+ Dysgraphia: Strategies

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From James O’Keefe’s Student Year blog, here are tips for dealing with dysgraphia.

Dysgraphia is a learning disability affecting writing skills.  It may manifest in difficulties with spelling, poor handwriting and trouble putting thoughts on paper.

Writing requires a complex set of motor and information processing skills.  To say a student has “dysgraphia” is not sufficient.  A student with these disorders will benefit from specific accommodations in the learning environment, as well as additional practice learning the skills required to be an accomplished writer.

Warning Signs

If a person has trouble in any of the following areas, additional help may be beneficial:

• Grips pencil tightly, positions body awkwardly
• Writes illegibly
• Avoids writing or drawing tasks
• Tires quickly while writing
• Says words out loud while writing
• Omits words, leaves out words in sentences
• Has difficulty organizing thoughts on paper 
• Demonstrates large gap between  thoughts and understanding expressed orally and written ideas

Generally, strategies fall into two categories.  First, providing alternatives to written expression.  Or , second, remediating: providing instruction and practice  for improving handwriting and writing skills. 

Both types of strategy should be considered when planning instruction and support.  In addition to specialists, don’t hesitate to involve family or friends.

To find the most beneficial type of support, you will engage in a process, trying different ideas and openly exchanging thoughts about what works best in each situation.

Following are some examples of how to teach individuals with dysgraphia.

Early Writers

• Use paper with raised lines for a sensory guide to assist staying within lines.
• Try different pens and pencils to find one that is most comfortable.
• Practice writing letters and numbers in the air with big arm movements to improve motor memory of these important shapes.
• Also practice letters and numbers with smaller hand or finger motions.
• Encourage proper grip, posture and paper positioning for writing.  Reinforce this early (it’s hard to unlearn habits)!
• Use multi-sensory techniques for learning letters, shapes and numbers.  For example, speak through a motor sequence (“b is big stick down, circle away from my body”).
• Introduce computers for word processing early.  But don’t eliminate handwriting – while typing can alleviate the frustration of forming letters, handwriting is part of a person’s ability to function in the world.
• Be patient and positive; encourage practice and praise effort — becoming a good writer takes time and practice.

Young Students

• Allow use of print or cursive, whichever is more comfortable.
• Use large graph paper for math calculation to keep columns and rows organized.
• Allow extra time for writing assignments.
• Begin writing assignments creatively, with drawing, outlining or speaking ideas into a tape recorder.
• Alternate focus of writing assignments: put the emphasis on some for neatness and spelling, others for grammar or organization.
• Explicitly teach different types of writing — expository, personal essays, short stories, poems, etc.
• Don’t judge timed assignments on neatness and spelling.
• Have students proofread work after a delay; it’s easier to see mistakes after a break.
• Help students create a checklist for editing work: spelling, neatness, grammar, syntax, clear progression of ideas, etc.
• Encourage use of a spell checker (speaking spell checkers are available).
• Reduce amount of copying —  instead focus on writing original answers and ideas.
• Have student complete tasks in small steps, instead of all at once.
• Find alternative means of assessing knowledge — such as oral reports or visual projects.
• Encourage practice through low-stress opportunities for writing, such as letters, a diary, household lists, tracking of sports teams.

Teenagers and Adults

• Provide tape recorders to supplement note taking and to prepare for writing assignments.
• Create a step-by-step plan that breaks writing assignments into small tasks (see below).
• When organizing writing projects, create a list of key words that will be useful.
• Provide clear, constructive feedback on the quality of the work; explain both the strengths and weaknesses of the project.  Comment on the structure as well as the information that is included.
• If the mechanical aspects of writing remain a major hurdle, use assistive technology, such as voice-activated software.

Note: many of these tips can be used by all age groups.  It’s never too early or too late to reinforce the skills needed to be a good writer.

Although teachers and employers are required by law to make “reasonable accommodations” for individuals with learning disabilities, they may not be aware of how to help.  Speak to them about dysgraphia.  Explain the challenges you face as a result of this difficulty.

