Reading skill development and transferring learning.

‘ In research primarily dealing with beginning readers, Samuels and other ( Samuels, 1967 , Singer et al., 1973-1974) have looked at the role of pictures in learning new words. In general the studies show that presenting words without pictures resulted in better learning, especially for poorer readers, then presenting words and pictures together. A ‘ focal attention hypothesis’ has been developed to explain these results. According to the hypothesis, the word-alone condition works better because it forces the child to focus on the word itself. The word-with-picture condition makes initial learning easier, but makes transfer of the learning more difficult, since the child focuses on cues that will not be present in the transfer task.” 

Bowker, R. (1980B). Vocabulary instruction. The state of knowledge ( Tech. Rep. #1980-4) Boston. Human Engineering Laboratories

This is a telling and interesting quote. I would add to this that there are focal distractions AND vocal distractions. 

In my previous post, I talked about the need for the group interaction, as being in the orchestra/classroom AND the lesson/private-lesson AND that individual practice with the self, just like a musician must practice the small self generations all by themselves. It is both, or all, that build to mastery. 

Learning language, the means humans use to communicate, is no different. I learned a foreign language as an adult. I practiced with a group, in a class. I did lessons in a class. I also went home, and all by myself, practiced sounding the words, practiced spelling the words, practiced RELATING the words to reality. I did not ONLY practice this ‘ music’ as the words, in the group, in the world, in the lesson. I had to do that practice of generation and fine tuning MYSELF. 

Imagine if one ALSO practiced words, just like practicing an instrument? It is the same, it is exactly the same! And it is not as difficult or overwhelming as one might initially think. Many children have mastered an instrument when given the opportunity within a seven year period. After all, our cells regenerate every seven years. Thus, to do this is not difficult. 

Most people use only about 10,000 words. If we were to break down this number of words we could learn, and practice all by ourselves, within a year, that would be - in a seven year period - about 1430 words a year. This is about 4 words per day.  Imagine doubling this and taking twenty minutes or so a day and slowing down and practicing 8 words/notes a day? Imagine practicing spelling and speaking and relating 8 words a day, for a period of seven years, by one’s self, to fine tune one’s use of words? This would be like knowing the instrument so well, one could play ANY FORM one came to interact with. ( of course here are always new forms one encounters, and sometimes, just like learning to walk, something new comes that one must slow down and learn to ‘ sense’)  In all, it would not even need to be 8 words a day, as most of us already know one aspect of many of our words, it is more that we have not practiced the spelling and speaking and defining in clarity to a self directed relationship as clearly as we could. It would not be a starting point from ground zero for many of our words, and the simple corrections would move faster than we can imagine.

We are not one-sided instruments.  We lose the joy of performing in full capacity when we do not master the sounds we generate. The real joy is becoming a master of self, which means practicing the smallest of things. Each must ALSO practice the small, learn to SELF generate words, building direct practical spatial relationships between the word and practical movement. This is the art and practice of mastering sounding and spelling the word, and defining the word as having a direct relationship to reality. The absence of this causes vocal and focal distractions because not only have we not practiced the word ourselves, alone, the words are in a singular relationship within the context in which they were learned ONLY. Of course, we do sort this out in time, yet one can realize the varying degrees of confusion this creates in classrooms, in lessons, and in personal relationships. 

Thus, in relation to words, what practices are we doing that compound over time into self generation when there are attention distractions because of a lack of individual practice?

In all, if we want to master what we communicate as words, what we sound, that individual practice with the small, as the word, and its relationship, must be clear and direct. We must be able to spell the word, speak the word, and build a direct relationship with the word and reality.  This overall, is developing self control within self focus. After all, what is self act-ualization? Anyone who has truly mastered an instrument, knows the joy of mastery. The practice of the small, by the self, is also necessary, to experience the joy that comes with self mastery.

As human beings, when we really know something, we are happy. When we are uncertain, unclear, we become anxious and insecure. Anxiety and insecurity are the markers of attention disorders, or attention transfer disorders, or inner unsorted, focal and vocal distractions. There is great joy in mastering the small, it is the means to clarity and self confidence! 

In my next post, I will talk about how effective vocabulary development, with careful direct relationships improves efficiency. 

Thank you for reading.

If you want a tool to help in that small practice of word recognition on an individual scale, send me a note.  

Intuition determines processing ability. What do we want for our children?

Let us look at the difference between knowledge and information and practical application and the imagination.

I can look at common core and the new math, for example, among other things.

