Children

Some comments on the commonalities between the Suzuki approach to learning music and the Montessori approach to education.

My sons have both been in Montessori since they were three (they are now 8 and nearly 11, respectively). My elder son started learning the violin from a Suzuki teacher when he was around five, and now learns the piano (again, from a Suzuki teacher). My younger son has been learning the violin for the last two years. Over the years I have been somewhat intrigued by the number of parents who, like me, are both Montessori and Suzuki parents.

It is perhaps indicative that we talk about Montessori parents, and Suzuki parents. It is our children who are in these systems, why do we include the parents? I imagine it’s because both philosophies require the parent to be involved, to understand what’s involved in the approach, and do their part.

Why do these approaches go hand-in-hand? Well, they share a number of similarities.

Both Suzuki and Montessori respect the child, and feel that learning must be approached from where the child is, not where we think they should be.

Both believe in leading by example — not by telling (haranguing) the child to do what the adult thinks best, but by providing an example of the behavior the adult wants the child to copy.

Both provide the child with an orderliness that permits the child to learn. In the Montessori classroom this is expressed in the orderliness of the materials — everything has a place, every task has a sequence. In Suzuki, this is expressed through the set order of music pieces expressly designed to take the student step by step through the techniques necessary to learn the relevant skills.

Both philosophies stress the importance of providing the right environment to nurture the child’s developing character and self-image. Both feel that individuals learn at their own pace, not according to some standard drawn up by educators. In both methods, age does not determine what work the child is doing — they do what is appropriate for their skill level, not their age.

Both Montessori and Suzuki appreciate that repetition is the key to mastery.

Both philosophies believe that education is about bringing out potential, rather than “instructing”. The adult is a director rather than a dictator.

Many parents enrol their children in Montessori preschools because they are an "educational" way of getting childminding - if you're going to put your child in a creche, why not put them in a preschool instead - or because they want to give their child a "head start" on education. Quality preschool education is a rarity and Montessori are certainly leaders in the field.

My own children have been involved with Montessori since they were three.Like many parents, I came to Montessori education more by accident than design, and my belief in the system has grown over the years. When a Montessori primary (elementary) class opened in time for my older child, I was very pleased.

It is probably fair to say that parents send their children to a Montessori preschool because they provide a quality preschool education, but they send their children to Montessori schools because they have become converts to the Montessori approach and/or because they have deep dissatisfactions with the traditional education system.

I admit freely that both are true of me. Would I have been so keen on sending my son to a Montessori primary if I had been happier at school myself (rather than bored out of my tree)? But my sons' involvement with Montessori has only deepened my commitment and appreciation of its approach.

It is interesting that Montessori education seems particularly attractive to parents of sons. The preponderance of boys in my sons' classes may well be an anomaly, but I observe that those children who come to us at an older age, having had problems in mainstream (traditional) schools, are invariably boys. It is a truism today that the traditional education system favors girls. The Montessori environment and program doesn't penalize boys for their difficulty in sitting still; their later maturing; their need to touch and manipulate objects. The Montessori program is based around the individual. Thus, for example, the student determines when they'll do maths and for how long. This doesn't mean the child can choose never to do maths, merely that the child has control within the limits set by the teacher.

One of the most fundamental, and misunderstood, tenet of the Montessori approach is encapsulated in the phrase "Follow the child".

"Follow the child" does not mean let the child do what he wants. It is simply an acknowledgment that the child has her own pattern - that we need to take into account where the child is at, rather than impose our idea of what the child should learn now. Montessori saw the child's development as passing through four developmental phases, with a pattern of intense growth reaching a peak and then declining, within each phase.

Each of these developmental phases is marked by:

• a specific developmental goal
• a readily identifiable direction to reach that goal
• specific sensitivities that facilitate reaching that goal

This scenario is the basis for the Montessori structure of 3-6, 6-9, 9-12 classes. The age-bands reflect the developmental phases, and the program and environment provided for that phase reflects the sensitivities characteristic of that phase.

The color of these triangles reflects the similarity between, for example, the developmental phases at 0-6 and 12-18, a similarity that has been remarked on by many parents and teachers of adolescents.

Maria Montessori was ahead of her time in recognizing that babies were active learners, and it is also instructive to note that she saw development continuing to age 24. However, for the most part, Montessori education has concentrated on the periods 3-6 (preschool) and 6-12, with particular emphasis on the preschool years. This emphasis no doubt reflects the much greater void that existed in preschool education.