How to Approach Writing Assignments

1. Plan your paper.  Pull together your ideas and consider how you want them in your writing.
2. Organize your thoughts and ideas.
3. Create an outline or graphic organizer to be sure you’ve included all your ideas.
4. Make a list of key thoughts and words you will want to use in your paper.
5. Write a draft.  Focus this first draft on getting your words on paper only — don’t worry about spelling or grammar.  (Using a computer makes later editing easy.)
6. Edit your work for spelling, grammar and syntax; use a spell checker if necessary.
7. Revise your work for producing the final draft.
8. Rewrite your work into the final draft.
9. Be sure to read it one last time.

sole source: James O’Keefe’s blog at http://www.studentyear.com/. 

James O’Keefe is the owner of About Rad, offering FREE articles, and advice on health issues.  He’s also the owner of  The Parental Advocate,  to help parents become better advocates for their LD children.

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ A Lost European Culture: Pre Egypt and Greece and Writing

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From an article by John Noble Wilford in the NY Times, we learn that artifacts suggest that 5,000-year-old farming cultures in Old Europe reached surprising levels of social and political sophistication.

Farmers brought wheat, barley, sheep and cattle north from Greece and Macedonia beginning about 6200 BC.  They founded settlements that predated the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Before the glory of those civilizations, people living in the Lower Danube valley and the Balkan foothills were ahead of their time in art, technology and long-distance trade.

They farmed and built sizable towns, a few with as many as 2000 dwellings.

They perfected large-scale copper smelting, the new technology of the age.  An impressive array of exquisite headdresses and necklaces have been found in their graves.  In one cemetery appeared the earliest major assemblage of gold artifacts to be found anywhere in the world.

The pottery, with its striking designs, speaks of the refinement of the culture’s visual language.

Until recent discoveries, the most intriguing artifacts were the ubiquitous terracotta “goddess” figures, which were originally interpreted as evidence of the spiritual and political power of women in society.

But new research has brodened understanding of this long over-looked culture, say archaeologists and historians.  At last, these cultures seem to have approached the threshold of  “civilization” status.

Writing had not yet been invented, so no one knows what the people called themselves; scholars are calling the people and the region “Old Europe.”

Exhibit at NYU Until April 25, 2010

“The Lost World of Old Europe: the Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC,” is rescuing this little known culture from obscurity.  It opened in November at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University.

More than 250 artifacts from museums in Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania are on display for the first time in the United States.

Says David W Anthony, the exhibition’s guest curator, “Old Europe was among the most sophisticated and technologically advanced places in the world.”  People were developing many of the technological and idealogical signs of civilization.

Dr Anthony is the author of “The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World.”

Historians suggest that the arrival in southeastern Europe of people from the steppes may have contributed to the collapse of the Old Europe culture by 3500 BC.

Roger S Bagnall, director of the Institute, confesses that until now a great many archaeologists had not heard of these Old Europe cultures.  A specialist in Egyptian archaeology, Bagnall admires the colorful deramics on display and says “Egyptians were certainly not making pottery like this.”

Although excavations over the last century uncovered traces of ancient settlements and the goddess figurines, it wasn’t till local archaeologists in 1972 discovered a large fifth-millennium BC cemetery at Varna, Bulgaria that they began to suspect that these were not poor people living in unstructured egalitarian societies.

But confined  in cold war isolation behind the Iron Curtain, Bulgarians and Romanians were unable to spread their knowledge to the West.

Now the story emerges: pioneer farmers moved north into Old Europe from Greece and Macedonia after about 6200 Bc.  They brought wheat and barley seeds as well as domesticated cattle and sheep.  They established colonies along the Black Sea, and in the river plains and hills. 

These colonies evolved into related, but somewhat distinct, cultures which maintained close contact through networks of trade in copper and gold.  They also shared patterns of ceramics.

The Spondylus shell from the Aegean Sea was a special item of trade.  Perhaps the shells, used in pendants and bracelets, were symbols of their Aegean ancestors.