When we memorize knowledge and information, without the opportunity for practical application, we can come to have a conceptual form, using pictures and numbers, and/or words to become a vision/entity/thing in our imaginations. 

If our focus is on this imagined form, and we use that to direct our actions, can that in-form match the living physical practice around us that is the very means and reason for learning something in the first place? Does our information fit, in other words? Can one imagine what it means to play the violin and then immediately play the violin? In this can we ever believe what we imagine before we apply what we have allowed ourselves to imagine? Does this not mean that knowledge and information must always be cross checked with practical physical application? 

In common core, the new math is simply a different way of moving the number values around. Or, a different way of deconstructing and reconstructing numerical values. Instead of 2+2 one breaks down the 2’s into a smaller value, as the parts and  then adds them together. And yes, it appears to be self evident to one that knows this, yet it cannot be said to be a ‘ bad’ because it is inherently what is the parts of a more compounded equation. One must simply know the code. 

And yes, it seems to be a busy- ness that is unnecessary to practice again and again and then to be tested on. This movement, or practice, in itself can be a means to slow down a natural ability to conceptualize. It could be construed to be a micro-management that inhibits a natural conceptual ability- especially for children sitting in a room. One must begin to look at all dimensions, because it is with dimensions that we are micro managed, slowing down an innate processing of information. Again, this is controlling the imaginative capacity, embedding practices that not only separate as that focus on this ONLY- away from practical application, but also, becomes a practice that actually stops what humans do naturally, which is to expedite the processing of information. 

Thus, this process of implementing a new way, or supposed new way of moving numerical values around, can become a device to train an imagination to move on a very controlled ‘ tread mill’ of allowed measure/value-manipulation in the imagination ONLY. Thus our attention is trained to be more in the imagination AND within a one-way processing that is a training into limited conceptual movement. It is a form of suppression of what is natural. 

The tricky thing is that the parts can all be justified and argued. Meanwhile, a momentum in processing one’s information in the imagination with practical application in reality is completely scrambled. This is how great the tools of becoming potent in understanding this life are, and yet how easily and readily a mis-use of this can cause all kinds of attention dis-orders. 

What is the main problem we have in our society? We have attention dis-orders. Because we have been doing this for a while, especially since the advent of public schooling, this attention-deficit  ( lol like our monetary debt) is growing. It is the children who suffer the most. Imagine being born into such a world?

This begs the question as to what happens within a mis-use of the imagination? If our imaginations, as what is informing that image and likeness of the information practiced, have little or no opportunity for practical application, or connection to practical physical reality, of living interaction, what can happen with that intense focus from the imagination and our connection to living practice as who and what we are? In other words, what happens when that imagination believes it ‘ knows’ something and then meets that ‘ knowing’ in practice ( from having learned it in the imagination, abstractly, only)?

Could one remember how this that is the imagination was formed? Especially after 13 years of being in a room abstracting information - as placing information in the imagination and playing with the forms within the imagination?  I mean look at this, this would be like racing in one form and suddenly moving that form into a living form outside of this inner form and expecting this to suddenly fit! How is this working for all of us?  The problem is that it is not working. If we respond with statements such as ‘ That is the way it is” we have become a complacency of fearing change that is a consequence of this same practice of which I speak!  Change, which is natural, becomes difficult within a incorrect use of our imaginations.

This requires us to look at what we begin to information our children as in their early years. What is prevalent are all the fairy tales? These tales, or maths/measure/value-system, are all about good and evil, or, a morality instead of practical real live living stories. Do we know the real story of the old woman in the woods who is usually considered ‘ evil”? Do we know anything about the overall structure and layering of the workings of the financial system of the castle? Do we learn about the agricultural practices? No, we are told stories about values of good and bad, nothing practical. Thus, we naturally learn to crawl, and walk, and then we learn a value system of good and bad. We begin our lives in the practical, and then we separate into building an imagination of value judgements, done by conditioning set bodies of information that do not tell the story of how that human being came to be considered bad. The irony is that the means to the end, as a morality of good and bad, without practical measure clarified- as how that old woman came to be who and what she is, is what informs us through memorizing the information via a story of measured and formed value judgements. This is just like that numerical value being slightly changed and practiced in the number values.  It is all a means of building an imagination in separation from living reality.  I have to ask myself if this is how the infamous ‘ boogie man under the bed’ is formed, or created.  And this begs the question as to the way and means of being able to completely manipulate others! And this begs the question as to why so many of us cannot read, or cannot process information!  And, why so many of us have a hard time communicating with one another!  the proverbial ‘ boogie man’ is our within information not fitting into this living reality!

