Gil
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Posts posted by Gil
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Don't know if you've already made up your mind or not, but you can see inside of the book on this eBay listing.
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We are in the home stretch with The Boys. It seems surreal, but we're almost at The End! 🙂
Hoo-ray.
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In designing knowledge-based courses, I found myself asking: What do I need my student to know at the end of this?
For how long will they need to know that information-- 5years? 10 years? 15 years? 20 years? their entire life?
Then it occurred to me that after a while that more than any particular body of knowledge mastered (though I definitely have a desire for a certain body of knowledge to be mastered and internalized) that my true decades-long goal is to develop strong memorization skills in and of itself within the kids.In theory, I'd like my children, when they're 45+ years old, to be able to
1) take in new information (multi-steps or pieces of info in general) with greater accuracy, speed and ease
2) retain and recall that information as needed
3) in a manner that's not just a parlor trick (i.e., memorizing a deck of randomly ordered cards)In the effort of training a strong memory and really trying to develop the brains ability to take in, retain and recall things, I've been rethinking a lot of what I'd assumed/calculated for Round 2s elementary education.
This of course doesn't mean that I'm not interested in a Knowledge-Centric education--I absolutely am, but I'm also starting to think about instilling the skill of learning differently.
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Thanks for the link! I had gone ahead and wrote a simple Chess Scope and Sequence that I'm going to use. >_<
I just don't like leaving things to chance, lol.
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Ok, I've decided against No Stress Chess. The reason being it delays having students just learn how the pieces move. The cards, I think, will be a crutch and they don't actually lead to anything.
I'm not sold on whether I'll use Story Time Chess--as I don't like the idea of spending a small fortune on Chess.
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14 hours ago, bookbard said:
I think it all depends on the kid. My eldest has a great memory, show her once and she's got it. Like me, she visualises and has synaesthesia. Memory palace works great, but really once she's seen it, she's got it. My youngest has a terrible memory (in his IQ test, his working memory was below average), and does not visualise at all - my husband is the same, if you ask him to 'see' a circle, he can't understand what you mean. So for my son, a memory palace is meaningless because he can't mentally walk through a house. Rhymes and chants have been more helpful for him.
I'm actually debating what to do about building a Memory Palace with Round 2. Amiga has been volunteered as Guinea Pig for memory training. We've began by developing her attention to detail with casual games of "Did You Notice...?" and "Do You Remember...?" but are open to considering any and every technique as the goal is to really develop the attention and memory-skills of the child.
So far, Chants already work on getting her to memorize something in sequence (spellings, information, etc)
Rhymes and mnemonics don't particularly work just yet and I'm not sure that she understands rhymes just yet.
Visualization skills--how does one develop them in someone else? -
2 hours ago, Clarita said:
Yes, but I do love all the nitty gritty details. There are never too many books! I could easily be convinced to read your book too.
I couldn't write a book--maybe a pamphlet.
Step 1: Commit to Using Loads of Parental Elbow Grease and Common Sense
Step 2: Purchase A Few Quality Materials in the Core Skills
Step 3: Do Some Skill Work Every Day
Step 4: Squeeze every drop of use from your chosen purchases.
Ok, so maybe less of a pamphlet and more of a paragraph.
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7 hours ago, Clarita said:
It is a dense (a lot information) book at 300+ pages, I also skipped past the initial stages of reading because both my children can blend letter sounds into words.
It seems to me the basic premise is to get students to notice letters and the ways they interact to make words. So it advocates for teaching the generalizations (he wants to stray from calling them "rules" even though he does refer to them as "rules" because most people do and it may not be a book people read cover to cover), via application versus just having children be able to verbalize them. It does not have a definitive list, instead it gives you lists of most frequently used generalizations and how effective they are (so a lot of phonics books have a lot of "rules" that are "may" be this, thus it's how often that "rule" actually happens in words).
For example it shows you a chart of the most frequent spellings of the 44 sounds of English, but also shows you how often each spelling pattern is used to symbolize that sound with a percentage based on the 17000 most frequently used words. Same with phonics generalizations (like "... g often has a sound similar to j in jump when it comes before the letter i or e") and how often these generalizations are utilized. These charts are there to help you decide what is best for your student and when.
