Encouragement Friday (Vol 1.1)

 

It's a very ancient saying,
But a true and honest thought,
That if you become a teacher,
By your pupils you'll be taught.
~ The King and I
Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960)

Getting to Know You

It's a very ancient saying,
But a true and honest thought,
That if you become a teacher,
By your pupils you'll be taught.

As a teacher I've been learning --
You'll forgive me if I boast --
And I've now become an expert,
On the subject I like most.

  Getting to know you.

  Getting to know you,
Getting to know all about you.
Getting to like you,
Getting to hope you like me.

Getting to know you,
Putting it my way,
But nicely,
You are precisely,
My cup of tea.

To read the rest of the lyrics you can go to: Getting to know you from The King and I

I've had the DVD the King and I for a while now and we finally watched it the other day.  This song really spoke to me about the heart of home education. When I first started home schooling I thought I would be doing all the teaching but looking back I think I am the one who was taught !

ENCOUR'AGEMENT, n. The act of giving courage, or confidence of success; incitement to action or to practice; incentive. We ought never to neglect the encouragement of youth in generous deeds. The praise of good men serves as an encouragement of virtue and heroism.

Factors influencing learning to read (Part 5 of 5)

Is Left / Right brain dominance important ?

One day I was reading about brain gym and read about the idea of brain dominance.  Basically we have two hemispheres, the left and right.  In young children these have equal dominance but somewhere around the age of five to seven the two sides argue about who is in charge and one side wins making it the dominant hemisphere.  This is an important step in learning to read.  If there is no dominant hemisphere the brain argues with itself as to who is in charge of this thing called reading.  Once you have brain dominance the brain happily assigns responsibility and learning to read becomes an easier journey.

Easy test for brain hemisphere dominance

• To test for dominance get your student to stand with feet together, arms at side and eyes closed
• Keeping their eyes closed, get your student to Lift their arms shoulder height
• With their eyes still closed get them to bring their hands together in the front but not touching.

 I asked my rose Miss J to do a photo story illustrating the method.

• If dominance has occurred one hand will be slightly higher than the other. 
• If equal dominance is present the hands will be perfectly alined.

Where did all this information leave me ?

I felt so much better equipped to teach my children and more relaxed over reading skills. Learning to read was dependent on so many more factors than me doing daily drills, or the perfect curriculum.

It depends on the individual child's physical, emotional, psychological readiness to read as well as whether or not they have learned the necessary tools to decode the words on the page.

This is bit a small summary of the many and varied reasons for why some take longer than others to learn to read.  There is a ton of information out there today.  This is all I was able to find out 13 years ago.

If you know of anything of interest I would love to hear about it so leave a comment.

A side note: Some children have very special learning needs (such as dyslexia) in their individual path to reading and will cost a lot of time in research but the time invested is so worth the dividend of being their at their personal ah ha moment when all the pieces fall into place and they read to you for the first time.

If you have had an experience with teaching special needs children to read, blog about it and send me the link and I will and add it here.

Other posts you might enjoy
Other posts you might enjoy

• Factors influencing Learning to Read - Part 0.1
• Factors influencing Learning to Read - part 1
• Factors influencing Learning to Read - part 2 
• Factors influencing Learning to Read - part 3
• Factors influencing Learning to Read - part 4

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Moon Eclipse 16 June 2011

We decided to go and wake our little rose Sir N up so he could come outside and see the eclipse of the moon with us.  I am so pleased we did because the other day he was asking us whether the sun ever stopped touching the moon ? 

Explaining the mechanics of a Lunar Eclipse

 

 We used a torch, earth globe and a golf ball for the moon !

Sequential Pics of eclipse from our back yard

Brrr it was very cold. (2'C)

¹⁴And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs and tokens [of God's provident care], and [to mark] seasons, days, and years, (Genesis 1:14 Amp)