years to offer a convincing explanation for why different studies looking at the same topic have found such different results.

[SIZE="5"]Now research by Dr Tessa Webb in the School of Psychology at the University of Leicester sheds new light on the subject by taking into account the age at which words are learnt.
She said: “Children read differently from adults, but as they grow older, they develop the same reading patterns. When adults read words they learned when they were younger, they recognise them faster and more accurately than those they learned later in life.”[/SIZE]

In her research children from three different school years read aloud common and rarely used words, with half of the words following spelling to sound rules and the other half not obeying them. Unlike previous studies, Dr Webb made sure her research considered word learning age as well.
She found that children in their first few years at school read the words differently from adults. However, by age 10, they were mimicking the reading pattern of adults. This suggests that the different pattern of results found in children compared to adults may be due to the fact that word learning age was not considered.
This led her to conclude that word learning age is a key aspect of reading that should not be left out of research, lest the results are unsound.
The results of this research could have implications in tackling reading-related disabilities, such as dyslexia, said Dr Webb.


Effect Of Parental Education On Heritability Of Children's Reading Disability
ScienceDaily (Dec. 26, 2008) — Parental education is a strong predictor of socioeconomic status and children’s educational environment. Nevertheless, some children continue to experience reading failure in spite of high parental education and support for learning to read.
University of Colorado at Boulder psychologists Angela Friend, John C. DeFries and Richard K. Olson examined if genetic and environmental influences on reading disability, the most commonly identified learning disability, interact with level of parental education. In this study, 545 pairs of identical and fraternal twins were selected wherein at least one of the twins in each pair had a reading disability. In addition, the researchers obtained information about the parents’ years of education.
The results, described in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, showed that there was a significant interaction between parents’ years of education and the heritability of reading disability. Children whose parents had higher levels of education tended to have stronger genetic influence on their reading disability than children whose parents had lower levels of education. The researchers concluded that on average, poor instruction or lack of reading practice may often be the main influence on reading disabilities in families with low socioeconomic status, while genes may be the main influence on reading disability among children in families with high socioeconomic status and educational support.
This study has important implications not only for future genetic research, but for national education policies as well. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires that all children reach “grade level” performance on reading and other academic skills by 2014, and assumes that this goal can be met through appropriate education. However, the authors of this study suggest that a more beneficial policy would acknowledge genetic constraints on meeting these standards among some children with reading disability, and honour the functionally important gains they make in reading and other academic skills even if they do not reach grade level.

Seven Essential Steps In Reading - John Nicholson - 15-12-2010

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Certain Skills Are Predictors Of Reading Ability In Young Children
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2008) — A new study in the journal Learning Disabilities Research & Practice reveals that differences found between pre-kindergarten reading-disabled children and their typically reading peers diminish in various measures by pre-first grade, with the exception of phonological awareness abilities.
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Susan Lambrecht Smith, Kathleen A. Scott, Jenny Roberts, and John L. Locke assessed children’s alphabetic knowledge, phonological awareness (known as the conscious sensitivity to the sound structure of language), and rapid naming skills at the beginning of kindergarten and again prior to first grade as a function of later reading outcomes.

[SIZE="3"]Results show that prior to kindergarten, children with reading disabilities were distinguished from their typically developing reading counterparts by their performance on tasks of letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and rapid naming skills. However, between these groups, only differences in skills related to phonological awareness persisted beyond the kindergarten year.
Measures of phonological awareness distinguished the reading disabled group from the control group at Pre-K and Pre-1. These results are consistent with observations that phonological awareness is a strong predictor of reading disability in both children at general risk and genetic risk of reading difficulty.
“Our findings have implications not only for initial assessment and identification, but also for how progress in early literacy skills is viewed,” the authors conclude.

most obviously children whose parents found reading difficult quite obviously where at a disadvantage in teaching their own children.[/SIZE]

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In no way does this mean their children are any less able to learn than any other children if they are taught properly.