Other scholars view such long-distance acquisitions as being motivated in part by ideology in which goods are not commodities in the modern sense, but “valuables,” symbols of status and recognition.

Michel Louis Seferiades, an anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, notes the diffusion of these shell at this time.  He suspects “the objects were part of a halo of mysteries, an ensemble of beliefs and myths.”

Writes Dr Seferiades in the catalog, the prevalence of the shells suggest the culture had links to a “network of elaborate exchange systems — including bartering, gift exchanges and reciprocity.”

The people settled into villages over a wide area of what is now Bularia and Romania.  They created villages of single- and multiroom houses crowded inside palisades.

Some houses had two stories and were framed with wood.  They had clay-plaster walls and beaten-earth floors.  For some reason the people liked making fired clay models of multilevel dwellings, examples of which are exhibited.

A few towns of the apparently robust group now called Cucuteni,  came later.  In the north of Old Europe, this collection of towns grew to more than 800 acres.  Archeologists consider this the largest area of any human settlements of the time.

But excavations have yet to turn up definitive evidence of palaces, temples or large civic buildings.  Archaeologists have concluded that rituals of belief may have been practiced in the homes, where cultic artifacts have been found.

Household pottery is decorated in diverse, complex styles and suggest the practice of elaborate at-home dining rituals.  Huge serving bowls on stands were typical of the culture’s “socializing of food presentation.”

At first the absence of elite architecture led scholars to assume that Old Europe had little or no hierarchical power structure.  But the graves in the Varna cemetery dispelled that.

For two decades after 1972, archaeologists found 310 graves dated to about 4500 BC.  According to Dr Anthony, this was “the best evidence for the existence of a clearly distinct upper social and political rank.”

Vladimir Slavchev, a curator at the Varna Regional Museum of History, says the “richness and variety of the Varna grave gifts was a surprise.  Varna is the oldest cemetery yet found where humans were buried with golden ornaments.”

More than 3000 pieces of gold were found in 62 of the graves, along with copper weapons and tools, as well as ornaments, necklaces and bracelets of the prized Aegean shells.

“The concentration of imported prestige objects in a distinct minority of graves suggest that institutionalized higher ranks did exist,” notes a text panel accompanying the Varna gold.

But what is puzzling is that the people who wore these gold costumes in their public lives went home to very ordinary houses, according to Dr Anthony.

Copper, not gold, may have been the main source of Old Europe’s economic success, he feels. 

As copper smelting developed about 5400 BC, the Old Europe cultures tapped abundant ores in Bulgaria and what is now Serbia; they learned the high-heat technique of extracting pure metallic copper.

Smelted copper cast as axles, hammered into knife blades and bracelets must have been valuable exports.  Along the Volga River, 1200 miles east of Bulgaria, Old Europe copper pieces have been found in graves.  Archaeologists have recovered more than five tons of pieces from Old Europe sites.

An entire gallery is devoted to figurines, which have been found in virtually every Old Europe culture and in several contexts: in graves, house shrines, and in other possibly religious spaces.

All of this flourished before  Egypt — or Greece – or written language.

sole source:  John Noble Wilford’s article in the NY Times on 12/1/09. www.nytimes.com

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021  or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Web Sites for RTI (Response to Intervention) Resources

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From an article in Perspectives, the IDA quarterly, here are helpful Websites that have reviewed and sythesized information about evidence-based programs for RTI:

• The Center on Instruction – http://www.centeroninstruction.org/
• The Florida Center for Reading Research – http://www.fcrr.org/Interventions/index.htm
• Johns Hopkins University School of Education’s Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education – http://www.bestevidence.org/

 Excellent RTI resources and case studies for training purposes:

• Office of Special Education program-Funded Project Iris — http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/resources.html

source: Fall 2009 issue of Perspectives on Language and Literacy, a quarterly publication of the International Dyslexia Association.  (http://www.interdys.org)  Article by Al Otaiba, Connor, Foorman, Schatschneider, Greulich and Sidler, “Identifying and Intervening with Beginning Readers Who Are At-Risk for Dyslexia: Advances in Individualized Classroom Instruction.” 

