Have you ever noticed how the perfect song can make a bad day good or a good day great? It’s funny how powerful music can be when it comes to giving us a boost of energy or helping us relax.
But the power of music goes deeper than energizing or setting a mood. Music has been proven to have incredible benefits as a teaching tool, especially for struggling students.
Imagine going to work every day feeling that you were not capable of doing your job. If you struggled with the basic tasks you were asked to complete, if you couldn’t meet the goals and expectations of your boss, and if you felt less adequate than your coworkers, would you want to keep going?
It is common for struggling readers to feel that they are failing at their “job” as students. Learning to read is key to being successful at that job, so when students struggle in this area, they can easily become discouraged, overwhelmed, and frustrated. Such feelings not only affect their peer relationships and academic success, but their image of self-worth as well. How can you tell if a student is struggling with low self-esteem? Read more »
Pre-K achievement in some Miami-Dade County Public Schools has increased by more than forty points, and several previously struggling students have progressed into gifted classes. To what are teachers attributing this great success? Watch this video to find out.
http://sas-origin.OnstreamMedia.com/origin/imaginelearn/Testimonial/Pre-K story.flvTo see similar results in your early childhood education program, click here.
The progress your struggling readers have made this year can be far too easily undone in one summer spent in front of the television. A few days ago, we posted some ideas for helping parents successfully teach reading at home, adapted from a 2003 article by Linda Baker. What Baker’s research also noted, aside from the importance of teaching reading at home, is the importance of motivating struggling readers to read at home.
If students are motivated to read, they’re likely to keep reading and progressing on their own. But without the extrinsic motivators your classroom provides—things like recognition, grades, and competition—your readers might do significantly less reading (and make significantly less progress) over the summer break. Luckily, your students will have access to another powerful motivator: their parents.
You don’t realize how quickly children pick up on language until you hear your Kindergartners reciting the latest pop lyrics on the playground. While students in early childhood education may be excellent at mimicry, they still need help developing their vocabulary. According to Theresa Roberts’s new book No Limits to Literacy, children must be aware of two components of a word before they can use it correctly: meaning and pronunciation.
Without knowing both the meaning and pronunciation of a word, children (and adults alike) are powerless to use new vocabulary successfully. So we’ve pulled together five tips from Roberts’s book to help your early childhood education students expand — and actually use — their new vocabulary.