All this research as only one clear message to me the average child has massive intellectual ability which can only be developed if a standard systematic system is used early in the child’s life, only the parents have uncompromised access to the child in these early years they cannot teach their children properly unless the schools ensure that they have been made aware of what is required before the child arrives at school and what assistance the child needs during those early school years

We simply have to stop trying to do what the parents can easily do if they know how
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Seven Essential Steps In Reading - John Nicholson - 17-12-2010

[SIZE="6"]CHILDUP BESTOF: Brains: The Secret to Better Schools
by Admin 1. November 2009 13:27
French neuroscientist Bruno della Chiesa met with his country's education minister in Paris to talk about the groundbreaking international movement to link the fields of teaching and brain science.[/SIZE]

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"The brain?" asked the minister. "What does the brain have to do with education?"
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[SIZE="5"]It sounds like a joke, but it's not. Neuroscience and education have long been arch-enemies, split over whether it's possible to understand biologically how and, more importantly, why the human brain learns.

But the movement is quietly capturing the imaginations of people all over the world.

It could revolutionize education, making questions about whether the two fields can collaborate all the more urgent.

What if, for the first time, teachers were to use radical new findings about how the brain actually learns? Would teaching look different? Could every child, regardless of family wealth, race, sex or country reach his or her full potential? Could it transform society?

Yes, says Stuart Shanker, research professor of psychology and philosophy at York University.

The roadblock: The education system would have to change from top to bottom. Not necessarily in overall cost, but certainly in attitude, training and research.

"Current educational systems are still greatly influenced by the Victorian attitude based upon the principle that the child can be an object of reward or punishment, as is the case with a puppy," says Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome, in the book The Educated Brain, Essays in Neuroeducation.

She argues that it's time to apply several centuries of scientific discoveries to teaching.

"The evolution of information technologies has revealed the enormous and unbelievable capacity of the child and the pre-adolescent not only to receive information, which was considered in the past to be the privilege of the mature brain, but also to use it immediately and thus even to surpass adults, surprisingly," says Levi-Montalcini.

Why aren't we quickly shifting to an education system based on brain science?

For one thing, it's still something of a secret, unknown to most educators and policy-makers and, perhaps more importantly, to most parents.

For another, the precise, creative ways in which teachers will be able to use neuroscientific findings in the classroom are unknown. It's still too early for anyone to set down a recipe. But it's not too early to know the basic ingredients. Here's why.

A hundred years ago, the only way scientists could examine the human brain was with a corpse. Today, scientists can look inside a living brain and watch it work.

That's because the cells of the brain, the neurons, communicate electrically and chemically. They're like 100 billion tiny batteries. The voltage and the magnetic fields they give off when they're working radiate through the brain, the bone of the skull and the skin. And when they work they need oxygen and sugar, delivered by blood.

Scientists have learned to track neurons' electricity through electroencephalogram recordings (EEGs) and their magnetic activity through magneto-encephalograms (MEGs). As well, positron emission tomography (PET) measures blood flow in the brain, ultimately creating a three-dimensional picture.

The big advance, developed in the 1970s, has been magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which creates a magnetic field around the brain. Because different parts of the brain have unique magnetic properties, they are represented differently in scans. It means scientists can peer deep into the structures of the brain.

With functional MRI (fMRI), which began to be used widely on humans in the early 1990s, the magnet can make a three-dimensional picture of the brain's actual, right-now workings by measuring the magnetic properties of oxygen in blood flowing to the parts of the brain being activated.

It means scientists are able to watch the brain learn, which it does by forming connections among the neurons. The more often those connections are used, the stronger they become and the more easily recovered by memory.

And that means scientists can start explaining why, biologically, certain types of teaching work and others don't. They are piecing together the science of learning. And therefore teaching.

Already, they have found that the structure of your brain actually changes as you learn. For instance, a study of London taxi drivers in 2000 used MRIs to examine the brains of male, right-handed taxi drivers compared with male, right-handed men of similar ages who didn't drive taxis.