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards  614-579-6021  or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Proposed Dyslexia Bill for Ohio

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Here are the goals and reasons for the bill.  Learn the facts, and use them to talk your Ohio legislators and friends. 

If you have, or know, a child whose needs are not being met, you know why this bill is necessary.  Our legislators are not yet convinced.  Let’s convince them.

LEGISLATIVE GOALS

1.     Purposes of the proposed Dyslexia Bill

• Assessment, prevention and remediation for students with dyslexia
• Systematic, explicit reading instruction
• Instruction taught by an adequately trained and coached teacher
• Professional development of teachers, administrators, and supervisors (stressing an understanding of dyslexia and the type of instruction dyslexics need in order to read, write and spell) 

2.     After the bill takes effect, if a district does not have teachers who are properly trained, the district must provide a qualified tutor to work with students during the school day.

3.     Education majors at all universities/colleges in Ohio must be educated about dyslexia as part of the reading curriculum.

4.     Professors of Education at all universities/colleges in Ohio must be educated about dyslexia and effective methods of teaching these students.

WHY IS THIS NEEDED?

 Reading failure has devastating consequences. 

1.     Reading failure  impacts crime in the state of Ohio: some states determine how many prison cells to build based on reading scores of students in middles schools.  Research from the Basic Skills Agency makes it clear that there is a significant connection between repeated offending and poor literacy skills.  Another study shows that  recidivism is reduced by 20 percent when quality reading programs are in place.

• Fact: 3 out of 5 people in American prisons can’t read
• Fact: 85% of juvenile offenders have problems reading     
• Fact: 50% of Americans can’t read well enough to balance a checkbook or read prescription drug labels.
• Visit http://education-portal.com/articles/Illiteracy:_The_Downfall_of_American_Society.html

2.     Reading failure impacts daily life in Ohio.   Nearly half of Ohio’s Black male students read at less than the Basic Level.  Virtually none reach the advanced level. 

 NAEP national resuts indicate that overall only 36% of all eighth grade students in Ohio read above a Basic level.

Basic level means a reader operates on a very rudimentary level in terms of reading capabilities; he can’t draw simple conclusions from reading a column in a newspaper or editorial comparing candidates in a local election.

Below Basic level means she can’t carry out the everyday functions in American society, such as reading a bus schedule to see how to get across town; she would be unable to use most of the self-service ATMS or fill out a standard job application.

3.     Reading failure perpetuates socio-economic, racial and ethnic inequities.  Of African-American students, 70% can’t read.  (In Ohio, the number is 80%.)

If you look at Hispanics nationally, the percentage is 65-70%.  And studies show that the majority of kids who are at risk and will hit the wall when they attempt to read are children living in poverty. 

Of all people on welfare, 3 out of 4 can’t read.  The inability to read accounts for the fact of low incomes in between 46 to 51% of those below the poverty line .  

4.     Reading failure impacts school budgets in Ohio.   It costs the United States hundreds of billions of dollars each year to deal with reading failure. 

In the 1999-2000 fiscal year, 50 states and the District of Columbia spent approximately $50 billion on special education services; that amounts to $8000 for each special education student. 

The total spending to provide a combination of regular and special education services to students with disabilities amounted to $77.3 billion, an average of $12,474 per student.  An additional one billion dollars was expended on students with disabilities for other special needs programs such as Title 1, English language learners, or gifted and talented students.  That brought the total per student to $12,639.

Based on these figures, the total price to educate average students with disabilities is 1.90 times that expended to educate the typical regular education student with no special needs.  If you exclude money spent on school facilities, the ratio of current spending on the typical special education student is 2.08 times that expended on the student who has no special needs.

The financial cost of “labeling” a child as needing Special Education services is staggering, not to mention the cost to the student himself as he endures the stigma of being in a group “unlike the others” in mainstream education. 

We can reduce the number of children ear-marked for a Special Education program if we provide early intervention;  we will be providing a significant financial and social return on investment.