To the camp of reading instruction he leans towards, it would be to have children learn spelling and reading at the same time, because children remember best when they can apply their knowledge. Since he wants students to apply their knowledge every step of the way the sequence of when you learn the generalizations, phonemes and morphemes are based on how frequently they are encountered. For example this book is geared toward K-3 grade and while it has information on teaching student how to prefix and suffix words this book doesn't cover Greek and Latin roots just the most common prefixes and suffixes. There is a next book that I suppose covers word study for older ages.
So...phonics?
Boy, one day I oughta write a book on education! It's amazing what these educrats can make a living off of!
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7 hours ago, Clarita said:
I just borrowed the book Phonics From A to Z by Wiley Blevins. It is strictly about reading and touches on spelling, however it combines a lot of research on how children learn to read/spell with research in orthographic rules and word frequency in English. In a way it highlights what are the most effective things children should memorize/internalize to learn reading and spelling. (A word of warning though, he wrote a curriculum so he does shamelessly plug this curriculum and other books he's written.)
That book bought me to another book about research on reading and spelling called BrainWords I haven't read this book just yet so I'll come back to update once I've read it. (This book advocates learning spelling and reading at the same time because research shows that it's more effective.)
What does he say are the most effective things for children to memorize for literacy?
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So, I'm interested in research and anecdotes re: introducing and using various memorization techniques to young children (2yo-4yo)
Currently, everything that Amiga has memorized or is memorizing, she's internalizing via "brute-force" (aka loads of repetition. Daily, ritualized repetition). We just recite things each day and throughout the day as an attempt to establish the skill of memorizing.
It works, Amiga has several things that are important for her to know memorized and thinks that it;s grand to sing/say/recite her information.
As she's still young, I'm fine with it for another year or so, but I'm interested in building more durable memorization skills into her education.
While, I'm not ready to start introducing mnemonics yet, as I feel that her language and abstract-thinking skills aren't strong enough for her to "get it".
I am thinking about starting her with a Memory Palace... -
What are the advantages and disadvantages of a person being able to (phonetically/orally) read and pronounce a language that they don't speak conversationally?
How often is this done?
How do you develop the skill of being able to read a language into a tool for being able to speak that language?
I know that this is done in other education systems, and that it can be done successfully. I'm just trying to wrap my head around why this works and in what conditions this is most beneficial.
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Does anyone have any experience or opinion on No Stress Chess vs Story Time Chess for the 2-5 year old crowd?
I could teach Chess with just my normal chess set, but I'm considering one of these as a jumping off point. I dislike that Story Time Chess is more expensive at each level, but you can buy the expansions and it includes more advanced instruction. If I purchase the full kit, then Story Time Chess is essentially a full Chess curriculum. I like that it's 100% offline and pre-planned for me.
I was thinking of No Stress Chess then using Level 2 and Level 3 of Story Time Chess, but I'm not sure that I can use the Story Time Chess expansions without the first level though.
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I would do 4-8 points for each section because when groups of facts are related, they are easier to recall/remember.
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We continue to study as usual.
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On 11/10/2023 at 5:05 PM, Rosie_0801 said:
I don't know if this is any use to you:
https://www.cimt.org.uk/projects/mepres/primary/spanish/index.htmThanks, I've already harvested what I want from this program.
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Spanish
Pal is finally reading longer works in Spanish without fanfare. For NaNoWriMo, both of The Boys are writing in Spanish.
Pal's writing a lot of short (3-5 page) stories in. He's translating a book that he liked into Spanish which is surprisingly difficult for him. He might've bitten off more than he can comfortably chew, but I'm not going to say anything to discourage him. Buddy wants to write a short film in Spanish, so we'll see how that goes.
The Boys have loved the Computer Courses and have expressed a desire to take more varied classes in Spanish (yeah, I'll get right on that :🙄) to round out their vocabularies and language abilities.
