Lyons+Section+1

= Section one comments, questions, and insights: =

Chapter 1 I just finished reading chapter one. There is so much that in the brain that controls such specific parts of our everyday living. As I was reading I was torn because I do feel that a lot of your knowledge and what you are capable of learning and remembering is due to genetics, but after reading all of this it is very clear that from a neurological perspective the brain development can be shaped by how we activate it. Another topic that amazed me is that people until recently did not believe that at any age we can learn. Now scientists through clinical studies that we do have unlimited potential to learn, and we can reshape and reorganize out brain in the later years. My thought on that is; really who has to be a scientist to know that? When reading Developing a Category System, it discussed that parents should let their child explore though sights, sounds, smells, taste and touch. By doing this at a young age it helps then increase their complex category systems. This basically means that it stimulates and allows them to manipulate their enviorment, which in the end allows them to be comfortable in many areas. For example the button jar experiment was not even an experiment it was a game, which allowed this child to explore and create many category systems for this one jar of buttons. By reading this the stuff he was doing at his age sounds like he was going to be a genius! I also found interesting that the brain is a pattern synthesizer. Our brains seek to find patterns to categorize, and organized information into our memory. I know this, because we do this everyday classifying fruit with healthy etc, but I didn't really think that our brains would do the same thing will all of the information that we have learned since birth. The calendar trick was also another child that seemed to be a genius to me, but as the book states, starting at an early age, and recognizing patterns and applying them to other concepts allows our brain to go having a concrete thought to a process of separating it into patterns and pushing this thought into a abstract thought.

Chapter 2

There are four components involved with our attention system they are as follows: arousal, motor orientation, novelty detection and reward, and executive organization. Arousal is the ability to suddenly increase the alertness. Motor orientation is united with arousal because it facilitates and maintains arousal. This controls how we direct our senses and our attention. This is a huge factor in learning anything. There are three steps involved with motor orientation which are disengage, move, and engage. Novelty detection and reward is the third component involved in our attention system, which is associated with our learning and our behavior. A recent study shows that overloading preschoolers with too much information and stimulation leads to disorganization and withdrawal from the task (Berk 2001). My personal belief is that this does not stop at preschool; my first grader still shows signs of withdrawing from a task when he feels overwhelmed. Also, during this component children who have positive experiences while reading and writing are more likely to try different ways to solve the problem. Isn’t this true for almost anyone regardless of their age? This tells me that novelty detection and reward does not stop at any certain age. The fourth component of our attention system is the executive organization which directs our actions and integrates our entire attention system. An example that sticks in my mind of how movement impacts learning is explained through the story of an infant learning how to organize the sequence of actions to pick up an object. After successful repeated attempts they eventually remember the sequence with little effort. This is such a small task that adults take for granted and infants are so easily trained to remember because of the earlier stages of development. If a child is actively involved in a task, odds are that they will be able to remember the action. According to Clay (2001) to be successful, young readers and writers must focus and control their attention in not one but three ways. The first is direct attention outward to print, which is the rules of print. The second is to be able to switch their attention from speech to words within the text, and third is the direct attention inward. This is where the reader makes sure that everything fits together and they understand what they read. Chapter 3