We have evidence that of all children identified as learning disabled by public schools, 70 to 80% are primarily impaired in reading.  Difficulty in word recognition skills shows up in 90% of these students. 

Ohio can significantly reduce the number of students identified with reading disabilities by employing the same type of strategic planning used by successful businesses looking for long-term change.

At the “Children of the Code” website (http://www.childrenofthecode.org/) Dr G Reid Lyon, former Branch Chief of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, describes why so many students are eventually identified as having a learning disability. (Watch the video “Dysteachia.”)

 When we look at the kids that are having a tough time learning how to read, we went through the statistics, 38% nationally, disaggregate that, 70% kids from poverty and so forth hit the wall. 

Ninety-five percent of those kids are instructional casualties… About five to six percent of thos kids have what we call dyslexia or learning disabilities in reading. 

Ninety-five percent of the kids hitting the wall in learning to read are what we call NBT: Never Been Taught.

5.     Effective early intervention through systematic and explicit reading instruction for students with dyslexia will reduce special education referrals in Ohio. 

A study (Jenkins, 2003) showed that in Iowa, a pre-referral system for special education resulted in an 8:1 reduction in Special Education placements for black males.

In Florida, when early intervention was implemented special education referral rates dropped approximately 40% in Reading First schools. 

Reductions in the number of special education students have been found, and reductions in the disproportional representation of minority groups in special education have been documented. 

6.     Reading improficiency not only endagers academic achievement, it endangers emotional health.  The executive director of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, James Wendorf, says

I think the main thing to emphasize for anyone who has worked with a child or with an adult who has a reading problem, either who is low literate or is just struggling with reading, is that it is very apparent that it is the lost human potential, the lost self-esteem… that is the most poignant.  And, in the end it’s the most significant, because the loss in self-esteem is what leads a whole host of social pathologies that are very difficult to look in the face.

Crime, substance abuse, and the school drop out rate, any of those things — they are very difficult to face.

And there is a line to be drawn between low literacy skills and those social pathologies.

7.     OHIO Employment, Economic Status, and Civic Responsibility (based on OHIO Adult Literacy Survey, May 1994) 

•  Employed respondents were less likely than those who were unemployed or out of the labor force to perform in the lowest levels on each literacy scale. Approximately 60 percent of unemployed participants, and roughly two-thirds of those who were out of the labor force, performed in Levels 1 and 2, in contrast to between 31 and 38 percent of the employed. 
• Professional, technical or managerial position holders in Ohio had higher average literacy scores than those in other types of occupations, including sales or clerical, craft or service, or labor, assembly, fishing or farming positions.
• Adults who performed in the higher levels on each literacy scale had worked more weeks in the previous year than individuals in the lower levels.  In Ohio, those in the three highest literacy levels reported working an average of 32 to 46 weeks in the previous year, compared with only 13 to 15 weeks for those performing in Level 1.
• Across the scales, Ohio survey participants with proficiencies in Level 1 reported median weekly earning of around $200.  In contrast, those in Level 3 earned about $325, while those in Level 5 earned around $575 a week.  Similarly, the median annual household income reported in the highest proficiency levels was significantly higher than that of participants at the lowest levels.
• Approximately two-thirds of Ohio respondents designated as either poor or near poor demonstrated skills in Levels 1 and 2.  In contrast, only 34 to 41 percent of the not poor performed in this level.  As a result, the average literacy scores of poor and near poor respondents are considerably lower than the scores of adults who were not poor.
• Among the Ohio survey participants, voting sppeared to be related to literary proficiancy.  On all three scales, the average literary proficiencies of respondents who said they had voted in a recent election were higher than those of nonvoters.

source: COBIDA, the Central Ohio Branch of the International Dyslexia Association.  http://www.cobida.org

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021  or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Walt Whitman Award: Deadline Extended to December 1

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The Walt Whitman Award brings first-book publication, a cash prize of $5000, and a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center, to an American who has never before published a book of poetry.  The winning manuscript, chosen by an eminent poet, is published by Louisiana State University Press.

