Yes, I'd love to try out that Read Naturally program.

As far as drawing, I've done a little with Mona Brookes book, Drawing With Children. The art in school tends to look like one grand project after another. No one really learns how to actually draw. Some of the ideas in the book looked very intriguing to me, but I have never gone full force with it. I was almost an art major so that part of my brain works perfectly fine (it's the math that I can't do.) Anyway, check it out. There are instructors trained in this method of teaching to children, but the nearest one to me was a bit of a hike. Still, I'm thinking of giving one of the kid's classes a try. It is designed, however, for you to do on your own or with you children.

-- SusanS - 27 Jun 2005

Okay, where'd that little mini font come from?

-- SusanS - 27 Jun 2005

I wasn't crazy about Mona Brookes, only because ... too much self-esteem! (And the whole book was just too confusing for me. I've got so much to keep track of as it is, I didn't want to wrestle with it.)

So don't listen to me; people love the book. (Brookes definitely follows my rule about books that stay in print forever.)

I love Betty Edwards, and had Christopher do one 'grid-drawing' of Homer Simpson that worked out great. (He wasn't too keen on it; the drawing worked out great.)

The great thing about grid drawing is that IT IS MATH.

Ed said as soon as he saw me do a grid drawing he understood how, back before photography, newspapers could get full drawings of trials out the next day.

Obviously, each artist took one square in the grid and drew that.

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Jun 2005

The mini font keeps coming from me.

Sigh.

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Jun 2005

I was going to add that Betty Edwards isn't a 'grid drawing' person. Her lessons are much more interesting and complex than that.

But I naturally started using grids from my first day in her class.

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Jun 2005

This looks like the Read Naturally web site -- right?

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Jun 2005

I agree about the self-esteem part. I think that's why I put it down after a while. I did like the idea of the basic shapes in every picture. Kinda' took some of the mystery out of it for my kids. It did get very complicated very fast.

Is Betty Edwards a course? That sounds interesting.

-- SusanS - 28 Jun 2005

Susan, Betty Edwards is 'drawing on the right side of the brain'. Very good stuff. (I learned how to draw from that book).

I have Mona Brookes' book -- never used it much though.

-- CarolynJohnston - 28 Jun 2005

Betty Edwards is completely and totally fantastic.

Yup, I had the exact same experience.

I had both books, but the one I used was Betty Edwards.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

Here are a couple of web pages on grid drawings:

http://drawsketch.about.com/od/drawinglessonsandtips/ss/griddrawing.htm

http://www.portrait-artist.org/basics/newbie3.html

I've been planning for a year to buy a "Durer" grid from ... what the heck is that company?

Sigh.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

Here it is!

The Durer grid.

I want one.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

Whew!!! I am trying to keep up with all the discussion.

I checked out Catherine's link to Read Naturally. That is the program. Now they have a home version which is great. Daniel's teacher gave me some stories to take home for the summer. The home version looks affordable and is something that would be great for the summer.

We definitely need an LD page or something like it since their needs are so much different from other kids. (BTW, what is ELA?)

The whole art and drawing issue came up during a discussion with some of Daniel's teacher. She commented that all of her ASD students draw the way Daniel draws. We started talking about lessons and went to the Far Conservatory website in Michigan. This is the philosophy of the Art Therapy. "Art therapy is the use of non-verbal expression with art materials to foster mental and physical health through self expression." And it hit us that non-verbal communication is one of Daniel's biggest weaknesses. However, his biggest weakness by far is fine motor skills. So, putting this together, we thought maybe learning to draw would help with both issues. That's why I was wondering if there is any research on the connection between drawing and improved non-verbal skills.

I do have Betty Edwards book. I did try to learn to draw. If I took a lot of time and concentration, I could come up with a serviceable picture, but I never enjoyed it enough to continue. It was just too hard for me. But thanks for all the recommendations. I will check them out.

-- AnneDwyer - 28 Jun 2005

'ELA' is the acronym people use here for "English Language Arts."

Do other states use it?

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

I'm very interested in LD.

I'm going to try to teach Andrew some math this summer...I don't have a clue how his mind works...but apart from that I'm fascinated by the question of how-and-why an LD child 'forgets' knowledge he used to have.

I mentioned that I know a child like this. He's a perfectly smart kid, and in 9th grade his parents had him tested and his math was at, I think, a 3rd or 4th grade level.

His mom said the problem isn't that he can't learn multiplication and division: he learns them...but then they're gone.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

Along with my 5 billion other things to-do, I REALLY need to finally take advantage of the free audit of a neuropsych course a friend of mine offered. (I'm not sure how much will be on LD, but I need it, anyway.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

I'll pull Anne's comment up front later on.

I always like to leave Carolyn's posts on top for awhile, since she writes at night, after she gets home from work.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

Also, in theory, I am going to DO SOME OTHER THINGS today.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

I still have to read this whole thread!

I was wondering if there is any research on the connection between drawing and improved non-verbal skills.

I am VERY interested in this question.