As we all know language is the main source of communication among people, including children. There are many ways that we as adults can get young adults and children to learn and practice language. I like the story of peek a boo with the rubber duck, and I learned that a simple game of peek a boo teaches children so many things, like how to wait their turn, how to interact with another person without talking, and to help develop the infants ability to communicate with others. Gesturing and speech are closely related, as many people use their hands to talk. I was listening to a conversation just yesterday and one person said, “can you talk without your hands?” Conversations with others help build children’s vocabulary before the age of two. Research shows that the amount of vocabulary a toddler has strongly correlates with how much the parent’s talk to the child. The main factor to a child’s vocabulary is the number of times that the child hears different words and the complexity of sentences rather than the baby babble that many parents do. Vygotsky believed that without social interaction, children would not learn to talk. As infants construct a meaning of something they use each new experience to think and reorder to expand their knowledge. I believe this is true of adults as well. I feel as we are consistently learning new things our brain is always reorganizing new information to fit in with the old. He also believed that instruction or teaching leads to the development of the child’s mind, which in turn contributes to emotional growth and their well being. With what I read on page 49, Vygotsky believed that we should instruct children within their “zone” which I see it as the grade that they are in. Once we instruct them with challenging tasks within this “zone” the students or children are successful with minimal or sensitive guidance from adults. The KEY to this is the teacher or (parent)! I say this because if a teacher or parent does not strive to push these children they will never face and accomplish a challenge. Without a good teacher in the classroom knowing how to create these “zones” for the children they will never have the opportunity to excel above what they are already capable of. There are 5 phases of zones. The first is the actual development. This is what the child already knows and can do without being assisted by a parent or teacher. The second is the zone of proximal development, which is the distance between the actual development and the potential that the child can do as determined through problem solving. The zone of proximal development defines the functions that have not yet been learned but are in the process of being learned and will be there soon. It is up to the adult to model the performance and organize material so the child can do what is expected without jumping through hoops. Eventually, the student will get it just as David did with writing his letter D. As the teacher used a model and specific language to walk the child though the process within a few attempts the child repeated the instruction and completed the task successfully. It is so important to first determine the level of performance that can be completed independently from the child. The third is internalization, automatization, and fossilization. This occurs after a child has emerged from ZPD and the concept is now internalized within their brain. Vygotsky associated this level with mental activity, and that language arises initially as a means of communication between the child and the environment. Basically, stating the child is past needing full assistance from an adult, they now how the means to solve the task alone by meaningful attempts themselves because the adult taught them how to! The next is De-automatization of performance to develop knowledge and skill all the phases of learning must recur over and over. My favorite chapter so far!

Chapter 4 If parents and teachers want to help children reach their full potential we have to try to invest positive emotions in these children about learning. There are two parts to emotions; the Inner emotion is the feeling of happiness, love, fear and the outward expressions such as laughing and crying, blushing and our tone of voice. Infants through adulthood learn to read faces and body language and tone of voice. As we interpret body language we are interpreting individual’s inner emotions or their state of mind. For example, a child can tell by looking at his mother if she is in a good mood or bad mood all by the look on her face. The child’s brain is responsible for their feeling, thinking and learning as well as remembering. The more anxious a person is the poorer his or her academic performance is. Students as young as kindergarten can sense the teacher’s emotions by her expressions of anger or disappointed because of the students’ performance. As we make mistakes, I feel it is important to learn from them but as this book states, “many individuals will remember their mistakes longer than their successes. “ Experiences can also affect a child’s memory with emotions. For example the book used an example of the student being asked to go to the board to do a math problem and in the first couple of weeks would get the problem wrong. Even as time went on and the student then understood the problems he would hate to hear the words “let’s go to the board,” he would still get nervous because of the anxious feeling in his stomach. This is true of positive or happy emotions as well. If we associate positive experiences with learning the memory will be positive. In order for a child to learn, they have to remember what they have already learned, be able to obtain that information from their memory, and incorporate the old information into the new information. As a child gains more experience and confidence the more experienced they will become. The same event can be recalled in different ways by different people. Experiences can affect our memories. A new experience to a child is important for the teacher to understand, because if it is a bad experience the child will not want to remember it again verses a good learning experience will want the child to want to try the task again and remember more of it. If a child is self regulated it means that they can plan, guide and monitor their own behavior in changing circumstances, which goes back to experiences and memory. If a teacher is boring, rude and inconsistent while teaching a lesson the child will likely not remember what is being taught, but if the teacher is kind, and assists to develop ways to help the child problem solve odds are the student will be more eager to remember and want to revisit the topic again.