It is also partly an historical artifact - when Montessori decided (on the basis of her amazing success with so-called "uneducable" children) to try her methods on normal children, she had no opportunity to work with school-age children, as they were already in school. However, an opportunity arose to have custody of children below school age in a reclaimed public-housing project in Rome. Hence, quite by accident, Montessori's first successes were with preschool children. The success of her methods was of course, also much more obvious with this group of children, since few children below the age of six received any sort of education.

You can now read Maria Montessori's 1909 book online. There is an illustrated edition available at http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/montessori/method/method.html

Introduction

In 1997, the U.S. Congress asked the Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health, in consultation with the Secretary of Education, to convene a national panel to assess the effectiveness of different approaches used to teach children to read. For over two years, the National Reading Panel reviewed research-based knowledge on reading instruction and held open panel meetings in Washington, DC, and regional meetings across the United States. On April 13, 2000, the NRP concluded its work and submitted "The Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read."

Below are edited excerpts from the report, regarding their findings on a variety of reading instruction strategies.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemes are the smallest units composing spoken language. For example, the words “go” and “she” each consist of two sounds or phonemes. Instruction in phonemic awareness (PA) involves teaching children to focus on and manipulate phonemes in spoken syllables and words. PA instruction should not be confused with phonics instruction (see below), or with auditory discrimination, which refers to the ability to recognize whether two spoken words are the same or different.

The evidence seems very clear that PA training caused improvement in students’ phonemic awareness, reading, and spelling. PA instruction also helped normally achieving children learn to spell, but was not effective for improving spelling in disabled readers.

The characteristics of PA training found to be most effective in enhancing PA, reading, and spelling skills included:

• explicitly and systematically teaching children to manipulate phonemes with letters,
• focusing the instruction on one or two types of phoneme manipulations rather than multiple types,
• teaching children in small groups.

It is important to note that PA instruction is a component of a successful reading program, not a complete reading program.

It is also important to note that there are many ways to teach PA effectively, and that the motivation of both students and their teachers is a critical ingredient of success.

Phonics instruction

Phonics instruction is a way of teaching reading that stresses the acquisition of letter-sound correspondences and their use in reading and spelling. The primary focus of phonics instruction is to help beginning readers understand how letters are linked to sounds (phonemes) to form letter-sound correspondences and spelling patterns and to help them learn how to apply this knowledge in their reading. Phonics instruction may be provided systematically or incidentally. A variety of systematic approaches are listed below. In incidental phonics instruction, the teacher simply highlights particular elements opportunistically when they appear in text.

The ability to read and spell words was enhanced in kindergartners who received systematic beginning phonics instruction. First graders who were taught phonics systematically were better able to decode and spell, and they showed significant improvement in their ability to comprehend text. Older children receiving phonics instruction were better able to decode and spell words and to read text orally, but their comprehension of text was not significantly improved.

Systematic synthetic phonics instruction also had a positive and significant effect on disabled readers’ reading skills. Additionally, systematic synthetic phonics instruction was significantly more effective in improving low socioeconomic status children’s alphabetic knowledge and word reading skills than instructional approaches that were less focused on these initial reading skills.

Across all grade levels, systematic phonics instruction improved the ability of good readers to spell. The impact was strongest for kindergartners and decreased in later grades. For poor readers, the impact of phonics instruction on spelling was small.

Although conventional wisdom has suggested that kindergarten students might not be ready for phonics instruction, this assumption was not supported by the data. The effects of systematic early phonics instruction were significant and substantial in kindergarten and the 1st grade, indicating that systematic phonics programs should be implemented at those age and grade levels.

While the findings provide converging evidence that explicit, systematic phonics instruction is a valuable and essential part of a successful classroom reading program, there is a need to be cautious in giving a blanket endorsement of all kinds of phonics instruction. In particular, to be able to make use of letter-sound information, children need phonemic awareness. Programs that focus too much on the teaching of letter-sound relations and not enough on putting them to use are unlikely to be very effective. Systematic phonics instruction is only one component—albeit a necessary component—of a total reading program; systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction in phonemic awareness, fluency, and comprehension strategies to create a complete reading program. Unfortunately, there is as yet insufficient research to tell us exactly how phonics instruction can be most effectively incorporated into a successful reading program.