The Academy of American Poets puchases copies of the book for distribution to its members.

The award was established in 1975 to encourage the work of emerging poets and to enable the publication of a poet’s first book. 

This year’s deadline has been extended to December 1st, 2009.  An entry form and fee are required.

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/121

The judge for the 2010 entry is poet Marvin Bell.

Check this out, if not for this year, then for other years.  And http://www.poets.org is a place to learn about (nearly) all things poetry.  Many awards and prizes are available, including translation, and college writing.

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com .

+ LDA Health Alert re Neurotoxic Chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA)

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The Learning Disabilities Association (LDA) has sent out email alerts to all its members urging them to act now.

On November 5, Consumer Reports published a study looking at BPA levels in 19 different name-brand foods and found that a diverse assortment of canned foods, including some labeld “organic” and “BPA-free,” contained measurable levels of BPA.

The neurotoxic chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA) is leaching into many of our foods and beverages.

The study concluded that children eating multiple servings per day of cnned foods with BPA could get a dose of BPA near levels that have caused adverse effects in several animal studies.

And a few days later, NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an equally compelling piece that  sounds the alarm on this hormone-disrupting chemical.

A study released in October found an association between women’s exposure to Bisphenol-A during pregnancy and aggressive behavior in their daughters at two years of age.

Another study, released in November, revealed that male Chinese factory workers exposed to high levels of BPA had increased incidene of sexual dyspunction.

LDA and other concerned groups say the science is clear. 

More than 200 peer-reviewed studies show that this extremely toxic, synthetic estrogen is so powerful it can  cross the placenta at parts per billion or parts per trillion and negatively impact prenatal development, including brain development.

Adverse health effect associated with BPA exposure include

• neurological problems causing changes in behavior
• increased risk of breast & prostate cancer
• genital abnormalities in male babies
• early puberty in girls
• metabolic disorders (insulin resistance, altered fat metabolism)

BPA is considered the building block of polycarbonate plastic and can be found in baby bottles, water bottles, food storage containers, and epoxy resins that coat the lining of metal food cans, including infant formula cans.

It’s one of the most pervasive synthetic chemicals in modern life, with more than three billion pounds a year produced in the United States alone.

EMAIL YOUR SENATORS ABOUT  S.593

Right now the Senate is considering the “Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2009.“  It is “S. 593 – the BPA Act of 2009.”  The legislation has been introduced by Senator Diane Feinstein. 

It would ban BPA from food and beverage containers.

Send an email to your senator.  Ask them to co-sponsor the Ban Poisonous Substances (BPA) Act of 2009.

Find your senator’s contact information at http://www.senate.gov/ Or call any Senate office through the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

source: LDA News-in-Brief, email.  http://www.ldanatl.org/

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ ESSAY WRITING: Web Sites for Teaching

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The latest from EduHound’s “Classroom Tools & Tips:” sites for teaching how to write an essay.

• CollegeBoard.com: College Essays/Writing Tips — Includes sample college essay questions, recipe for a draft, and three steps to a great college essay.  http://www.collegeboard.com/student/apply/essay-skills/index.html
• Essay Writing Resources — This module introduces you to the process of essay writing, from analyzing the question through to the final redrafting and editing.  http://www.jcu.edu.au/office/tld/writingskills/essay/
• Writing Essay Exams — Details how to create a well-written answer to an essay question.  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_essay.html
• How to Write an Essay — Strategies for writing assessed essays in the first year and in the second year of an English course.  http://www.english.bham.ac.uk/staff/tom/teaching/howto/essay.htm
• Writing Tips: Essay Builder –  Explores the parts and provides step-by-step directions for writing essays. http://www2.actden.com/Writ_den/tips/essay/index.htm 
• Essays and Other Writing Activities for Early Writers –  For early writers, these one-page printouts — with writing prompts — should be enough writing space for a short essay.  For more advanced writiers, extra pieces of lined paper will be necessary to finish an essay.  http://www.enchanted/learning.com/essay/

 source:  EduHound’s “Classroom Tools& Tips” newsletter, which provides valuable edtech resources to incorporate into K-12 curriculum.  Educational topics, preformatted templates, technology tutorials and practical tips.  Let Judi Rajala know what topics you’d like covered; or send her your templates (JRajala@eduhound.com 

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021  or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com    

+ NY School District Offers All-Girls Tech Program

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The Fairport Central School District in upstate New York has approved an aggressive approach to counteract the gender gap in technology education, according to Ernst Lamothe, Jr in the Democrat Chronicle.