Josh VanHorn

Chapter 1 Josh VanHorn "Learning depends on the integration of brain structures." The brain is a complex organ of the human body made up of many sections. Each section completing specific tasks. This book includes new researches, which change many of the previous theories about the brain and the components. The discussion of the left hemisphere and right hemisphere of the brain, seemed familiar to myself, knowing that each side has a specialty. The left hemisphere controlling details, logic, and linear patterns. Whereas, the right hemisphere controls the processing of information globally, along with intuition and images. Each half of the brain can be flexible through the early ages of a child. "Complete hemispheric specialization is in place between nine and twelve years of age." The language is one item that can be shifted between hemispheres until the early teen years when it will reside on the left hemisphere for ninety percent of the population. The brain is continually growing. New research shows that early stimulation of each side will activate the use of each side. I feel that a researcher did not need to say this statement. I believe most people know that by stimulating a baby you will improve his/her learning. Schools are opened to stimulate children and allow them to grow, because even old research knows that "the sooner in life this occurs the more likely the individual will achieve perfection." Just as the example of Tiger Woods, if you practice you will be good at the task. Teachers have students practice reading, writing, and math skills over and over again to improve the child’s brain of understanding the task and achieving perfection. The sooner children are exposed to reading and writing, the child will be able to express his/her thoughts by writing and reading along with talking. "Human beings have unlimited potential for learning that continues through old age." The brain continues to grow as you get older. New research has found that neural loss as you get older is trivial. The neural development is continual. An example is that of a stroke victim: The person is able to relearn how to talk, think, and walk. Some people are able to regain what they lost before the stroke, others only a percentage. Myelin continues to grow in the brain for twenty to thirty years. It first starts to help a baby learn to crawl, reach, drink, and walk. "The more work the brain does, the more it becomes capable of doing." Each child is born with about the same number of neurons. This gives each child the same capacity to learn. Children learn from their environment. An example is children who are adopted learn from their parents, not from their genetics. Their bodies develop from genetics, by the environment that is stimulating their brains is how they learn. "Experiences, environment, and social interactions" are how a child learns.

Chapter 2 Josh VanHorn Movement impacts learning. Every movement you make will be remembered by your brain and you will learn from that movement. In infants they first start to use movement to hold a rattle. The first few attempts will fail, but the brain will sequence the grasping of the rattle and understand how to hold an object. Children learning to read are the same way. The child will first use his/her finger to move left to right to assist the eyes with the reading movement, and the eyes will soon be able to move in the reading pattern without the finger. The brain will recall the movement when getting to a word that is unknown, and will return the finger to the paper and read the word slowly to identify the word. Just as the example in the book has given about Patty trying to figure out the word "fold." Writing also uses motor development to increase the learning process. Writing coordinates the muscles in your "fingers, hand, arm, neck, and shoulder." You must focus your eyes where you are making the movement to form the letters or drawing correctly. Attention is connected with learning. Mental concentration is the foundation of learning. "Those who have difficulty attending experience difficulty learning." This is why teachers are so concerned with students who have attention deficient disorders. The child could hold themselves back from learning by not being attentive (some of which may not be the child’s own fault, just the lack of brain control on the attention matter). Early attention to this matter is needed for the maximum learning to occur in all children. The best piece of information I read in the chapter is: "...their attention nearly doubles if they are engaged in conversation with others while playing. But when given a teacher-directed activity that is too difficult or uninteresting, preschool children disengage and become unmotivated and inattentive." This shows that children need time for social interactions, individual and group choices for activities, and reviewing activities. This allows for the student to see the activity as not "too difficult," but as something they have chosen or seen before which can be replayed in a different scenario or added on from the last time the event occurred. To avoid the problem of attention in students, engage them all. This may take more time planning the lessons, but it will take less time problem solving a situation during class. Another item to consider when teaching a class is teaching the children how to focus on the activity. By just saying "focus," the students may not know what you are talking about. You need to explain how to not listen to other groups and noises, but to only listen to yourself listening to a story. This may take some tools such as a whisper phone to show students how to listen to themselves and ignore the irrelevant noises. This allows the students to move their lips, talk softly, and hear themselves while reading, to "focus" on their independent reading time.

