Better Sleep - Better Math and Language Scores

Most parents try to have their children go to bed at a reasonable time and feel their children should be getting enough sleep.  Now parents need to worry about.the quality of their child's sleep.  According to researchers from Douglas Mental Health Institute in Montreal and McGill University sleep quality and duration are link to better performance in math and languages.

Wow, now parents have a scientific reason why their students should not have hours of homework. Their children need to sleep and sleep well to improve their math and language scores.  The unusual finding was that science and art were not affected.

So the researchers feel that the mental skills involving planning, paying attention, and multitasking are affected by the lack of a good sleep.  So if you feel your child might be ADHD their sleep patterns could be impacting this problem.

Solution?  I wear an UP band on my wrist which motiors my sleep.  I would find someones to borrow, if you don't already own one and use it for five days.  Bring the data to your doctor to determine if your child is having problems getting a deep sleep.

This material is from Sleep Quantity + Sleep Quality = Better Math/Langauge Scores by Rick Nauert  from psychcentral.com

Sleep - How Important it is for Your Child to Learn

There have been studies done in the Sleep Medicine journal  The finding:  The greater sleep efficiency, the children did better in math and languages.  Science and Art are not affected by the type of sleep a child has.

Analyze how your child seems to be sleeping.  Are they waking up often in the night?  You might need to let they borrow your "Jawbone Up", or fitbit, or other devise that can measure the mvoements of their sleep.

If you find an issue with their sleep, contract your child's doctor.  "Short or poor sleep is a significant risk factor for poor academic performance that is frequently ignored," per Gruber.  Again this was a very small study of just 75 students.

Valuable Lessons in Learning

This article found in the New York TImes, October 7, 2014 show how a detailed exploration of the brain can review exactly how we learn and how we can maximize that potential.  Tara Parker-Pope explains how study sessions and cramming does not leave the brain much energy for learning.

So, as a parent, making your child study at one place in the house may not be the best way to actually learn all the material.  When a child is young I do feel they should be doing their homework in a location near an adult for supervision and quick help.

Below is the list Benedict Carey and science reporter for the New York Times wrote about in his book "How We Learn:  The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens".

Study sessions seem logical where we focus and study for a long period of time but in reality are not the best use of time as the brain is using  a lot of effort to maintain concentration.

1.  Change your environment. Move to different parts of the house. Try studying in a coffee house.  Use the library and change locations through out.  The new locations create new associations in your brain and can actually make it easier to recall information later.   The quote is for all those who feel somewhat ADD at times.  "The brain wants variation.  It wants to move, it wants to take periodic breaks." said Mr. Carey.

2. Talk about it.  When you cram material in your head all at once, you aren't telling the brain it is really important to remember all of it.  So read you notes out loud.  Type them and say the words out loud.  This is giving the brain two ways for information to be retained.  Writing flashcards and testing yourself is another great method of helping you remember facts.

3.  Spacing out the time learning the new materials.  Only looking at material once might help for a quick test but you have to review very hard to remember it for the final.  But if you review the material one or two days after learning or first studying it, it is a signal to the brain that you really want to learn it.

If your test is one week away study in two sessions at least one or two days apart.  It would mean study on Monday, review on Thursday to take the test on Friday.  If the test is a month away begin studying in one week segments. (For a hard class in college, I took notes every day.  Then I went home and highlighted what I thought was really important.  I talked out loud about what the graphs meant.  I reviewed after each class session.  By the end of the class, I did not need to study for the final because I remembered everything.  I always review each test that was returned to me and made sure I knew all the correct answers.)

4. Another important aspect to studying is sleep.  Who would have thought of that?  There are two sleep scycles.  "The first half of the sleep  cycle helps with retaining facts; the second half is important for math skills.  So a student with a foreign language test should go to bed early to get the most retention from sleep, and then review in the mroning.  For math students, the second half of the sleep cycle is most important -- better to review before going to bed and the sleep in to let the brain process the information."

So as parents, think about this article and how you can help your child study better for test and to really learn the material.

Read This as Slowly as You Can

This article from the Wall Street Journal on September 10, 2014 written by Jeanne Whalen states we need to slow down and read.  She finds people were reading fewer books.  Reading habits have changed with constant dings for new emails, and facebook posts.  These interruptions interfer with our comprehension.