The district is set to begin a two-year pilot program starting next fall, to create four all-girl technology courses (two in ninth grade and two in middle school).  Enrollment will be voluntary, in compliance with Title IX.

Dave Allyn, a special assignment administrator for the district says, “Girls sometimes won’t take technology classes because they don’t want to be the only girl in a class or in a technology club.  Job growth is happening again in engineering and some of the sciences where old stereotypes persist about those male-dominated fields, and we need to make our young women aware that there is an opportunity for them.” 

Although women make up more than half of the work force, they hold only 28 percent of technology positions (US Bureau of labor Statistics).  The number of young women studying computer science has fallen by more than 40 percent in the past two decades.

With computer support specialist, systems administrator and engineering positions expected to grow significantly by 2016, educators and employers worry that young women are failing to gain the necessary skills for those jobs.

Both the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology have less than 30 percent female enrollment in their undergraduate engineering programs.

More than 450 public schools nationwide offer single-sex academic classes, says the US Department of Education.  Research finds that female students learn differently, including preferring collaborative learning and quieter environments.

They are more concerned with complete understanding, doing quality work and helping others.  Male students tend to want to complete tasks as quickly as possible and move on.

Instead of trying to make girls fit into the existing system, school districts nationwide are changing to become more inviting for girls.  The solutions include instituting after-school technology clubs targeting young women as well as offering single-gender technology classes.

Universities also continue to push hard to attract more female engineers, since women make up less than 18 percent of six engineering fields, including single-digit percentages in civil and mechanical engineering.

Colleges and universities have started national programs such as “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day,” which is part of February’s Engineering Week.  The push continues in March, during Women’s History Month, when elementary and secondary schools can participate in live Web chats and teleconferences that encourage girls to consider engineering as a major.

The Rochester Institue of Technology began several initiatives six years ago.  They offer a middle school girls’ robotics program every winter, as well as an elementary design program camp.

At the Fairport schools, boys made up 90.3 percent of the enrollment in technology classes last year; this year, the proportion rose to 91.7 percent.   When the high school added a computer game design course to teach students programming skills, only three of the 115 enrollees were girls.

These single-gender classes will have the same curriculum and exams as their mixed-gender counterparts.  There will be two eighth-grade Technology for Girls classes that will last one quarter at two of the schools and a semester- or year-long course at the other two.

Fairport Middle School teachers purchased computer programming, designed by a Carnegie Mellon University professor, intended to appeal to girls.

According to Allyn, “Usually computer games are all about car crashes, armies, gunfights and sports, which boys tend to like, but not always young girls.” 

But this new system encourages people to write stories and put them into animation, which taps into the creativity and technology aspects for the female students.

The district has also added hand-drafting units for graphic arts and two environmental-related units, because women make up almost 50 percent of people in the field of environmental engineering.

Elizabeth Brown, a technology teacher at one of the schools, says schools need to follow that up by offering young girls more classes focused on green and alternative energy issues.  She has her class building solar-powered cars this year.

“If we are serious about this issue,” says Brown, “you have to make inroads with our young women now, and it must start as early as middle school.”

The school district also started a new middle school club called Cyberettes, connecting them with female computer students enrolled at RIT.  They work together on projects such as Web design, encryption, programming and video editing, giving young girls an introduction to technology careers and advice from women talking about their experience in a male-dominated culture.