Chapter 3 Josh VanHorn In chapter 3 I learned a lot about language and how it affects young children’s development. Language allows individuals to do 5 things such as show and receive love, connect with others, be emotionally secure, understand the world and people in it, and reveals needs and desire. I liked how this chapter stated that language is more than words and sentences, it is body language, gestures, hand motions, and any other methods used to communicate. The scientific reason for these developments happen when there is neural connections of the motor cortex and the formal reasoning of the frontal lobe. This is how the infants code different words and start to understand language. After more development a new stage is reached around 9 months, the social referencing stage. This is when the child can take two different things and can understand verbal connections to both, also they will show you this. I particularly enjoyed the example of Kenny in the bath tub with the yellow duck. The main psychologist stated in this language section was Vygotsky, and the countless hours of research that he did. He stated that language was the main connection between people’s social and mental worlds and it played a huge role in a child’s development. A major concept that he stated was the Zone of Proximal Development, which is the distance between a child’s actual development and the child’s potential development. I felt this is a crucial tool for teachers to use. If teachers know where their students are and where they can be, it can help them develop and road map of instruction to get them there. The first step is truly understanding what a child actual development is, or what a student can do on their own with out any help. In order to reach the ZPD, teachers and parents have to create zones and use every opportunity to their advantage. I felt that the examples that Vygotsky uses to show the different methods of how students learn shed a lot of light on things for me. The transition phases that a students goes through in order to learn showed me how students will go from depending on others to learn how to depend on themselves and learning off of things they already know. In conclusion I felt this chapter was very informative and taught me that children use language to communicate with other individuals, but also to shape their own thoughts and ideas in their own head. It also explained to me how the brain not only understands the literal meanings of a word, but also the emotional meanings as well. This chapter shed a lot of light on how as teachers that we understand a young child’s future hangs in the balance at a young age, even before they can even say the word teacher.

Chapter 4 Josh Van Horn This chapter talked about an abundance of information that made a lot of sense to me and really opened my eyes on some of the everyday activities that my students and I encounter. In this section the writer spoke in depth on emotion, memory, and learning. I feel that the writer shed a lot of light on how and why the brain works the way it does regarding these 3 things. The first thing is emotion and how it affected different children in different ways. I felt that this made a lot of sense because it explained how some students will use emotion to their advantage and some emotions will effect students in a negative way in the classroom. The reading also stated how certain teachers emotions can affect how students respond in the classroom. I feel that teacher really need to understand their students therefore they do not use negative emotion and hinder their learning experience. This chapter spent a lot of time talking about memory and the different types and aspects of memory. I felt it did a good job explaining the different lobes and the jobs that they performed. It also explained how the amygdala and the hippocampus work. The amygdala is important because it files and stores information and then uses emotion to decide if the brain needs to store it away for long term use. This information is really important because it explained why some students expect failure and put up a block were they quit trying to learn. This is were as teachers we must understand this logic and be able to break down the wall to reach these students. The hippocampus is responsible for problem solving and planning part of the brain, also this part files and store information that is factual not emotional. These two parts are crucial to understanding how emotion and memory is handled within the human brain. The next part of the memory in this chapter explained the different types of memories. I feel that this explains a lot about how students learn and how the brain processes the different information that they learn, it also did a good job explaining how cramming for a test works inside the brain. The short term memory and the working memory only have limited space and the information is lost in a shorter term than the long term memory. The long term memory is things that come from working memory that is filed away into four different types of long term memory. The first is procedural memory that deals with skills and everyday activities, the episodic memory has to do with fact and setting things in a time line, the semantic memory deals with the educational activities and the things learned through words, the emotional memories are memories were positive and negative events have occurred. I thought that the four principle of learning and memory explained a lot of how different things affects the things that we remember. It explained how different people interpret things in a different way and that time can affect the way things and remember. It also takes the five senses to help be successful in making memories, lastly, emotion plays a big role in these memories and will lay the groundwork for successful learning in the classroom. The last thing in the chapter was Vygotsky’s thoughts on self regulation. Self regulation is broke into three different parts that a teacher needs to understand. The first part is capacity, a teacher understand a students skills and potential as a learner as they plan to instruct this student. The next aspect is the plan, the plan is described as when the students stops and does not know what to do next. This part is crucial because it will tell a teacher a lot of what each student needs a teacher can accommodate their needs in the future. The last part is the monitor part were the teacher has to watch and learn how different students react in the plan part of self regulation. In conclusion this chapter was very informative and gave some names and research to many things that I do and have seen in a classroom setting. I felt that this information will help me better understand my students and use different techniques to reach the students. Again I felt that it pushed how different students react differently and that many different factors affect how students learn and retain information.