Fluency

Fluency is one of several critical factors necessary for reading comprehension. Despite its importance as a component of skilled reading, fluency is often neglected in the classroom. Reading practice is generally recognized as an important contributor to fluency. Two instructional approaches, each of which has several variations, have typically been used to teach reading fluency:

• guided repeated oral reading - encourages students to read passages orally with systematic and explicit guidance and feedback from the teacher
• independent silent reading - encourages students to read silently on their own, inside and outside the classroom, with minimal guidance or feedback

These results apply to all students—good readers as well as those experiencing reading difficulties. Nevertheless, there were important gaps in the research. In particular, the Panel could find no multiyear studies providing information on the relationship between guided oral reading and the emergence of fluency.

Independent Silent Reading

There has been widespread agreement that encouraging students to engage in wide, independent, silent reading increases reading achievement. Literally hundreds of correlational studies find that the best readers read the most and that poor readers read the least. These correlational studies suggest that the more that children read, the better their fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. However, these findings are correlational in nature, and correlation does not imply causation.

Unfortunately only 14 of the studies that examined the effect of independent silent reading on reading achievement could meet the NRP research review methodology criteria, and these studies varied widely in their methodological quality and the reading outcome variables measured. Thus, a meta-analysis could not be conducted. Rather, the 14 studies were examined individually and in detail to identify converging trends and findings in the data.

In other words, even though encouraging students to read more is intuitively appealing, there is still not sufficient research evidence obtained from studies of high methodological quality to support the idea that such efforts reliably increase how much students read or that such programs result in improved reading skills.

The available data do suggest that independent silent reading is not an effective practice when used as the only type of reading instruction to develop fluency and other reading skills, particularly with students who have not yet developed critical alphabetic and word reading skills.

Comprehension

Vocabulary Instruction

The importance of vocabulary knowledge has long been recognized in the development of reading skills. For various reasons, a formal meta-analysis could not be conducted. Instead the vocabulary instruction database was reviewed for trends across studies. Fifty studies dating from 1979 to the present were reviewed in detail. There were 21 different methods represented in these studies.

The studies reviewed suggest that vocabulary instruction does lead to gains in comprehension, but that methods must be appropriate to the age and ability of the reader.

The following approaches appeared to be helpful:

• learning words before reading a text
• techniques such as task restructuring and repeated exposure (including having the student encounter words in various contexts)
• substituting easy words for more difficult words can assist low-achieving students.
• use of computers in vocabulary instruction was found to be more effective than some traditional methods in a few studies
• vocabulary also can be learned incidentally in the context of storybook reading or in listening to others

The Panel concluded that:

• vocabulary should be taught both directly and indirectly
• repetition and multiple exposures to vocabulary items are important
• learning in rich contexts, incidental learning, and use of computer technology all enhance the acquisition of vocabulary
• direct instruction should include task restructuring as necessary and should actively engage the student
• dependence on a single vocabulary instruction method will not result in optimal learning.

They also concluded that, while much is known about the importance of vocabulary to success in reading, there is little research on the best methods or combinations of methods of vocabulary instruction and the measurement of vocabulary growth and its relation to instruction methods.

Text Comprehension Instruction

Comprehension is defined as “intentional thinking during which meaning is constructed through interactions between text and reader” (Harris & Hodges, 1995). Thus, readers derive meaning from text when they engage in intentional, problem solving thinking processes. The data suggest that text comprehension is enhanced when readers actively relate the ideas represented in print to their own knowledge and experiences and construct mental representations in memory.

In its review, the Panel identified 16 categories of text comprehension instruction of which 7 appear to have a solid scientific basis for concluding that these types of instruction improve comprehension in non-impaired readers. Some of these types of instruction are helpful when used alone, but many are more effective when used as part of a multiple-strategy method. The types of instruction are:

• Comprehension monitoring, where readers learn how to be aware of their understanding of the material;
• Cooperative learning, where students learn reading strategies together;
• Use of graphic and semantic organizers (including story maps), where readers make graphic representations of the material to assist comprehension;
• Question answering, where readers answer questions posed by the teacher and receive immediate feedback;
• Question generation, where readers ask themselves questions about various aspects of the story;
• Story structure, where students are taught to use the structure of the story as a means of helping them recall story content in order to answer questions about what they have read; and
• Summarization, where readers are taught to integrate ideas and generalize from the text information.