Margaret Bailey, mechanical engineer professor at RIT and executive director of its Women in Engineering program, says

There are some girls who are going to do well regardless of putting them in single-gender class or not.  But for those who might not, what Fairport is doing makes sense, expecially at a young age, when you see girls losing interest in math and sciences because they are not getting much encouragement about pursuing careers in those areas.

Additional Facts:

According to the US Census Bureau, women make up a small proportion of professionals in key technology fields:

• Physics: 21 percent
• Computer science: 18.6 percent
• Aerospace engineering: 11.5 percent
• Civil Engineering: 9.5 percent
• Mechanical engineering: 7.1 percent

sole source: article by Ernst Lamothe Jr at www.democratandchronicle.com on 11/16/09.

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Help Kids “Tune Into Interesting Words”

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Research has proven that kids need multiple exposures to a word in order to anchor it in long-term memory, and to have it become a spontaneous part of his vocabulary.

From The 2 Sisters Website, The Daily CAFE (www.thedailycafe.com), here are some strategies parents can use at home.

USE THESE STRATEGIES AT HOME

• Ask your child about words collected from books at school.   Explain about “tuning in” to interesting words as they come up.  Create a family word collector for home.  Hang it on the refrigerator, or some place central to family life.
• When your child is reading (or being read to), ask him to find three interesting words.  Have him write them down.  Talk about the meaning.  See if anyone in the family is able to use the words in a sentence.  Add these words to your family word collector.
• Encourage your child to find interesting words when watching TV or from daily conversation.  When tuning in to an interesting word, help him understand it.  Then add it to the family word collector.
• Modeling is always the best way to spark interest in children.  When you are reading a magazine, newspaper or book, let your child see you “tuning in to an interesting word.”   Discuss your word with him.  Explain that adults tune into words, too, and build understanding just the same way they do.

source: The 2 Sisters Website The Daily CAFE, at www.thedailycafe.com, where you will find teaching tips from successful, experienced teachers.

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Columbus OH: Free Parent Seminars at Marburn Academy

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Marburn Academy’s Free Community Parent Seminar Series continue in 2009-2010.

The Free Community Parent Seminar Series has been offered by Marburn Academy for over eight years.   Parents of children with learning differences can access state-of-the-art identification and remediation information that unavailable anywhere else in Central Ohio.

Parents who have attended these seminars over the years have learned about the many unique and innovative programs that Marburn Academy has introduced to the area. 

They have also gained valuable insight into appropriate instructional approaches — those that work best for teaching reading, writing, spelling, math, and organizational skills to bright children with learning differences, such as dyslexia and ADHD.

UPCOMING SEMINARS

• Tuesday, November 17, 2009 — “Improving Self-Management Skills for Impulsive, Distractible, Disorganized Children”
• Tuesday, January 12, 2010 — “How to Get High School to Work For ADHD Students (and How to Get ADHD Students to Work in High School)”
• Tuesday, February 9, 2010 — “Why Wait for Failure? Early Identification, Early Intervention, and Preventing Reading Problems”
• Tuesday, March 2, 2010 — “Correcting Persistent Spelling and Writing Problems”

Marburn Academy is nationally recognized as an innovator in teaching children of average cognitive ability who have not been successful in traditional school programs.

Marburn’s free seminars offer practical information that is grounded in good scientific research and daily practice. 

If you are concerned about a child who isn’t doing as well as expected in school, this information could make a life-changing difference.

All seminars are open to the public and are FREE to parents of children who learn differently.  Professionals: $40 per seminar.  Reservations required.

The speaker is Earl B. Oremus, Marburn Academy’s Headmaster for the past 22 years.  Oremus is nationallly recognized as a leader in developing improved methods for helping nontraditional learners acquire academic and social skills.

ALSO:  Marburn’s Free  Early  Reading  Screening  Program

Find out if your five- to seven-year-old is likely to encounter difficulty with reading, writing, and/or spelling.  Free Reading Screenings are offered by Marburn Academy’s trained professionals throughout the school year. 

Just call to make an appointment or have your questions answered by calling 

614-433-0822

tutoring in Columbus OH:    Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com