Chapter 5 Intrinsic motivation is the internal desire that an individual has. A person who experiences intrinsic motivation is inspired by themselves, they do things because they want to. In order for a parent of a teacher to motivate these students they have to provide opportunities and experiences for the child to understand, and use their knowledge. Extrinsic motivation is another word for bribing or rewarding a child for an activity that has been offered. Intrinsic motivation is very critical to learning for a student. We as teachers want our students to be lifelong learners who are independent. We as a nation are using more extrinsic ways to motivate students to learn, by using stickers for rewards, pizza parties, for doing what they should be doing anyway. Although teachers do this to with the best intentions for their students to complete a task, to me they have to do it anyways so why reward them for something that is expected of them. To me if they go above and beyond then reward them otherwise they know it is expected so just do it! I am not saying I disagree or think teachers that use a reward for motivation system are not good teacher; I just will not do it. However, as a mother I am a hypocrite because every time my two year old goes to the potty, I give him a sticker!! As children grow, they need to have space to do so. They have to have time and space for their minds to explore and grow for their personality which increases intrinsic motivation. If we as adults step in to early or make to hard of demands on these students then they have no desire to complete it on their own. If a child does not have a strong support system of parents or guardians they will not have a strong sense of intrinsic motivation. A child should only be sent to time out for a short period of time because of the message it sends to the child. The message that time out in the child’s room conveys to a child says “if you do not do what I want you to do, I do not want you around.” Not what I wanted to read, because I always send my child to his room. I will try not to do this as often any more. It is also important for adults to provide a calm, consistent, and supportive environment. Limits and boundaries are important for children. Curiosity also helps a child learn. When choosing reading books, you should keep in mind the child’s interest and background knowledge. If a child can relate to a book, odds are they will enjoy reading it. If a child is struggling you do not want a habituates pattern of bad behavior to occur or to continue occurring. We as teachers must help children learn how to replace the old behavior with new. The more a bad habit occurs and we do not stop it, the harder it is for the child to unlearn. When a child is learning something and they become frustrated emotions will most likely take control of their mind and memory.

Chapter 6 A child who is a struggling reader may not have a disability rather a difference. With a good teacher a child will progress. If a child finds that reading is too difficult he often times finds ways to do something to not focus on reading which interferes with the reading process. The reading recovery program relies heavily on the teachers’ ability to observe, and support changes from the students ‘progress over time. A good reading recovery teacher follows the six steps to understanding how children learn and base their instruction from that. They understand that no child learns like another child, and that every child has emotional and cognitive responses and reactions to learning. A good reading recovery teacher will know that if a child is an emotional mess, their cognitive thinking will not be performing at its best, and they know that steps need to be taken to improve the affective side of learning. Good teachers will teach and replace the old bad habits with new and productive ones in a safe and calming environment. Back again to what I stated before if a child relates learning with good experiences, they will increase their learning and want to do it. The more reading is practiced the more the child will understand problem solving and comprehend what they read. The interaction between the child and the teacher will determine the success or failure of the child. I love this because if a teacher does not show any compassion for teaching or for children, the child can sense that and will not care. If a child is struggling and not making any progress a good teacher will look at the big picture and find what part the student is finding to be difficult and work with that. In order for a child to read productively a child has to know how to look at print, know how words work, being able to separate chucks of sounds, and know how the direction of a book operates. Students have to be responsible for learning ways to remember what they learn. A child’s self esteem is also a key to teaching them to learn. A good teacher will work consistently on the affective and cognitive dimensions of learning. I feel that once a child is starting to grasp the concept it is important to allow them time to work on that concept to help increase their self esteem before rushing into a new concept.