In other words, an improper use of the imagination has us all walking around in a shadow world, in separation from living reality! We have come to believe that this informed imagination is more than what is around us! We need only investigate innovations created by some who have managed to exit this imaginative world or use it in constructive ways, to realize the extent of our separation. We need only look at the children with attention dis-orders to realize the extent of this problem.

I have found that many teachers and parents are very skilled at calling out the problem, yet cannot see the cause of the problem that is literally right in front of us, in plain sight! 

The solution.

Within teaching the violin, I always had to build from nothing via building an awareness into the structural means of playing the violin. If that structure awareness was well set, the child would begin to move with ease in relation to the structure of the violin. This happened in an exponential way one the parts began coming together. I would build an awareness of the parts, every part, not just one aspect, in a relationship with actual physical living reality practice. The change point would become obvious, because the child would begin to employ moving in all the practiced “ paint the fence” parts and begin to move in cross checking or assessing each movement because it was well known, and have the space to move into seeing the whole. This would then compel even more awareness and the ability to process this living action would suddenly begin to move at a whole other tempo. A momentum had happened, one that was of a clear inward perception of the structural means of expression as the tool as the instrument, to the point where the child could produce all by themselves in an effective way. Is this not the goal of education to realize measured  effectiveness in generating expressive movement in living reality?  Teaching through abstracting ONLY and then testing an ability to abstract  is very very limited, as the problems in our society reflect!  This is also the means of manipulation and control- which begs the question as to why that ability to learn to crawl, such a huge and great thing, must be controlled at all!? It is our very sensitivity and means of understanding.

Thus, because of an existent system embedded in consequences of a mis-use of the imagination, we need help. We can use what we have created, as our technology, to help us rebuild a stable and well ordered imagination as what humans use to communicate and inform ourselves as and with that is a ‘ thing’ about reality, and becomes our intuition. We can learn the code, as words, always relating them to a direct living measure/rule/quality/thing to build a well structured reference system as our imagination. This would remove the fear that is a product of a mis-use of the imagination, and ground our children into having the means to retain a natural ability to process the living reality around us, that living reality they naturally existed in when they learned to crawl and to walk, before the values imparted through story informed them of a measure that was not the whole story. Mastery happens within the interface of reality- just as one learns to play an instrument. 

Ask yourself what you would want for yourself. Would you want to become a person who lives as the limitation “ that is the way it is” or would you want your child to become an innovator that creates and lives in a way that improves all our lives? A child that feels secure in so doing? Would you want your child to direct the physical instrument that is themselves, beyond the crawling stage, into continuing a developing awareness of being aware of themselves and their capacity into a correct us of their imagination to create within an effective cross reference ability of this living instrument called this practical world? 

We are, even myself, a product of the mis-use of the imagination that is this present system. Yet, we can rebuild our focus, or redirect our focus and we can do this with a tool to integrate our words, by-passing a mis-informed imagination and then relating that word to this living reality, to ground our instruments as our physical bodies, back into a natural awareness of what is around us as this living reality that is as much as instrument of expression as is our physical bodies we directed into crawling and walking and talking and, unfortunately, accepting a mis-use of the imagination. 

I have been in a crowd and seen an adult autistic child-young man in their absolute frustration and mis0information, run up to an adult and violently push them down onto the ground. If you were that mis-informed child-young man/woman, would you not be so frustrated that any immediate means of expression would be better than nothing? For those who have not yet generated this mis-information to the degree of having an autistic child in relation to mis-information being passed down and accumulating within each family generation, would you want one of your children to have to live with having an autistic child? One could argue against this formation, yet dimensionally, this is what we are doing overall, and we all know it on some levels. Investigate the science of neurolinguistic programming, and realize we can rebuild ourselves at any stage of life. We cannot wait for the problem to become a part of our immediate existence ( in some ways it already is, because each town/area appears to be forming homes for the children suffering from a mis-se of the imagination into a compounded mis-information). The development and growing problem of and as these children/young adults, is costly for the society. The allowance of this development and its behaviors, are that boogie man coming to life, being what we have allowed to inform our fellow human beings. We as a collective are responsible for this. The means for each, on the ground , to become self responsible in informing the children we create. We can learn the code, as the words, to communicate a living reflection of practical reality. We can re-verse this trend of compounding attention deficits and and prevent a loss of attention, a natural ability to attend, to the living world around us. 

