How To Get Your Kids To See the Light! Or Feel It! Or Hear It!

Learning Modalities for Home Educators

This was the third talk I presented at the 2010 Minnesota Catholic Home Educator's Conference this weekend.  Attendance was amazing.  This was the last slot of the day (3:00) and I had about 40 attendees.

This presentation has 57 slides, which makes it far too large to post all here.  I did have some requests for more data, though. I thought I would include some of those things.  Feel free to make requests for more information in the com box.

This was one diagram I was asked to include.  It is from:

The Quality Teaching Blog

at the Center for Quality Teaching and Learning and it is a diagram showing how to apply Learning Modalities to Learning Styles.  The Learning Modalities are in the yellow areas.  The Learning Styles are in the colored text on the outside of the diagram.

Individual learning style is a combination of environmental, emotional, sociological, and physical responses that characterize how each person learns.  Learning style is a function of heredity and experience, and develops individually over the life span.

Now, we did not delve into Learning Styles in our discussion because we were focusing specifically on how to adapt your teaching to a persons primary Learning Modality or how to incorporate Multi-sensory teaching, in case of multiple modalities in the home.

The Learning Styles in this diagram are based on Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory (ELT). 
A typical presentation of Kolb's two continuums is that the east-west axis is called the Processing Continuum (how we approach a task - either doing or watching), and the north-south axis is called the Perception Continuum (our emotional response, or how we think or feel about it).  These learning styles are the combination of two lines of axis (continuums) each formed between what Kolb calls 'dialectically related modes' of 'grasping experience' (doing or watching), and 'transforming experience' (feeling or thinking).  The result of these two decisions produces (and helps to form throughout our lives) the preferred learning style, hence the two-by-two matrix . We choose a way of 'grasping the experience', which defines our approach to it, and we choose a way to 'transform the experience' into something meaningful and usable, which defines our emotional response to the experience. Our learning style is a product of these two choice decisions:

1. how to approach a task - preferring to (a) watch or (b) do , and
2. our emotional response to the experience - preferring to (a) think or (b) feel.

In other words we choose our approach to the task or experience ('grasping the experience') by opting for 1(a) or 1(b):

• 1(a) - though watching others involved in the experience and reflecting on what happens (watching) or 
• 1(b) - through 'jumping straight in' and just doing it (doing)

And at the same time we choose how to emotionally transform the experience into something meaningful and useful by opting for 2(a) or 2(b):

• 2(a) - through gaining new information by thinking, analyzing, or planning (thinking) or 
• 2(b) - through experiencing the 'concrete, tangible, felt qualities of the world' (feeling)

The combination of these two choices produces a preferred learning style.

Interestingly enough, these tend to coincide with our Learning Modality!  So, Kinesthetic Learners are usually "Sensing Doers".  Tactile Learners are usually "Thinking Doers".  Visual Learners are usually "Sensing Watchers" and Auditory Learners are usually "Thinking Watchers".

Those quadrants can help you understand how those learners approach problems and learn.

Tomorrow I will add more information from my presentation.  Have a pleasant evening!

Conference Updates

I want to thank all of you who attended my talks at the 2010 Minnesota Catholic Home Educators Conference. I will update shortly with outlines and more data from my talks. Stay tuned!

Latin and the Unit Study

I've begun teaching my children Latin this year. I hemmed and hawed about when to start, but decided until they had a very firm grasp on phonics and spelling, I could not start Latin. Since one of my children will be finishing Spell to Write and Read for the first time this Summer and another already has finished, we started Latin. I'm currently using Prima Latina by Memoria Press. It's a very nice introduction into Latin. My children will learn some basic prayers in Latin and get the beginnings of the Latin Grammar.

Do you know why late elementary school is called Grammar school? It is because, back in the 6th century, grammar schools were established by the monasteries to teach future priests Latin. Latin grammar that is. To understand the niceties of Latin grammar became the essential skill for aspiring young men. That was crushed and restructured after the Reformation. Eventually, it went back to the form where in children were taught Latin after they learned their phonics. In England, you took a test at the age of 11 to determine if you were "bright enough" to attend grammar school. The goal was to teach children Latin Grammar before they entered high school.

Latin is the basis of half of our language, the tough, four to five syllable word half. Once they learn Latin, they can better understand the language we use. Consider the word clamo in Latin. It means to cry out, claim, clamor or shout. It is the root of words like exclaim, proclaim, and acclaim. Then they understand what difficult words mean without having to go to the dictionary.

Next year we will be moving into Latina Christiana and Lingua Angelica from Memoria Press. I will actually be seeing how I can turn those two sources into Unit Studies because I know there is so much more there. Latin is the mother language of Western civilization. It has transmitted our cultural heritage for over 2,000 years, pulling together language arts, history, geography, culture, art, architecture, music, values, religion, government, science, and math. Everything seems to be related to Latin and the ancient and medieval cultures that spoke it. We'll be examining the roots of our culture in its mother language. I will be posting what I do in the Fall.

Nature Study and Music Appreciation

Most of my children's Science career has been literature based. We take field trips, of course. We've occasionally attended Nature Center classes. Next year will be very different.