Chapter 7 By the end of first grade children should be able to read and write with relative ease. These students are self regulated and learn from their own attempts. If a child is struggling at this point, they are usually falling into two groups. The first is the lowest achieving and the second is those who find it difficult to read and write usually classified at learning disabled. Learning disabled had many definitions and many people interpret this term differently. Usually children who are diagnosed with LD have a difficult time with perceptual, language or memory. Documents must be provided to show that a child is learning disabled to receive special education services. Some people believe that standardized testing improves teaching and learning; others do not and think that standardized tests have a negative impact on students’ learning. Many classroom teachers have changed the way they deliver instruction due to the standardized tests. These tests put a significant amount of pressure on the students to do well on these tests and can in the long run have an impact on the student’s health. Bobby’s story was so touching! I loved the fact that he was so mysterious to everyone, but it only took one real conversation of him being the one to talk for the teacher to finally start understanding him. He only wanted to have friends and to read and write, but with no direction of how to do this he acted out. I also love how the teacher continued to let him make a D instead of a B without stopping him in the mist of it to point out that he was wrong. Instead she let him tell her what he did wrong. The teacher allowed him to move and to verbally say the directions that he was making to form a letter. After booby became accustomed to writing the letter he did not need to say the direction to complete the letter. Vygotsky believed that this socially communicative speech helps develop a cognitive skill and then is transferred into inner speech. Inner speech is a required tool for individual problem solving, planning and self regulation. Tommy’s story was also very interesting to me. I like in the reading where is states that Tommy taught the teacher that any child can learn how to read but it has to be with the right instruction. I love this, and feel it to be true with any child and any lesson. If they require special instruction, it is our job as teachers and parents to figure out what it is they need and do it. The next story that I amazed me was the story of the teacher who was clever enough to be a part of the students’ world for just a second to understand what they were going through. The teacher took her time to understand that the students came from the ghetto and saw that the students felt they had no hope, so she worked hard to change that and created an environment that they could feel safe, and intelligent in. It was nothing over their heads, nor was it something that they felt was a waste of their time. The teacher took time to express the concepts of reading and writing through what the students found interesting, not just the simple rules of how to read print. These young boys learned to read through the writing process. Writing engages the cognitive operations and skills to keep the arousal, attention, sensory motor, language and memory processing there to become a good reader. And then I read on to find out 2 of them die, sad story but they did impact the teacher and the teacher did impact them.

Chapter 8 Teachers’ attention to the emotional side of learning does in fact help the emotional and intellectual growth of the students. A good teacher will not allow the students to feel that they can’t read or write, they will find a way for the students’ to feel a sense of accomplishment. Vygotsky believed that when a child has good self correction skills it is due to social function. He believed that though social interaction students learn how to learn and become good at self correction, and effective problem solvers. I feel this to be true also because children are a product of their environment. If they are raised in a clam environment they will teach themselves strategies to become effective problem solvers, whereas, a student who comes from a hostile screaming environment will be less likely to finish a task, and find ways to solve a problem. If a student feels safe enough to share with the teacher there is going to be a connection to the teacher. It shows support and ownership of your classroom if you are able to show the students that you care and want a social relationship with them, so they feel comfortable enough to learn in your environment. It is important that teachers have high expectations. And one should never believe that a student cannot learn to read or write because they can, it is up to us to find a way to teach them. It is also up to us to make the child feel important. We as teachers should feel responsible to make certain that students are achieving what we expect them to, we should not let them down, be organized and responsible, and we should provide encouragement to do the tasks that we ask of them. We should make the students feel important, and interested in the classroom. If a child feels successful, we can push them to be successful. When a child speaks we need to provide encouragement and listen; which will allow them to see respect and give respect. We have to hold these children accountable for what they do and what we expect from them. We also need to have communication with parents, support staff, and other classroom teachers. By doing this we will be using effective techniques for managing behavior. Teachers who analyze, critique, and reflect on their teaching are assuming responsibility for their development and their learning in the classroom. These teachers know that the more they do this the more they understand the learning and teaching process. A good teacher and parents do the following: build a relationship with each child, understand that each child is different, let the child know that you believe they will succeed, and allow the child to have ownership in the learning process.