Slow readers state:

* it improves abilty to concentrate

* it reduces stress

* It deepens our ability to think

* it improves our listening skills

* it helps us empathize better

"A study published last year in Science showed reading literary fiction helps people understand others' mental states and beliefs"

There is also proof that books with interactive options such as links and sounds and video result in lower comprehension levels.  What?  Experts state that real books are the best and underlining or writing notes while you read improves your comprehension levels. 

So think about reading in front of you children: showing them a good example.  Share items that you find in your books.  Writing down interesting words. (This helps their vocabulary grow as well as shows another example of how to learn words.) Share interesting passages with them.  If the story takes place in an interesting city or country, show where it is on a map or globe.

When children see a parent reading, they might want to imitate it and then you have grown a slow reader.

How Students With Autism Are Graduating Into Jobs

This article was found in the Wall Street Journal and was written by Carolyn T. Geer.  I forgot to include the date it was published but you can reach the author at reports@wjs.com if you have any more questions or want more details.

She starts that schools teach students what they don't know.  But she feels the focus for students with autism is to focus on what they can do.

Usually only 10% of children with autism find jobs.  This is a very sad statistic.  When I work with special needs students I hear them say they want to be a doctor.  I know they can't be that specific occupation but I think about what they can do in a medical environment.  Perhaps they can file, transport files, move lab samples around...  They can do something in a field that interests them.

In Virginia, a school took a control group of high school seniors  with autism and they received their education per their IEP.  But the other group spent the year 'in an intensive custom-designed study and job-training program at a suburban hospital."

The beginning and end of each day the hospital group men in on-site classrooms where they learn practical  skills like:

*how to get to work and get back home

*how to get around the hospital

*how to ask for help 

*how to use feedback from supervisors and co workers.

These students went through three internships.  After graduation 87% landed hospital jobs such as pharmacy assistant and teacher's aide.

Only 6% of the control group found jobs. 

At the hospital training they discovered what jobs worked for certain students.  One students loved restocking isolation carts.  He liked repetitive tasks that required intense focus and attention to details.

A company in Denmark found people with autism are hired and trained to work as software testers, programmers, etc. Specialisterne launched a goal of creating 100,000 jobs in the US for people with autism and similar disorders.  They stated they have to teach those working with those with autism need to 'say what you mean and mean what you say, as those with autism have trouble interpreting sarcasm and body language.

So there is hope.  The IEP transition program may need to be modified to help students with autism transfer what they are good at to a job in the real world.

Is E-Reading - story time or screen time?

In an article in the New York Times on Oct 12, 2014, Douglas Quenqua reflects on this statement.  Pediatricans have been promoting parents to read to their toddlers.  They do not recommend any screen tie for children less that two years old.  So what is a parent to do, when there are great interacive stories on the 'tablet' for their child?  Is it reading or is it the 'dreaded screen' time?

The first point is there is not enought data to determine if this is a problem or not.  But researchers say there is more interaction if the parent and child are reading together.  They turn pages together, they talk about  the pictures.  Researchers say that more time is spent on the devise than on the 'storeis' parents and children are reading.

Some studies were done that said children who used electronic books had a lower reading comprehension level that children who were reading with their parents.  Some electronic books  have buttons to press and songs to play so it can take away of the 'learning language' with the parent time.

Researchers say being talked to versus being talked at engages the brain differently.

So electronic books may be here to stay but they can't compete with the feeling of picking up your own book, turning the pages and making languge come to life.  A tablet is just an electronic devise and there is not the same thrill as opening a book.

Botton line- a little screen time may be ok, so don't sweat it if you want to skype or facetime a grandparent.

Signing off - the California Grandma to two grandsons who live in PA 

Dyslexia and How Your Child Can Succeed in School.

This article was found in the UT San Diego on October 7, 2014.  Written by Erinn Hutkin.

Dyslexia is a very common learning problem affecting  about 1 in 5 children at school.  Dyslexia really means there is a problem with reading.  Usually students have poor reading abilities and poor decoding skills.  Children in the classroom know something is wrong and become frustrated with school.  There is no cure but there are work arounds.

Dyslexia has a genetic connection so if parents had a hard time reading, or grandparents had  a hard time learning to read, have your child tested.  Dyslexia is not just reversing letters.  Usually students just have a hard time learning sounds.  Sometimes that can tell you the sound a letter makes but can't blend it together to make a word.

The best way to help is a multi-sensory approach for reading.  Small groups or one to one learning is best.  Certain extras at school are helpful such as "preferential seating, extra time on tests, audio books, spell checkers or note takers".  Your child might need extra help with emotional support and also support in an area where they can succeed and feel great about themselves.