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BrillKids Software / Little Reader - General Discussion / Differences between LR v2 and v3 curriculum - Should you switch over?
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on: November 08, 2012, 06:14:19 AM
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Hi all, Many of you who are currently using the v2 curriculum might be wondering whether you should switch over to the v3 curriculum, and what the main differences are between the two. (If you're not aware of the v3 update and what new features it brings, please see this announcement.) Main differences in Curriculum Content- Pattern PhonicsAlthough there are the same number of PP lessons, they get shown twice a session (slightly shorter duration each time) in Semester 1, so all PP lessons get covered much sooner in the curriculum than before, and we get to repeat them more. They also start from Day 1 as opposed to Day 21. - Sight WordsWe no longer have a Word Flash session at the beginning. Instead, we use the time to show these sight words, in word-flash mode, later on in the lesson. That's why we now start with Picture Flash. - Word Split lessonsNo new words are added here, but we take certain words from the curriculum (words previously shown before) and show them in split format - sometimes split into syllables, and sometimes into parts of a single-syallable word. - StoriesYou now get all 25 stories that come as storybooks in the LR Deluxe package, and these stories now start from the first day of Sem 2. (Note: Three categories which were previously "Simple Sentences" Categories have been converted into stories.) - Main CategoriesThe order that the main categories appear remain roughly the same, with just a few exceptions, eg., we moved "Shapes" from Sem 2 to Sem 1, because we show "Colors and Shapes" much earlier now (see below regarding "Third Category"). The day in which the main categories appear will not likely be exactly the same as before. In v3, all of these Categories get reviewed again later over a 2-day period, typically in upper case. - The "Third Category"In v2, the third Multisensory Category that gets shown in a session usually contains "Follow-up" content (like couplets of words already shown, singular/plural, simple sentences, etc., and then finally changing into stories halfway through Sem 2). In v3, these Follow-up Categories all get shown in Sem 1, so that the whole of Sem 2 gets devoted to Stories for that time slot (as mentioned above). - Game lessonsNo new content here, except that the day's content is reviewed using the new Game mode. If you're in the middle of a v2 curriculum, should you switch?It's fine to just keep using the old curriculum, and that would be the easy thing to do. The v2 curriculum is still a very effective curriculum. However, I would encourage you to switch, as we believe the lessons are more engaging and even more effective. This is especially so if you're still in Semester 1. Personally, unless I were already past Day 200, I would switch. And I would simply carry on from the same day. Or if you started on Sem 2 not long ago, you might want to start from the first day of Sem 2 again, since the stories start then. The switch might be a bit jarring at first, but it will probably settle down before long. If you find that the review lessons are covering categories that have not been shown before, then go to Categories and play back those categories separately. |
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BrillKids Software / Little Musician - General Discussion / Re: Spontaneously Singing Solfege & Piano Progress
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on: November 08, 2012, 02:09:37 AM
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WondIf she could wear a princess dress to her swim team competitions, she would!!!  lzp - I suggest you carry on with the course. Sem 2 will continue to bring back stuff from before. If you feel you want to reinforce what's already been taught, a much better way to do that would be to go into the Music Notes section and find the lessons you want to repeat, and play that outside of the curriculum lessons. All curriculum lessons can be found there. If necessary, create a new folder with the lessons you want to 're-teach', and just play through the lessons of that folder when you want. |
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EARLY LEARNING / Teaching Your Child to Read / Re: Phonics in Little Reader
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on: October 16, 2012, 04:09:09 PM
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LR v3 with the new curriculum will be coming out soon. The curriculum will have a different structure, so hopefully it will work better. If not, you can shorten the phonics lessons or even take them out completely, quite easily.
Stay tuned for details!
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EARLY LEARNING / Early Learning - General Discussions / Latest Research Showing Long Term Benefits of Early Learning
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on: October 16, 2012, 07:36:18 AM
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Here's some very recent research results showing the long term benefits of early learning, reported by The Guardian newspaper (UK): http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/oct/14/childhood-stimulation-key-brain-developmentSome quotes: Farah's results showed that the development of the cortex in late teens was closely correlated with a child's cognitive stimulation at the age of four. All other factors including parental nurturance at all ages and cognitive stimulation at age eight – had no effect. Farah said her results were evidence for the existence of a sensitive period, early in a person's life, that determined the optimal development of the cortex. "It really does support the idea that those early years are especially influential."and Andrea Danese, a clinical lecturer in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, said ... that this kind of research highlighted the "tremendous role" that parents and carers had to play in enabling children to develop their cognitive, social, and emotional skills by providing safe, predictable, stimulating, and responsive personal interactions with children.Pity the study only started on the children when they were 4! Do we need to wait for another 20 years for science to prove what we all know - that early learning for babies and toddlers will also have a long term beneficial impact?  KL |
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EARLY LEARNING / Teaching Your Child Music / Early Music Lessons Have Long Term Benefits - new study
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on: September 12, 2012, 05:25:19 AM
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Here's a new study done on the impact of music during childhood, showing that it extends even into adult years. It was published in the Journal of Neuroscience, entitled: A Little Goes a Long Way: How the Adult Brain Is Shaped by Musical Training in ChildhoodExcerpts: Playing a musical instrument changes the anatomy and function of the brain. But do these changes persist after music training stops?