If your child is having problems processing information leave me a note and I can show you the means to rebuild a natural ability to process the living reality around us.

Thanks for reading! Much appreciated!

Why do we not see that learning to read music is no different than learning to read letters?

Recently I have heard the response to using technology as “ I can’t see my child having more screen time”, or ‘ My child needs the teacher, a person, to learn.

I think about learning to play the violin, where, as in learning any musical instrument, I practiced on my own. I sat and learned the notes and applied them to a movement. I walked the measure, I moved myself within this. No pictures, no adults standing over me micro managing me, but one day a week for a few minutes. This moves in exact opposition to what parents believe should be happening when their child learns. This means that it is an idea that an adult as a teacher must be present, micromanaging a child’s thinking movement. Why do we teach math and academics in a room, where an adult as speaking knowledge and information, where the child is not directing in any measure, they are simply taking something in? The idea that a child needs an adult to be present to impart information continuously and ONLY, is against real learning. It actually limits learning, as the child is not self discovering as self measuring and reflecting and applying in any real way. The outcome of such would lead to an inability to attend to reality, to practical application in real time.

Hence, we have the increase in varying degrees of attention dis-orders.

A child does not need a teacher micro-managing them for six hours a day, they actually need the time to self discover and investigate all by themselves. As with learning to play an instrument, small sessions of reflection by a teacher is cool, yet longer periods of self application is necessary for the child to work through things themselves. The brunt of the learning is done by the child. This is how one learns to play an instrument. 

Perhaps, this belief is more emotional, that a parent wants another person to be actively teaching their child for it to have meaning. It is the parent, within the present structures, feeling quilt for not being enough to teach the child or having given away a freedom to guide a child- a gift- to another. A parent who is a product of the same system, and believing that it was themselves that was not good enough to learn what was given, when it was the format that limited. This is not understood by parents.

Within music, we have children as young as two learning musical instruments, and learning to read notes, where the learning is done by the child, with much shorter moments of  one-on-one/direct instruction teaching taking place, in measure, when compared to what public schooling is doing by design.

If a child can learn to read notes and play an instrument by the time they are seven, then this reveals the capacity and the means of teaching children, where the child is given small moments of direction in comparison to larger amount of time working on things themselves, which could be called opportunity, real opportunity. This is probably why schools in Finland, allow 75 minutes of recess, because they realize that child needs time to work on things themselves. If we limit self discovery, we actually limit the ability to have a well developed attention.

And if we look at Common Core, we see information being presented in endless series of loops, of busy work. This would further divide the attention of the child, by creating strings of information to associate through, leading to a sluggish processing ability, like a really unorganized memory on a computer composed of what appears to be abundance, yet is not. This in tandem with excessive wealth accumulation, means that the victors are determining the form of information in our children in their own self interest. And the rest of us are accepting this!

The consequence of this is a loss of spatial ability, leading to a loss of purpose, as one can no longer see reality with such a busy mindfulness that takes time to realize is not who one really is!

If we look at how and when children can learn to play instruments, we can see that our children can learn to process language at a much earlier age than any of us, the products of generations of this, can fathom. This is that which is ‘ educed’ as drawn out, that which can move into any form if given the opportunity, that which some could call, or say, is able to move through the eye of the needle, being given time to learn to self direct, and begin to see patterns and be present in reality, be grounded here, having the ability to pay attention to here in ways that build a very sound character, someone who can be creative, fearing not to critique and examine, within and without.

We can change our schools to places where children really learn, and the behaviors of lack , of attention deficits are refocused, or reconstructed back into being self directive beings that remain as gentle as they/we were as children full of awe for life and a natural desire to want to learn to crawl and to walk and to talk. Prevention being the best cure, would be to have children learn the notes as words, at a much younger age, and to realize that our children do not need an adult there within the present number of hours with one teacher constantly micro managing, as social engineering what information that child should only be and realize. This really is a crime against the life in the child. 

We can transform out present educational systems to allow each child to self discover. And we can use technology to allow that needed tome to form a well structured memory, as the ' iceberg' within to create a mindfulness that is something to be proud of, where what we hear is clear, pure and working with us instead of against us. Here, we can transform our schools, into places where children are learning to use the instrument of themselves to ' sound' something that they can trust, because the information is clear, trustworthy and self understood. Techno Tutor, the means to a sound mind, and a huge cost benefit for our schools. The means to the end, to transform the attention deficits within that are growing, into a community of children that trust the within to direct them in effective ways without. 