A friend of mine has hired them as Seasonal Workers in his Mexican restaurant for a couple of months so they're learning to 1-speak/understand a lot of kitchen/restaurant vocabulary, 2-also getting a glimpse of how to make authentic Mexican food and 3-earning a bit of pocket money.
Japanese
They've been reading every day. They've been reading some short novels with their literacy tutor and are also writing better. Their early papers were full of redmarkings and corrections, now they get a few red marks on each paper.
They want to take some technology and culinary courses in Japanese, but we can't afford it on top of their literacy tutor. I want them to truly master their Japanese fundamentals and it's important to me that they're actually literate and fluent at the conversational level. They are at the point where they can read/write in Japanese probably at a middle school level--depending on the subject/familiarity with the topic.
Video Games: They've begun religiously playing a couple of games in Japanese and are having to look up less and less each week, I'm not a huge fan of this though because it sets a bad example for Round 2 and I requested that they not play Video Games for long stretches of time around Amiga because she wants to do everything that they do.
So, being clever Buddy and Pal actually took the initiative of setting a timer to go off in 3-5 minutes whenever Amiga is around and they modeled putting the game away when the timer goes off. So after a week or two Amiga will willingly turn off a screen when the timer goes off without a fuss or fight.
Nice.
German
HAHAHAHA! The most neglected language in the family.
I still want to learn it, but I don't have the energy for long term dabbling, but Round 2 will learn German when they're old enough to.
Round 2's language plan is
SPN/ENG from birth - 3.5
Seriously start bilingual academics at 3.5
At 1st grade ( 6yo) , introduce German as "foreign language" as a school subject.
At 5th grade (10yo), introduce the second "foreign language" as a school subject. There are competing ideas about what that language should be.
On 11/10/2023 at 5:33 PM, Clarita said:When I was in high school when one of my relatives asked me if I could just start speaking in English to her so she could practice English. I couldn't do it. My brain could not converse with her in English because it's not her language.
Really? Any idea why? Did you ever get over this? Anyone else know what this is?Is it because Cousin didn't speak English or because you and Cousins relationship was very verbal already? Do you think you could have made the switch if Cousin could speak English fluently?
The families priority for Round 2 is advanced, bilingual, language skills by the age of 3.5 years old. The language priorities for Round 2 are
- understanding and use of prepositions,
- correct use of verb-tenses
- clear articulation/pronunciation
- 1500 Books by age 3.5
Amiga is on her way to achieve her language goals on time. (Fingers crossed).
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So, Amiga (2yo) has sorted out who, according to her, has which language. Interestingly enough, she had a pretty strong opinion about who in the family has which languages.
She was quiet miffed to hear her mom trying to speak Spanish and insisted that its not hers.
Which was interesting. Amiga has not yet revealed that she has a problem with me or The Boys speaking English and Spanish, but she shut Mrs. Gil down quick when Mrs. Gil was speaking Spanish.
I don't know if because her mom speaks poorly, or what.
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So, despite myself, I looked through all the Calculadder samples and previews that I could find and I much prefer Hooked on Math over what I see with Calculadders.
Hooked on Math is a fully integrated product and everything goes in its place with-in the whole system.
HoM has audio/music, flashcards, and worksheets/book with short, to-the-point lessons on the skills (in book 4) and is gradual without dragging out the point.Hooked on Math will fit into what I'm developing much better than Calculadders because Hooked on Math is a whole, self-contained system and includes just enough of what I need and is easily supplemented (I've already drafted out the 15 extra pages that I was talking about and will fill them out later tonight)
If I use Hooked on Math properly, then Whole Number Arithmetic is done. Wham-bam-done. No Muss, No Fuss.
I won't have to censor out Christian religiosity from Hooked on Math
I won't have to print everything with Hooked on Math,
I won't have to pay as much for Hooked on Math as I do for Calculadders, etcI've ordered a set of vintage Hooked on Math, so after I've had a chance to look it over in depth if I change my mind, I'll let you all know.