It turns out that the taxi drivers had a much bigger posterior hippocampus than the men who didn't drive for a living. That part of the hippocampus is an old part of the brain, in evolutionary terms, and is crucial for an animal's ability to navigate.

Not only that, but the longer someone had been a taxi driver, the bigger his posterior hippocampus, and the smaller the anterior part of the hippocampus. It was as if the brain's grey matter had redistributed itself.

The stunning implication is that intelligence is not fixed. You are not born smart or stupid. You build intelligence during your life.

In addition, much of your intelligence – and how you do in life – seems to rely on how well the so-called "executive function" portion of your brain works. That's the brainy front part of the cerebral cortex that gives you the ability to control impulses, sustain attention, hold an idea in your head, plan. And executive function can be both taught and learned at any age.

"We used to say that intelligence was 80 per cent genetic and 20 per cent environmental," says Martin Westwell, a neuroscientist in Adelaide at Flinders University. "Now we tend to say that it's 20 per cent genetic and 80 per cent environmental."

The brain is malleable. And the research is showing that if students think they can learn, then they do. If they think their intelligence is fixed at a low level – whether because of social or economic status, skin colour, gender, family history, which country they live in – then they stick to that level.

"It is absolutely clear that the brain is not fixed," says Westwell. "And in schools the kids who see intelligence as malleable have a better trajectory."

The working theory behind connecting these biological concepts with education is that the human brain has a biological need to learn throughout life, and that many of the modern teaching methods shut that need down. An example is making children sit still and silent when movement and social interaction help build their brains.

To many neuroscientists, today's mainstream education system is mired firmly where medicine was during the Middle Ages. Practices continue based on tradition, not science, just as medieval doctors used leeches to bleed patients without knowing whether it worked. Today we know that bloodletting actually prevented healing.

But some traditional practices do work – like the use of willow bark (which contains the same compounds as Aspirin) to relieve fever.

To the growing movement for brain-based teaching, the great challenge is to get rid of the leeches from the classroom while keeping the willow bark. Understanding brain biology shows which is which.

Unlike most educational theory, neuroeducation is devoid of the political philosophies and fads – such as the child-based teaching phenomenon of the 1960s and 1970s and the back-to-basics movement that characterized the 1990s – that have frequently held sway over education. The marriage of neuroscience and education, by contrast, is about how the brain actually works, rather than how a politician believes it ought to work.

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Seven Essential Steps In Reading - John Nicholson - 17-12-2010

[SIZE="7"]I have seen neuroscientific findings in action in a smattering of classrooms and schools around the world over the past year, including England, Australia, the United States and Canada. So far, they're extremely hard to find.[/SIZE]


[SIZE="5"]And while no two classrooms look the same, here are the basic ingredients:

The children and the teacher are on a voyage of discovery together. They are all learning. The teacher is not the deliverer of content, or the keeper of the secrets.

The joy is palpable. Sometimes, there's frustration and gentle encouragement to move through that into solving the problem.

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The children are often moving rather than sitting still because movement engages more parts of the brain – this shows up on an fMRI as many parts of the brain "firing" – and, combined with language, encodes the ideas in the brain.
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There is little dogma but there are lots of questions. The children always have lots of time to explore on their own, no matter their age.

Emotion – the child's and the teacher's – is openly acknowledged as part of the learning process, helping engage the entire brain. (Studies of people whose cerebral emotional centres have been damaged show they are unable to make decisions, which is, broadly speaking, applying knowledge.)

The theory in microcosm? Have you ever seen a baby mastering the task of climbing stairs? The infant will try and try again, utterly absorbed, relentless, until he or she figures it out. A 7-year-old playing an intense game of soccer? What about a teenager trying to figure out a new video game?

The climbing baby, the soccer player and the teenaged gamer are submitting to the biological imperative to learn. Each is driven by something within. Each desperately wants to learn.