... We show that adults who received formal music instruction as children have more robust brainstem responses to sound
than peers who never participated in music lessons and that the magnitude of the response correlates with how recently training ceased.
Our results suggest that neural changes accompanying musical training during childhood are retained in adulthood.And here's an article written on the same subject: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/early-music-lessons-have-longtime-benefits/Quote: Now Ms. Parbery-Clark and her colleagues can look at recordings of the brain’s electrical detection of sounds, and they can see the musically trained brains producing different — and stronger — responses. “Now I have more proof, tangible proof, music is really doing something,” she told me. “One of my lab mates can look at the computer and say, ‘Oh, you’re recording from a musician!’ ” |
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EARLY LEARNING / Teaching Your Child to Read / Bianca's Story - What happens 10+ years after learning to read as a baby/toddler
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on: July 25, 2012, 06:29:55 AM
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Recently, Dr. Richard Gentry told me that he had been speaking with Bianca, who had learned to read as a baby/toddler. Dr. Gentry invited Bianca, now 13, to write a piece on his blog, and it makes for great reading. Here is an excerpt, from the blog piece "Parent Lessons From a Successful 13-Year-Old Reader - A 13-year-old explains how to teach babies to read and why it's important". =========== “How I Learned to Read” by Bianca Florence I love reading. It has been an important tool in shaping my life. My advanced reading skills helped me throughout kindergarten, elementary, and middle school and I’m confident my advanced reading skill will help me in the future. Here’s how it happened. My mom taught me to read when I was a baby and toddler using simple index cards with sight words handwritten on them. She turned learning to read into playing a game making up fun sentences with the cards. Learning this way was filled with a lot of laughter, fun and joy, and I never knew that we were doing anything unusual or that learning to read early was special. Then I got to kindergarten and I was the only one reading. At first—I admit—I hid the fact that I could read from my teacher. I don’t know why, but once my wonderful kindergarten teacher saw I could read she knew what to do. She made me feel special. She was proud of me. That had a huge impact on me wanting to be a great student. Since then, reading has not only influenced my work in school but also other areas in my life such as my daily routine. An Early Bedtime RoutineAll of my life, I’ve had a consistent bedtime routine that I looked forward to. My parents would read to me in bed and we would choose stories that had to do with recent activities or a special holiday. Every Halloween we would read The Teeny Tiny Ghost and near Christmas it was The Mouse Before Christmas. We read them over and over, every year, and I looked forward to the different seasons and the corresponding books. This joy of reading has stayed with me ever since, and I think of reading as a part of my personality. It has helped me to stand out in school because I am able to add to class lessons. Since I have read so many books on a wide variety of topics, my teachers can always count on me to get the discussion going. Reaching Reading IndependenceWhile I always loved reading with my mother, it was during first grade that reading independently really clicked for me. I read my first A to Z Mystery, and I was completely hooked on the idea of reading a series. What’s more, my first grade teacher was a wonderful reader; when she read to the class, she would use different character voices that completely captured my attention. When it was time to write my first book report, my teacher handed me a copy of The Meanest Doll in the World and I started reading on the drive home from school. I read all 304 pages in a few days; I couldn’t put the book down! I felt so proud finishing such a thick book and it really built up my confidence to tackle more challenging material. Nowadays, every time I read a good book it’s like a perfect vacation that takes me on any excursion I could dream of. Books are my vacations from a tough day in school or a perfect distraction during a long car ride. I’m in middle school now, and I like to read stories about girls who do amazing things. I look for books that challenge me, not because of difficult vocabulary or the number of pages, but books that have strong female characters that push the boundaries of their lives and accomplish their goals. I just finished reading Between Shades of Grey. It’s an inspiring story of survival and the close bond that the main character Lina shares with her family. It’s definitely a new favorite. Tips for Parents for Raising Lifelong ReadersHere are some tips I have for any parent looking to instill a lifelong love of reading in their child: 1) Most importantly, read every day. My mom read to me from the day I came home from the hospital. Read even if you think your child doesn’t understand what’s being read or that they won’t remember it when they are older. Even now that I’m a teenager, Mom and I still read aloud to each other at night. This month we are reading Between the Lines. It’s written by a mother and her high-school-age daughter, and it’s perfect for reading time. It’s like we have our own book club! 2) If your child has special interests, incorporate them into reading. Here’s an example. I like to sing, so Mom and I would look up the lyrics to a new song and sing it together over and over following along with the words. Singing it over and over until I could read the words by myself was important. Mom also picked up on my interest in games. Even today we play games like Mad Libs and get everyone in the family playing together. It’s a fun word game where a paragraph is given to you, but some of the words are taken out and you get to replace them. The only clue you start with is the part of speech. 3) I suggest taking regular trips to the library so there is always a good selection of reading material on hand. We always had a stack of books my mom found and the rest were whatever books looked interesting to me. I recommend including some non-fiction too, as I always enjoyed reading about historical figures such as Helen Keller and Albert Einstein in the Who Was series of books. ========================== To read the entire article, please visit Dr. Gentry's blog on Psychology Today here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/raising-readers-writers-and-spellers/201207/parent-lessons-successful-13-year-old-readerDr. Gentry put me in touch with Bianca who has kindly agreed to a written interview. I would like to ask some follow-up questions, and I thought it'd be good to involve you all in the process. So please let me know what your thoughts are, and whether you have any questions you would like to ask Bianca or her mother! Thanks! KL |
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