Teaching With the Brain in Mind

Teaching with the Brain in Mind
address just five of them: reading and language,
motor stimulation, thinking and problem solving,
the arts, and the surroundings.
Enrichment Through Reading and Language
Without exposure to new words, a youngster will
never develop the cells in the auditory cortex to
discriminate both between and among sounds well.
Parents ought to read to their children beginning at
6 months, not wait until they’re 4 or 5. Before
puberty, most children will learn any language
without a “foreigner’s accent.” The supply of cells
and connection in the brain are ready and available
to be used for it. There are enough for us to learn
even the lightest nuances in pronunciation.
But after puberty, the connections have almost
disappeared, and the potential cells for language
have been usurped by other more aggressive cells
for other functions. Schools ought to expose children
to larger, more challenging vocabularies and
to foreign languages by age 12. Neuronal loss and
synaptic pruning make the acquisition of second
languages more difficult with each passing year.
The more vocabulary the child hears from his
or her teachers, the greater the lifelong vocabulary.
An easy way to get the larger vocabulary is for
teachers to role model it, expect it, and make it
part of the learning. Reading is also a great way to
develop vocabulary, though not by forcing it early
on students. For some learners’ brains, the “normal”
time to learn to read is age 3 or 4. For others,
the “normal” time is age 8. There can be, in fact, a
spread in differences from a few months to 5 years
in completely normal, developing brains. A 6-yearold
who does not read might not be “developmentally
delayed.” In many countries, including Sweden,
Denmark, Norway, and New Zealand (all with
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high literacy levels), formal reading instruction
begins as late as age 7 or 8 (Hannaford 1995).
While reading is helpful for stimulating the
growing brain, writing is another way to develop
vocabulary. Usually we teach children printing
before cursive. That makes little sense because the
typical brain has not yet developed to make the
fine visual-motor distinctions necessary. Children
still have trouble with the lower case Ds and Bs as
well as H, N, A, and E. The frustration children
experience is for a reason: Their brains are not yet
ready for it. Cursive is much easier, and it’s better
to teach that first. With the advance of technology
and specifically computer keyboards, printing is
less important today than 50 years ago.
The brains of children with language disorders
are too balanced. That’s not good, says language
expert Paula Tallal. When both sides are equal, the
left hemisphere is underpowered; the left side
should be physically bigger and more active than
the right hemisphere. A bigger, faster left brain
means it can make fine distinctions in the sounds
heard. This means words are distinct, not like a
running stream of watery noise. That’s what many
dyslexics hear—words that run together. New software
programs that stretch out the words until the
brain can learn to sort them out are about 80 percent
successful in retraining the brain, says Tallal
(in Begley 1996, p. 62).
Enrichment Through Motor Stimulation
Is exercise or movement good for the brain? Keep
in mind that repeating a movement or exercise is
just doing what we already know how to do.
Enrichment for brain stimulation is doing something
new. Lyelle Palmer of Winona State University
has been documenting the beneficial effects of