In general, the evidence suggests that teaching a combination of reading comprehension techniques is the most effective. When students use them appropriately, they assist in recall, question answering, question generation, and summarization of texts. When used in combination, these techniques can improve results in standardized comprehension tests.

Nevertheless, some questions remain unanswered. More information is needed on ways to teach teachers how to use such proven comprehension strategies. The literature also suggests that teaching comprehension in the context of specific academic areas—for example, social studies—can be effective. If this is true of other subject areas, then it might be efficient to teach comprehension as a skill in content areas.

Questions remain as to which strategies are most effective for which age groups. More research is necessary to determine whether the techniques apply to all types of text genres, including narrative and expository texts, and whether the level of difficulty of the texts has an impact on the effectiveness of the strategies. Finally, it is critically important to know what teacher characteristics influence successful instruction of reading comprehension.

Nowadays every school has to have computers. I don't refer to legal requirementbut to perception. Schools are judged on how many computers they have. It would be more to the point if they were judged on their computer-savvy.

I'm a fan of computers; my computer is a vital part of my work. I believe computer literacy is as important for our children to acquire as any other "basic skill". But I'm not a fan of the wholesale introduction of computers into our schools, particularly the junior ones. How many computers a school has is not the issue - the issue is, how do they use them?

In many cases, the answer is: poorly.

The reasons are simple enough. Foremost, the teachers have insufficient training and experience with computers. Relatedly, computers are not yet an integrated part of the school curriculum, and every school and teacher re-invents the wheel, trying to find good software, trying to work out how to fit it into the classroom curriculum, trying to work out schedules to make sure every student gets a fair go, struggling with the lack of technical support. And of course, in many cases (perhaps most), the computers are old, with the associated problems of being more likely to have technical problems, being slow, limited in memory, incompatible with current software, and so on.

The most important problems schools have with computers:

• lack of financial resources (to buy enough computers, up-to-date computers, enough printers and other peripherals, licenses for good software, technical support)
• the inability of teachers to know how to use the computers effectively
• difficulty in integrating computers into the school / classroom curriculum (problems of use, of scheduling, of time)

Using computers effectively is much more than simply being able to type an essay or produce a graph. Parents and educators who deplore the obsession with computers in schools see computers as eroding children's basic skills and knowledge, because they only see computers being used as copy-and-paste and making-it-pretty devices. But computers have potential far beyond that.

Computers can be used to help:

• extend the scope of searches
• retrieve precisely targeted data with greater speed and accuracy
• increase the amount of data held ready for use
• sift relevant data from irrelevant
• turn data into information

The true value of a computer isn't seen until the user can use it not only as a presentation tool (for making work attractive), and as a productivity tool (for producing work more quickly, effectively, thoroughly), but also as a cognitive tool.

Using computers as cognitive tools

A cognitive tool helps you think.

Many people thought computers would revolutionize education by providing individual instruction in the form of tutorials. In particular, as a means of drilling students. Drilling can be helpful to overlearn a skill to achieve automaticity, but it doesn’t help transfer to meaningful problems. That is, you can learn a skill, you can rote-learn facts, but drilling doesn't help meaningful learning - it doesn't teach understanding.

Although computer tutorials have become somewhat more sophisticated, they still only present a single interpretation of the world - they don’t allow students to find their own meaning. They don't teach students to reflect on and analyze their own performance.

“I do not believe that students learn from computers or teachers — which has been a traditional assumption of most schooling. Rather, students learn from thinking in meaningful ways. Thinking is engaged by activities, which can be fostered by computers or teachers.” (Jonassen, p4)

So, the computer itself isn't the issue - the issue, as always, is what you do with it. For example, when the Web is simply used as a source of material that can be downloaded and pasted without thought, then no, it is not of value. But when the learner searches the Web, evaluates the information, finds the gold in the dross, uses that to construct a knowledge base, to develop meaning, then yes, it is a valuable resource.