Chapter 9 It book states that expert teachers are able to integrate new knowledge into existing knowledge to make judgments about what is relevant. I don’t believe that you have to be an expert teacher but a concerned one. It is clear to me that making connections between new and old material enables us to get the point across to the students. Teachers do not worry about the focus of this is the way I am suppose to be teaching, they care more about the ways that the students are understanding the material and doing it that way. Finding away to keep the students’ attention and keeping them engaged in the lesson is the key regardless of how you get the material to them. Everything depends on the quality of the context and the experiences that the teacher arranges. Each student has their own way to develop a system that works for them to read and write; with this the students possess a different level of skill to keep the process going. The teacher needs to help the student find this particular unique way to challenge the student to learn the material. Gong from familiar to the unfamiliar is an excellent way to make a child more comfortable and ready to learn rather than starting at the unfamiliar. A book introduction is just important to children as reading the book itself. As we introduce a book it is important to allow the students to walk through the pictures, and to anticipate what they feel may happen next. This will help the students be more knowledgeable of the text and may be able to make inference about the text because of the introduction. Without a proper book introduction students are less likely to have a clue as to what words will be used in the book and less likely to anticipate what might happen next. We as teachers have to assess children’s progress and we have to find what stands in their way and move it. We need to figure out when a child is properly processing the information and when they are not. We have to create opportunities for children to allow us to find what they are struggling with and incorporate what we know to find ways to teach each child.

Chapter 10 The brain is what forms our thoughts and out actions. It allows us to function on many levels and many different ways. A student’s brain can be rerouted to learn things thought to be not possible. Every child can learn to read and to write. Once again as Vygotsky believed the social relationships and interaction with others profoundly influence learning. Individuals have to live in social groups and what they learn does depend on what they observe and interpret. Emotion and thought go hand in hand and cannot be separated. Our learning depends on our ability to interpret and respond to emotional signals. What children learn depends on how their parents and teacher communicate verbally and nonverbally. The nature of the social relationships that children have with their parents, teachers, and caregivers also plays an important role in learning. Learning is a constructive individual process. Children are responsible for constructing a process to organize and generalize the learned concept. Once they do this they can relate this to previous knowledge. As teachers and parents we need to have our children and our students in situations where they are able to engage in problem solving activities, allow them to raise their own questions, construct their own concepts and take ownership of their ideas. Learning new information must occur within the context of what the child already knows and presented in a way the child can associate it with previously learned material. Learning is not a result of development, but development itself. A teacher must try to understand the child’s world and knowledge before they begin teaching! The environment that we create for our students to be in need to be challenging and provide moments for the students’ to explore the world around them. Often times if our expectations are not there we praise children for minor things or for things that are not real achievements. If teachers continue to praise when it is not needed or really deserved it will mean nothing or call into the question the child’s self worth. By doing this teachers are hindering rather than helping. If praises is given when it should be the child will feel motivated and earn their own self esteem. Teachers and parents need to learn and realize how important it is to support children’s self concepts and try to increase their self esteem. We need to motivate and support students and set and expect high expectations.