We decide.

Music is fluid math, it is notes, symbols on a graph, the same as words. We have the capacity to process language, which is measure, as well as that child that started at two to read music at two and developed proficiency at seven. Anything less is causing a lack of expression in the child, leading to frustration and attention deficits, as the chaos of an unsound mind, is static, and slows down the natural expression that is gentle and full of awe in a child. We all know this, as that open and transparent smile every child has and seems to lose over time. We can, with Techno Tutor build a sound mind. Cost effective and fun, as learning should be.

What happens to the memory of the child as they participate in the world?

What happens to the memory of the child as they participate in the world?

As parents, do we realize that our absorbent children take in all the measure of us, as our beliefs, opinions and ideas? Do we realize that we were born without language, or culture or race or religion? Do we realize that this is all a measure based on a past, as traditions, that we bring from one generation to the next? Do we realize that we move as what we were exposed to in our early environments to such a degree that we become our parents as we grow older?

If we learn by imitating, by taking in, the world around us, we can see that every single movement we move as, becomes the child, because the child mirrors everything the parent does on a cellular level. That is how great our capacity to take in form exists as. So, do we as parents, carefully watch our every move?

An example; Let us look at a moment when one might be exiting a car. The day previous to this was busy, and the traffic slow. One stops to get some gas, pulls into the bumping bay, and opens the door to step out to the pump. As one shuts the car door, with the child/baby sitting in the back seat, there is a rush in the way you as a parent moves within shutting the door. All of your frustration and anxiety is loaded into that movement of shutting that door. One may notice that one shut the door with more energy and drive than one expected, as one was thinking about how one was late, and the day was not moving in expected ways. All of this is memorized as a movement by the child. All of it.

Later, perhaps two weeks or so, the child is playing with something on the table, and suddenly moves in a rushed way, filled with what was imitated, as what was memorized and what was taken as modeled as sensed by the child in their world. The child accidentally, knocks something off the table, because the energy as the model of the parents become the modeled behavior of the child. The parent then yells at the child. The child is confused, because the child was being what the child had learned, had imitated, and the child does not yet understand how this all works, nor does the parent.  Thus the child is blamed for their action that was a model of the parent. The child taking in and moving the same way. Is the child going to develop confidence in such an event? Is the child learning to respect and participate in their world in effective ways? No.

Thus, the child becomes value judgements as the measure within. They become the stress of the parent. They become that inner stress, to the extent that they miss the practice of being present here, being aware of the world around them. They begin to lose their attention to the practical world. And then we parents, reprimand them for this. Can we really blame them, when we were the model of the separation? Can this same process be handed down generation after generation? Yes.

If we begin to understand this, we can begin to understand the accumulation of attention deficit dis-orders that grow, perhaps exponentially, in our children. It is, very simply, that the measure as the experience of the child, is not equal to the measure of the world around them. On the side, many of us realize, by the time we sort all of this out, when we are older, that this did not need to exist from the beginning. We can blame our parents. Is this a solution? No

What would be a solution?

To ground ourselves back into practicing being an intervention that directs our focus back into the practical. We can use the structure as words, to be the real measure of ourselves here in this life we must live as what we are. We can rebuild our inner measure, through bringing that energy that is not equal to being at ease in our worlds, back into a measure, using words, to become ‘ small’ enough to see the details of living, and thus enabling ourselves to move with self confidence and ease in our lives, realizing that we can focus here, and learn the real measure of living, to then not fear learning anything, meaning learning about what we really enjoy doing.

If you could have the power, and the means to build a child, to see directly here, thereby having a superior memory, and building self trust, self confidence and self esteem, what would that be worth to you? You would not have to depend on a school, you could make sure that your child was sound, was structured in a way they could learn, choose and succeed at whatever they wanted. They would have the freedom to choose, because instead of being anxious, insecure, uncertain, they would have an ordered memory, the measure of their experience, that enables them clear self direction.

Only a parent can ensure that the child reaches their full potential. Everything a parent does, is absorbed by the child. And this takes time to clear up when it is not grounded and at ease. Since prevention is the best cure, why not use technology, that never gets tired, never has a stressful day, help you help yourself, through ensuring that, via words as the perfect tools of measure, are without all those emotions one does not realize are in every single movement and is being learned by the child, by association- imitation- mirroring, to make sure these words are clear, clean, stable. 

The means are here, and they are very cost effective. It is what each would have wanted for themselves. 

How do we Learn and what is the Absorbent Mind?