Computers can support meaningful learning by

• reducing time spent on mechanical tasks such as rewriting, producing graphs, etc
• helping find information
• helping organize information
• making it easier to share information and ideas with others

The Suggested Benefits of Homework

The most obvious presumed benefit of homework is, of course, that it will improve students' understanding and retention of the material covered. However, partly because this (most measurable) benefit has not been consistently demonstrated, it has also been assumed that homework has less direct benefits:

• improving study skills, especially time management
• teaching students that learning can take place outside the classroom
• involving parents
• promoting responsibility and self-discipline

The Possible Negative Effects of Homework

Probably the most obvious negative effect is the stress homework can produce in both student and parent. Homework can be a major battleground between parent and child, and in such cases, it's hard to argue that it's worth it. There are other potential problems with homework:

• homework demands can limit the time available to spend on other beneficial activities, such as sport and community involvement
• too much homework can lead to students losing interest in the subject, or even in learning
• parents can confuse students by using teaching methods different from those of their teachers
• homework can widen social inequalities
• homework may encourage cheating

What Research Tells Us

Because homework has been a difficult variable to study directly, uncontaminated by other variables, research has produced mixed and inconclusive results. However, it does seem that the weight of the evidence is in favor of homework. According to Cooper's much-cited review of homework studies, there have been 20 studies since 1962 that compared the achievement of students who receive homework with students given no homework. Of these, 14 showed a benefit from doing homework, and six didn't.

The clearest point is the striking influence of age. There seems, from these studies, to be a clear and significant benefit to doing homework for high school students. Students 11 to 13 years of age also showed a clear benefit, but it was much smaller. Students below this age showed no benefit.

In 50 studies, time students reported spending on homework was correlated with their achievement. 43 of the 50 studies showed that students who did more homework achieved more; only 7 studies showed the opposite. The effect was greatest for the high school students and, again, didn't really exist for the elementary school students.For the students in the middle age range (11-13 years), more time spent on homework was associated with higher levels of achievement only up to one to two hours; more than this didn't lead to any more improvement.

TIMSS, however, found little correlation between amount of homework and levels of achievement in mathematics. While they did find that, on average, students who reported spending less than an hour a day on homework had lower average science achievement than classmates who reported more out-of-school study time, spending a lot of time studying was not necessarily associated with higher achievement. Students who reported spending between one and three hours a day on out-of-school study had average achievement that was as high as or higher than that of students who reported doing more than three hours a day.

Two British studies found that while homework in secondary schools produced better exam results, the influence was relatively small. Students who spent seven hours a week or more on a subject achieved about a third of an A level grade better than students of the same gender and ability who spent less than two hours a week.

How much homework is 'right'?

A survey conducted by the United States Bureau of the Census (1984) found that public elementary school students reported spending an average of 4.9 hours and private school elementary students 5.5 hours a week on homework. Public high school students reported doing 6.5 hours and private school students 14.2 hours. Recent research studies by the Brown Center on Education Policy concluded that the majority of U.S. students (83% of nine-year-olds; 66% of thirteen-year-olds; 65% of seventeen-year-olds) spend less than an hour a day on homework, and this has held true for most of the past 50 years. In the last 20 years, homework has increased only in the lower grade levels, where it least matters (and indeed, may be counterproductive).

In America, NEA and the National PTA recommendations are in line with those suggested by Harris Cooper: 10 to 20 minutes per night in the first grade, and an additional 10 minutes per grade level thereafter (giving 2 hours for 12th grade).

In Britain, the Government has laid down guidelines, recommending that children as young as five should do up to an hour a week of homework on reading, spelling and numbers, rising to 1.5 hours per week for 8-9 year olds, and 30 minutes a day for 10-11 year olds. The primary motivation for the Government policy on this seems to be a hope that this will reduce the time children spend watching TV, and, presumably, instill good study habits.

TIMSS found that students on average across all the TIMSS 1999 countries spent one hour per day doing science homework, and 2.8 hours a day on all homework (the United States was below this level). On average across all countries, 36% of students reported spending one hour or more per day doing science homework.

There is some evidence that the relationship between time on homework and academic achievement may be curvilinear: pupils doing either very little or a great deal of homework tend to perform less well at school than those doing 'moderate' amounts. Presumably the association between lots of homework and poorer performance occurs because hard work is not the only factor to consider in performance -- ability and strategic skills count for a great deal, and it is likely that many very hard-working students work so long because they lack the skills to work more effectively.

What makes homework effective?

By which I mean, what factors distinguish "good", i.e. useful, homework, from less productive (and even counterproductive) homework. This is the $64,000 question, and, unfortunately, research can tell us very little about it.

Cooper did conclude that there is considerable evidence that homework results in better achievement if material is distributed across several assignments rather than concentrated only on material covered in class that day.

There is no evidence that parental involvement helps, although it may well be that parental involvement can help, if done appropriately. Unfortunately, parental involvement can often be inappropriate.