[SIZE="6"]"It's like lighting the fire. Learning skills are inert until they are driven by intrinsic motivation," says Jonathan Sharples, a neuroscientist at the Institute for Effective Education at the University of York in England.[/SIZE]

It's the opposite of being ordered to memorize something for no apparent reason and then spitting it out on cue. The human brain just doesn't respond well to being told to hold the body still for long periods, focus the mind and learn something just because another person tells it to do so. The brain needs context and meaning. It needs to know why it should learn.

So, with a nod to your brain's needs as you read this, why does any of this matter? The emerging neuroeducation movement holds out the possibility of engaging the immense power of the human brain in people the world over. Levelling the global playing field on a planet where knowledge has never been more in demand.

The barriers? They're immense. Partly because neuroscientists are just beginning to figure all this out and they will need the help of teachers to know what to study. Teachers will be the ones to determine exactly what works in the classroom.

Partly it's that some education academics and bureaucrats are dead set against changing current practices. And it is hard to alter any gargantuan system that faces intense daily pressure to perform.

It could be, though, as the neuroeducator Zachary Stein of Harvard University puts it, simply a failure of imagination.[/SIZE]

Seven Essential Steps In Reading - John Nicholson - 12-06-2012

[SIZE="7"][COLOR="Black"]THIS HAS BEEN MY LIFE FOR SIXTEEN YEARS
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[SIZE="6"][COLOR="DarkRed"]STEP FOUR
Learn to read syllables and letter combinations, WHY? & HOW? WHERE? & WHEN ? &
our Fifth essential friend WHAT? ----------:adder:

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[COLOR="Navy"]"Repetitious reading of memorable sentences."

The whole point of teaching your child to count and read the words it is using to count with at the same time, is in order that they can use their natural intelligence in order to read.

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[/SIZE] Repetitious reading of the Abacus will already have built the neural pathways your child will utilise in repetitious reading of memorable sentences.

We simply use the child's own intelligence to decipher and locate memory it is not aware of learning but already has simply learnt, e.g. all the numbers your child needs have already become permanent perfect visual memories.

Step four is where we utilise our natural human intelligence, to develop “Repetitious reading & memorable sentences”.



The big fat white cat sat on the little black rat walking across the vivid red mat.. Equals 14 new words.

Where were you when I was over here near the beer. Equals 10 new words.

The counting road to reading is perfectly natural, a systematic development of the child's natural intelligence, prepares the child to utilise its own ability to recognise essential words as pictures

[SIZE="7"][COLOR="Black"]and naturally all those pictures has templates to develop natural reading ability.
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Writing these last few sentencers has made my research over 16 years totally worthwhile, I have collected and collated the essential research in the development of this vital teaching system which will clearly breakthrough the ignorance of neuroscience and the myth of children being born without the natural intelligence to develop their own intelligence perfectly naturally when we show them how.

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Seven Essential Steps In Reading - John Nicholson - 14-06-2012