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3 hours ago, Clarita said:
If you don't like it why not find something else. There are so many math resources out there, it seems like you should be able to find one that you'd be more satisfied with than this description. All I'm saying is if you have to buy it anyway I don't think you should settle for "probably do what I need it to do". Especially, since it has cassette tapes I don't know if you can get rid of it if it doesn't satisfy your needs.
Because when I asked myself "Will it be easier to write the additional 15-20 Division Worksheets/Practice Sets that I'd like to include OR to go research and buy something else, the answer was a resounding "write the 15-20 additional extra worksheets", though now that I think about it, I could probably just download/print the additional worksheets that I want.
Home schooling Round 2 I'm aiming on doing more direct teaching and using fewer books outside of actual reading material.
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Ok, after some research here's what I've found (in case anyone else now cares)
Hooked on Math is a set of 4 books, 8 cassette tapes and 16 decks of flashcards that are color coordinated and sequenced closely to the books. Books 1-3 are to be used in order, but Book 4 is gradually used in stages as you complete the other books.
Book 1- Single Digit Addition and Subtraction to 9+9 /18-9. After completing the addition part of this book, students work the corresponding section in Book 4 where they learn to double-check their addition by adding the values in reverse and begin adding 3 single-digit numbers. This section of book 4 also introduces place value to the thousands and does teach regrouping during addition.
Subtraction section (in Book 1) follows this, and students are to memorize the subtraction facts. After completing the subtraction part of book 1, students work the corresponding section in Book 4 where they learn to check their work, and subtract up to 4digit-4digit with regrouping.
Book 2-Single Digit Multiplication Facts to 12x12 Students drill both the vertical and horizontal format of the times tables. After completing this book, students work the corresponding section in Book 4 and are taught to multiply up to 3-digit x 2-digit numbers. Because students are not yet able to multiply, they are taught to check their work by going over each step a second time.
Book 3-Single Digit Division Facts. As they complete this book, students learn to check every division by multiplying. Students are taught/drilled on both the division sign and division-house format of each division problem. After completing this book, students work the division section in Book 4. This dos extend all the way up to two-digit divisors, however there's scant practice on it. I feel like an extra 15-20 pages devoted to long-division practice would be helpful.Book 4-Gradually extends each skill from single-digit to Multidigit with regrouping and is meant to be used as you work through the other books.
Do I like it? I don't have a strong opinion of it one way or the other. I feel like it's biased heavily towards fact memorization and multi-digit addition and subtraction, because it feels like long-division while included, doesn't get the same careful development that it needs, however it will probably do what I need it to do.
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20 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:
I have been homeschooling for a very long time (started in 94) and I have never heard of it before. 😉
It was probably on it's way out by the time that you got started.
18 hours ago, HomeAgain said:IIRC, it covered multi-digit arithmetic as a prep for multiplication/division. We only used it as a worksheet supplement so I might be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure 2 & 3 digit addition/subtraction was in there.
Do you know if it goes all the way up to long-division?
I just want something that's already incremental and systematic. I'd rather do the teaching myself, but not worry about writing/finding the just-right exercises, and not have to worry about printing/binding the worksheets myself.
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Really, guys? No one?!
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I'm asking particularly about the kit that came in the hard clamshell set with the books, cards and cassettes from the '80s and '90s.
What all does it cover and how far does it go?
Do you like it? Tell me about it.
Does it cover multi-digit arithmetic, or is it just the math facts?
Are there lessons in it, or does it just provide problem sets for you to drill?
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Also, I'd black list the family. What kind of lunatic let's people visit while they have bedbugs?
You pretty much have to burn the house down, burn the land-plot, dig out the top 6 feet of earth and replace it to get rid of Bed Bugs. Then probably drench the land plot in holy water and burn it one more time before you rebuild.
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Nice.
French review
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
Is it an In-House test for placement at a university? If so, I'd look at any materials that they have on their website for the French Program to get an idea of what grammar and thematic vocabulary is covered at each level just to be sure that I knew what content I'd be expected to know.
The Boys placed out from a Written Test as well as an unscripted Conversation with a department head.