Using Anna Comstock's book along with free curriculum from the Minnesota DNR, Audobon Association and membership to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, we will approach Nature Study next year with journals, binoculars, colored pencils and digital cameras.

I'll be posting the curriculum for the Nature Study the first week in June.

I'm preplanning now, as I can't focus as much as I'd like to on it with the Minnesota Catholic Home Educator's Conference looming. I need to get my handouts done and ready to print. I also need to practice. Anyone want to come over for a free seminar? I'd love to do the Beginning Homeschool seminar for anyone who will listen. No takers? Darn. I guess I'll bore my husband with that one...

I have finished my Music Appreciation curriculum. It's a full year (38 weeks) program based on Aaron Copeland's What to Listen for in Music. It uses the Leonard Bernstein Young People's Concerts, both Disney Fantasia DVD's and Music Masters CD's as supplements. As a curriculum, it would be pretty expensive to purchase, but these are resources I have already, so it is no cost to me. I'll also post that in June.

Stay tuned...

NDD - Nature Deficit Disorder

My mother's day was spent enjoying the beautiful outdoors with my family. I must say I haven't had a day this beautiful in a long, long time. We went here.

As we were walking along a beautiful path, we pondered the loss of nature in our youth. For example, the Boy Scouts now have a Video Game merit badge. They are more interested in bringing along their electronics when they should be out enjoying the great out doors rather than isolating themselves in front of a video game. We can't let our kids out venturing far away for so many reasons - fear of abduction, fear of them getting lost, fear of everything AND then there's the worry about what the neighbors will think when you let the kids out alone!

I miss spending time in the woods. I get almost giddy when I'm there. When I was growing up, I spent many weekends and summer weeks on my grandparent's 120 acre dairy farm in Wisconsin. I would run through the woods, help grandma garden, shoot tin cans off the fence with a bb gun and roll down the haymow ramp. We would make cucumber boats to float in the cow's water tank, climb trees, pick wild berries and sneak off to see where they made maple syrup. Every year, my dad took us camping in the Chequomegon National Forest in North Central Wisconsin. The glaciers moved through there leaving beautiful ridges and valleys. It's breath taking. Just before I became a teenager, my mom and stepdad moved us "out of town" to the lake, where we lived in a new subdevelopment that never quite took off, leaving acres and acres of woodlands, bordering a beautiful lake vacant and undisturbed.

Sadly, I feel we are falling short for our kids. Sure, we have a great yard. It's 1/3 acre and has a play set and a few trees they can climb. We're right next to a nature preserve, but the kids aren't allowed to go there without an adult because the high school kids go down there to smoke and drink. We're on a cul-de-sac with a circle the kids like to play on, but it also has equipment on it for a lift station. So, other than occasional camping, visits to the Arboretum have to suffice.

My husband has read Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. I've skimmed it and deeply read a few chapters. However, I don't need any convincing that our children are suffering from NDD - Nature Deficit Disorder. But how do we save them?

We are trying to get our kids access to nature through memberships to the Arboretum, Minnesota Zoo and regular visits to local wildlife areas like the Minnehaha Falls park and Minnesota Valley Nature Preserve. But it never seems like enough. I dream of owning 20 acres, with a house in the middle and running water (lake, stream, river) going through it.

Until that day comes when we can make that big move, we will be doing Nature Studies. Next year, our nature studies will be based on Anna Comstock's book Handbook of Nature Study (the Nature Study Bible, for those in the know). We'll be combining much of our Nature Studies with Art, including field trips, and a little adventure. I'll post the details soon.

Blog Vacation

Due to the large amount of other things I have going...I'm taking a blog vacation. See you back in May!

Ed. note: No tragedies, just very good things like writing my talks for MCHEC, family birthdays, Spring cleaning and change of season for clothing, religious events and life in general!

More on Spell to Write and Read

Subtitled : The Success Story:

If you will remember, the reason I was going to use SWR was because of my 11 year old son. He struggles with handwriting and spelling. Last year, he spelled at a 3rd grade level. I worked with him last year using word families (big mistake). He did progress one grade level, according the SWR placement test. The end of August, he placed 4th grade, 1st month. Seven weeks later, just before his standardized test, he placed 5th grade, 4th month. His handwriting is amazing (for him) and he is so proud. He tested 5th grade 3rd month on the standardized test (so I believe both proved each other out). I am just astounded that he would make such significant progress. When I tested him the end of March, he scored above grade level - 6th grade 9th month.

His handwriting is amazing. It's not flowery or perfect, but it's legible. I seriously couldn't even read his printing at the beginning of the year. We used the Cursive First packet almost exclusively the first week, just working on our cursive. Then we reviewed the a-z phonograms with cursive then the multi letter phonograms before we started doing lists. He does do copywork on a regular basis now and while his visual memory skills are still not great (he sometimes loses his place while copying) he can do it, without complaining.

The Spell to Write and Read has changed our lives. My son says he LOVES Spell to Write and Read. It has changed all of our lives.

On a side note: My 10 year old daughter is a natural speller. She has finished Spell to Write and Read. She loved it, too. She loved it so much, in fact, that she begged for about 100 words a week. She would spell them, quiz them and then use them in sentences. We're moving on to Latin and Greek with her so she can better understand word etymology.