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system-one-4-every 1
[/SIZE][/COLOR][SIZE="6"][COLOR="Red"]Every Child On Earth Deserves The Very Best Brain Software That We Can Give It.
[/COLOR][/SIZE][SIZE="6"][COLOR="Black"][SIZE="5"]Two questions have occupied my mind for fifteen years.
What does every child need to know in order to count and read perfectly?
What are the essential methods of ensuring that every child establishes these two vital basic skills? Here are the four concepts every child needs to perfect, In order to count perfectly.
“The spoken word” “The written word” “The numeral” “The meaning” Which comes from knowing the physical position of each finger one to ten.
Four simple concepts for parents teaching their own child.
Using Abacus One and the Abacus one map whereby any parent can illustrate to the very youngest of children just how we add and subtract numbers, to then understand the concepts of multiplication and division from demonstration.
A10 sided dice, two different coloured groups of seven counters. And a printout of the Abacus one map alongside the knowledge of how to teach your own child the necessary concepts involved to count efficiently to 10,000,000. Are all that are required for anyone to start teaching their own children basic mathematical concepts.
Establishing basic numeracy is the simplest and quickest way to reading efficiency. One scientist, a theoretical physicist,Winston Hagston was consulted and trialled this system thoroughly. His findings were exactly in line with my own experience.
Children previously having difficulties in reading, were found to be perfectly able to develop their reading skills after establishing a preliminarily background in basic mathematics.
Millions of children, in fact billions of children have learnt basic mathematics from physically using their own national Abacus, in China Japan and Russia, the Abacus as also benefited directly adjacent countries in arithmetic teaching.
Abacus one with words on, can be created in any language or Abacus one can be converted to any language by simple stickers.
British mathematicians adopted world standard notation. Achieving ability in notation is easily possible for every child having previously used any Abacus. When we give explanation to an adult, we normally give it in the form of written or spoken words, written and spoken words cannot be converted by a child to create meaning. Simple by copying physical demonstration is the only effective manner whereby we can teach young children arithmetic efficiently.
Without an efficient working knowledge of mathematics which everyone can acquire easily, every child is crippled, but more importantly then that, all children without reading ability are unable to share fully in the vast world of ideas that we need to consider, if are to be able to exist peacefully on our planet.
“Nothing is more pathetic than someone with eyesight but without vision,” was the view of the blind deaf American girl brought up without any concept of language or the benefits of visual awareness. (Helen Keller)
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Seven Essential Steps In Reading - John Nicholson - 14-06-2012

[SIZE="5"][COLOR="Black"]Our English language, the most modern language on the earth will continue to be the link that all other languages need to communicate with. We have to develop its comprehension, to share our vision of democracy and rule of law.
More than anything else we have to teach it effectively, if we are to be worthy of it. Every healthy child is capable of learning to speak our language quite easily if the natural steps towards reading are taken in the home starting by reading numbers in our language, purely as pictures no one can read the word ONE with only knowledge of either phonetic or alphabet sound alone. All words eventually become pictures; our memory is capable of storing thousands of words and creating the sounds of thousands of new words if we are taught properly.
To establish reading has a pleasure for every child, learning written words need to be in combination with learning to speak, the child’s parents are the natural tutors for early arithmetic and early reading, every child teaches itself to speak and most of them end up having to teach themselves to read.
Stick a low case word on every item in your house which they can read. An egg is easy the cat and the dog a little harder.

