Curriculum

SMART Reading Program Dead in Lane Co

Kathy — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 07:16:48 -0700

About time. I don't like people losing their jobs but when the job involves taking money from people in the form of taxes and donations for a method of teaching that DOES NOT WORK, then I don't feel so bad.

Reading to children will not teach them to read. Yes, it might interest them in reading. Yes, it might be better than having the child watch TV. Yes, reading to children is considered quality time.

But no, it takes more than that to actually have the child read. For about $15, you can get the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Engelmann. You'll see what it takes to teach 3 to 5 year olds to read. With daily short lessons, any child can read. My son, who did not know all of his letter names, learned to read anyways because, well, you need to know the sounds of the letters, not the names, in order to read.

Copyright Laws Strangle Creativity

Kathy — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:36:31 -0700

I'm trying to author some free curriculum for elementary. In doing so, I'm trying not to step on large publishing house toes. But the problem is, it sounds like almost everything can be construed as copyrighted. Some examples:

1. In teaching writing, are phonetic representations copyrighted? For instance, putting the letter "c" and "h" together to teach a child that "ch" is a single sound. Well, that was put out over 30 years ago. So how do authors know where copyright starts and ends?

2. Where do story ideas start and end. If you want to author children stories, will big publishing houses trot out their attorneys if you put out a very short story about a boy who wears glasses and has wizard powers?

3. How about trying to write simple chemistry or earth science experiments for k-3? Are ideas on an a simple experiment copyrighted? I've read somewhere that an idea is common knowledge if you find it in at least 5 published articles or books. How does one know if the idea wasn't stolen?

Learning Games

Kathy — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 22:01:50 -0700

Listed are some common games that can be used as teaching tools in an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Home Program:

GAME	Skill Learned #1	Skill Learned #2
Oreo Matchin? middles game (Fisher Price)	Shape matching	Fine motor
Barnyard Bingo (Fisher Price)	Color matching, turn taking	Picture matching