02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Reading Wars of the 1990s
WHOLE-language theory holds that learning to read and write English is analogous to learning to speak it -- a natural, unconscious process best fostered by unstructured immersion. In an atmosphere rich in simple printed texts and in reading aloud, small children make a wondrous associative leap from knowing the alphabet to being able to read whole words. Their minds receive print as if each word were a Chinese ideogram. If a word is unfamiliar it can be skipped, guessed at, or picked up from ... 1 
notes
notesSite Words VS Phonics. If English was phonetical, we could focus on one strategy, but because many spellings don't match their pronunciations we must also memorize Sight Words as if they were Chinese ideograms.
27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Having Kids Makes One Cognizant of the Brevity of Life
Having kids showed me how to convert a continuous quantity, time, into discrete quantities. You only get 52 weekends with your 2 year old. If Christmas-as-magic lasts from say ages 3 to 10, you only get to watch your child experience it 8 times. And while it's impossible to say what is a lot or a little of a continuous quantity like time, 8 is not a lot of something. If you had a handful of 8 peanuts, or a shelf of 8 books to choose from, the quantity would definitely seem limited, no matter ... 1 notes
notes24 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Humanity is Not the Purpose of the Universe, It is Humani...
Another phrase which occurs frequently in the propaganda of Christian fundamentalists is "scientific humanism." Scientific humanism is supposed to be a philosophy standing in opposition to Christian faith. Fundamentalists like to pretend that we have only two alternatives, either scientific humanism or their version of Christianity. But scientific humanism has as many different meanings as scientific materialism. Roughly speaking, a scientific humanist is somebody who believes in science and ...Folksonomies: humanism
Folksonomies: humanism
1 notes
notes14 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Inferiority Complex Fad
But nowhere was the need to appear self-assured more apparent than in a new concept in psychology called the inferiority complex. The IC, as it became known in the popular press, was developed in the 1920s by a Viennese psychologist named Alfred Adler to describe feelings of inadequacy and their consequences. “Do you feel insecure?” inquired the cover of Adler’s best-selling book, Understanding Human Nature. “Are you fainthearted? Are you submissive?” Adler explained that all infants and smal... 1 notes
notesAnother fashionable mental disorder from the past.
24 JUL 2013 by TGAW
Katherine Paterson on Time to Write
And then, of course, you can't be a writer unless you actually write, and it doesn't take as much time as people think. You know, the number of people who say, well, I'm going to write a book when I have time, they're never going to have the time. And I started writing seriously when I had four tiny children. Well, I mean I had one tiny child, two tiny child, three tiny children, four tiny children in just over four years, and that's when I began to write seriously. And I figured out that a l...Folksonomies: writing katherinepaterson
Folksonomies: writing katherinepaterson
1 Katherine Paterson shares wisdom on writing... even with small children.
24 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Potentially 90 Percent of Crime Rate Changes Explained by...
IN 1994, RICK NEVIN WAS A CONSULTANT working for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development on the costs and benefits of removing lead paint from old houses. This has been a topic of intense study because of the growing body of research linking lead exposure in small children with a whole raft of complications later in life, including lower IQ, hyperactivity, behavioral problems, and learning disabilities.
But as Nevin was working on that assignment, his client suggested they might b...23 years after lead was removed from gasoline, crime rates went up and down dramatically.
18 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Importance of "Motherese"
It just so happens that motherese is in many ways ideally suited to stimulate young babies' sense of hearing. Its unhurried cadence is easier for babies to follow, since as we've seen, their nervous systems process auditory information at least twice as slowly as adults. Its louder, more direct style helps babies distinguish it from background sounds and overcomes the fact that their hearing is much less sensitive than adults'. Its simpler words and highly intonated structure—with wide swings...
1 Babies prefer it when mothers speak in a highly- intonated cadence with slow emphasis on syllables highly repeated. This preference may begin in the womb, when such sounds are the only parts of the mother's speech to reach the fetus.