Re: early reading my observation is that very young children with their natural curiosity driving them to understand words find it relatively easy to recognise words as pictures, small words especially on three-dimensional items. I believe that these young children develop subconscious ability to recognise the sounds created by simple one syllable words, the quicker the child builds recognition of its written vocabulary the more able it is to recognise new words, whole word recognition has a part to play in every child`s reading lessons. I use three-dimensional objects to build the child's natural awareness, of the alternative sounds of letters. The natural phonetic sounds within small syllables learnt as three and four letter words or as to syllables enable the child to build natural phonetic awareness as it grows older with more complicated words to be added to its written vocabulary. The older the child the more important it is, and the more able the child is to recognise synthetic phonics created in parts of words and in relation to each letter. Where a young child finds it easy to chant the alphabet, it is not easy for a young child to develop the alternative phonetic sound of a letter alone, whereas obviously the sounds of E and G develop clear phonetic awareness after the child has learnt the word egg in relationship to E&G in phonetic sound. In my opinion all early reading needs to be in lowercase only, children naturally pick up capital letters as they grow older, mixing capitals and lowercase letters confuses young children.
Obviously teaching the child to count efficiently, is far easier and more quickly accomplished at an earlier age than one can manage to teach most children to read at, but the confidence in its own understanding of arithmetic, alongside the recognition of the words used in arithmetic quite simply by constant repetition prepares any child mentally to absorb the alternative sounds of the symbols/letters we use to identify the sounds and therefore the meaning of the words we use in our language.
Very few children can learn to read without real assistance first of all being read to, followed by reading aloud and corrected by their parents, a further identifiable step in reading occurs when the child has enough knowledge to identify the sound of a new word simply from the sense of the sentence.
In general terms throughout our lives, when can any of us identify the very moment when we learn something permanently. We all learn at different rates, my routines for teaching systematic steps, ensure that parents following those steps will secure a wonderful grasp of mental arithmetic for their own children , and over a few years establish a competent developing reading ability, the gift of every child taught properly.
I maintain that if the child has eyesight and can see the letter a and say the letter a then they will eventually read well. The earlier parents start home education with their children the more competent their individual abilities in counting and reading are. This is consistently being proven in all research work undertaken over the last twenty years.
Methods of teaching children to count efficiently, without relying heavily only on visualisation are unlikely to achieve the universal understanding of arithmetic that is clearly being established in every country still using its national Abacus.
Originally I felt that children could use Abacus One as a general rule from four years of age, in fact caring parents can develop very early understanding in arithmetic from the age of three.
In the second year of the child's life most children are already recognising words copying words and by they are two years old many children can at count to ten. By the time they are three years of age they can be taught the name and number of every finger, alongside some hundreds of new words, by the time they are three years of age parents using an Abacus One for 10 to 15 min a day will be establishing permanent arithmetic ability, most parents will wish to teach some reading as early as it is possible to do so, by the time the child is four years of age a great deal arithmetic will be understood if the child is given short daily lessons by its own parents. Every item in a home where a three or four-year-old child is being brought up can be clearly identified by larger font size lowercase letters.
Subconscious ability in reading the words for numbers on an Abacus One, demonstrate that many more words are just as easily recognised naturally and their associated written word subconsciously becomes a permanent conscious memory.
Subconscious memory can be built by kinesthetic memory which naturally builds into conscious awareness.
Exercises illustrating the counting of the times tables on Abacus one, alongside using counters to count to over 10 million on the Abacus one map are basically infallible at whatever age the child is introduced to the Abacus and the Abacus one map.
The NYU study, by professor of psychology and neural science Denis Pelli and research scientist Katharine Tillman, measured the reading rates of 11 adult readers. It examined how three reading processes contribute to reading speed:
1) PHONICS, IN WHICH WORDS ARE DECODED LETTER BY LETTER;
2) HOLISTIC WORD RECOGNITION, IN WHICH WORDS ARE RECOGNIZED BY THEIR SHAPE; AND
3) WHOLE LANGUAGE, IN WHICH WORDS ARE RECOGNIZED BY THE CONTEXT OF THE SENTENCES.
Readers in the study read passages from a Mary Higgins Clark novel. The text was manipulated to selectively knock out each process in turn while retaining the others. Whole word shape was removed by alternating case: "sHe LoOkEd OvEr hEr ShOuLdEr." To knock out the whole language process, the order of the words was shuffled. To knock out phonics, some of the letters were replaced with others.
Pelli and Tillman's results show that letter-by-letter decoding, or phonics, is the dominant reading process, accounting for 62 percent of reading speed. However, both holistic word recognition (16 percent) and whole-language processes (22 percent) do contribute substantially to reading speed.[/COLOR][/SIZE] [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][COLOR="Red"][SIZE="6"]Remarkably, the results show that the contributions of these three processes to reading speed are additive. The contribution of each process to reading speed is the same whether the other processes are working or not.
"The contributions made by phonics, holistic word recognition, and whole-language processes are not redundant," explained Pelli. "These three processes are not working on the same words and, in fact, make contributions to reading speed exclusive of one another."
"The fact that letters, words, and sentences are all involved in reading is nothing new," Pelli added. "But finding that their contributions to reading speed are additive is startling."
The findings appear in the Aug. 1 issue of PLoS One, a journal published by the Public Library of Science. The paper is entitiled "Parts, Wholes, and Context in Reading: A Triple Dissociation."
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