I have now had 3 different mathematicians (was it 3? I think so...) tell me that they deliberately learned to draw to improve their mathematics, specifically their spatial-visual ability.

It never occurred to me that drawing might be related to nonverbal IQ etc....but I'm convinced there's something important that drawing does for us.

The fact that ALL children draw NATURALLY tells me there's something important going on.

Meanwhile Christopher just had a screaming fit (I HATE YOU I HATE YOU) because I told him he can't watch TV first thing in the morning.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

And I am beginning to agree with Catherine on the whole flash card thing. They really need to do pencil and paper calculations. And it turns out, they like that stuff the best anyway!!!

WHY IS THAT???

I don't get it at all.

Flash cards are a time-honored teaching tradition (aren't they? am I wrong about that?) ... and I used them fairly religiously with Christopher, I think.

I think he improved, but he shot ahead once he was using paper and pencil worksheets.

I'm telling you: paper and pencil are the Ultimate Manipulative.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

They wanted to have a 'race' so I took out my mad minute sheets. These are 30 simple addition problems on one page and they have one minute to do it.

Kids LOVE races!

That was the biggest surprise to me in my Singapore Math class--not that the kids loved races, but that they didn't get upset about losing them.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

This is incredibly helpful.

I can tell I'm about to go buy that darn math games book...

If I don't re-tool and become a math teacher (NO! A MATH CONSULTANT!) I'm going to be asking myself WHY 10 years from now when I stare at my wall full of elementary math books.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

Oh yay.

Christopher just came down and said, 'I'm sorry for what I said.'

(He said, and I quote, I HATE YOU I HATE YOU.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

That LD here today, gone tomorrow has been a nightmare from day one for me. Sometimes you think they're jerking you around (they are children, after all) and then you realize that "it" is just gone for that day, or minute, or week. If, as parents, we're frustrated, think of how the rest of the world views those behaviors.

I have some theory that I play around with in my head that there are these three memory banks in my LD child's brain: short, middle, and long-term. Access is denied to each one until the bit of info is firmly planted in the other one. Sort of a Pilgrim's Progress kind of thing, only more harrowing. Short term is the most difficult especially if your kid has ADHD on top of it, which mine does. And that's just for fact-collecting. I have no ideas on higher-ordered thinking. Just when I give up on my son he makes some breakthrough that proves that he is still going forward.

But then my theory is blown to bits when he comes up to ask me about some obscure restaurant that we went to 2 years ago while coming back from vacation. He'll tell me the name and exactly the desert that we had. "Don't you remember, Mom?" Now, what exactly is that and how do I bottle it?

-- SusanS - 28 Jun 2005

I'm going to have to recruit my friend Lissa, with whom I go months being out of touch, to tell us something about this.

She's a psychoanalyst & educational psychologist who wrote a book with her son, David, who has dyslexia.

Reading David: A Mother and Son's Journey Through the Labyrinth of Dyslexia by Lissa Weinstein, Ph.D. &, I think, David Siever. (I hate the way Amazon leaves off the second author; my name isn't listed on SHADOW SYNDROMES. The beauty of Lissa's book is that she wrote it with her son.)

She worked so well with David that he probably no longer has dyslexia. His brain changed.

I'm going to have to rally John (Ratey) to the cause, too.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

But then my theory is blown to bits when he comes up to ask me about some obscure restaurant that we went to 2 years ago while coming back from vacation. He'll tell me the name and exactly the desert that we had. "Don't you remember, Mom?" Now, what exactly is that and how do I bottle it?

Andrew, who is autistic, has this kind of memory.

It is miraculous.

I'm supposed to know more about this than I do, btw...(here's where we see my own forgetting...)

I got a very interesting article on memory yesterday that I'll try to post about later--

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2005

Ben, who has some autism spectrum disorder, also has that kind of perfect-recall memory.

-- CarolynJohnston - 28 Jun 2005

Daniel, asd also, has perfect recall. For everything. He is a huge football fan. Any fact that you want to know about football, ask Daniel and he will know. Also, he can look at things just once and remember them.

The problem with becoming a math teacher is that you have to teach what they tell you to teach. How would you like to teach Trailblazers or Connected Math? Or the integrated high school math? I couldn't do it.

-- AnneDwyer - 28 Jun 2005

I don't know. Some of the math teachers in some schools have latitude to refuse to teach from something they don't like. InterestedTeacher is an example from the private school world -- but at least two of the public schools here have opted out of teaching Connected Math (thank goodness).

I don't know how much political capital it took though.

-- CarolynJohnston - 28 Jun 2005

I've thought about becoming a teacher.

I come from a long line of teachers, and my writing really is teaching.

For me, teaching is probably 'in the blood,' as Carolyn would say.

Ed's relatives talked me out of it. He has one who teaches math in Evanston, and another who teaches science.

They said teaching is a burn-out job, and I think that's probably true, given the way teaching is structured as a job & career.

They both pointed out that you don't see a lot of old teachers.

So.....if I'm going to do anything in the teaching realm I'm going to have to find my own way.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jul 2005