Can students really watch TV or listen to music while doing homework?

A burning question for many parents!

A British study found that watching TV while doing homework was associated with poorer quality of work and more time spent. However, simply listening to the soundtrack did not affect the quality of the work or time spent. It's assumed that it's the constant task-switching caused by looking back and forth between the screen and the work that causes the negative effect. From this, it would also seem that listening to the radio should not be a problem. It's worth noting that we become less able to multi-task as we age, and that parents' objections to their children's study environment probably reflect their awareness that they themselves would find it difficult to concentrate in such circumstances.

Resources

You can read the TIMSS report at:
https://timss.bc.edu/timss1999b/sciencebench_report/t99bscience_chap_4_2.html

https://timss.bc.edu/timss1999b/mathbench_report/t99bmath_chap_6_6.html

You can read an article on the motivational benefits of homework at:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NQM/is_3_43/ai_n6361599

And there are more articles about homework, with more details of Cooper's review at:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/03/980304073520.htm

https://www.ericdigests.org/pre-921/homework.htm

And a British review of homework research is available at:
https://www.nfer.ac.uk/nfer/publications/HWK01/HWK01_home.cfm?publicationID=501&title=Homework:%20a%20review%20of%20recent%20research

 

April 2012: my update to this article.

We all know that lack of sleep makes us more prone to attentional failures, more likely to make mistakes, makes new information harder to learn, old information harder to retrieve ... We all know that, right? And yet, so many of us still go to bed too late to get the sleep we need to function well. Of course, some of us go to sleep early enough, we just can’t get to sleep fast enough, or are prone to waking in the night. (Personally, I can count the times I’ve slept through the night without waking in the last fifteen years on my fingers).

I talk about the effect of sleep on memory elsewhere; I want to talk here about a sleep problem that we don’t tend to think about so much — the sleep deficit children are running.

A survey commissioned by the National Sleep Foundation found that 3-to-6-year-olds in the U.S. get about 10.4 hours sleep nightly, while experts recommend 11 to 13 hours. 1st graders to 5th graders who should be getting 10 to 11 hours are averaging just 9.5 hours.

And a study of middle-school children (11 to 14 year olds) found a direct correlation between sleep deprivation and depression, lower self-esteem, and lower grades. "The fewer hours of sleep that children got, the more depressed they were, the higher number of depressive symptoms [they had], and the lower their self-esteem and the lower their grades."

The second largest growth spurt occurs during these years (usually 10-14 for girls; 11-16 for boys), so this is a time when a lot of sleep is needed. But it’s also a time when children become more capable and more independent; when they’re likely to start taking on a lot more activities, work harder and longer, and are monitored less by their parents and caregivers. So ... it’s not surprising, when we stop and think about it, that a lot of these children are starting to pick up the bad habits of their parents — not getting enough sleep.

Which also points, in part, to the solution: if you’re a parent, remember that your children are, as always, modeling themselves on you. And sleep habits usually reflect a household pattern. If you’re a teacher, remember you need to educate the family, not just the child.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified adolescents and young adults (ages 12 to 25 years) as a population at high risk for problem sleepiness based on "evidence that the prevalence of problem sleepiness is high and increasing with particularly serious consequences."

Sleep disturbance in infants and young children has also been found to be associated with lower cognitive performance. Previous studies have looked at the severe end of the spectrum of sleep disorders — obstructive sleep apnea. More alarmingly, a new study of 205 5-year-old children found even mild sleep-disordered breathing symptoms (frequent snoring, loud or noisy breathing during sleep) were associated with poorer executive function and memory skills and lower general intelligence.

Before you panic, please note that some 30% of the participants had SBD symptoms, so it’s hardly uncommon (although there may have been a bias towards children with these symptoms; it does seem surprisingly high). You might also like to note that I personally had a blocked nose my entire childhood (always breathed through my mouth, and yes, of course I snored) and it didn’t stop me being top of the class, so ...

Nor is the research yet developed enough to know precisely what the connection is between SBD and cognitive impairment. However, it does seem that, if something can be done about the problem, it is probably worth doing (in my case, taking me off dairy would probably have fixed the problem! but of course noone had any idea of such factors back then).

Here’s a few links that may be of interest to parents and teachers:

The NSF Sleep poll
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/professionals/sleep-americar-polls/2013…

a look at the school start times debate (I find this fairly amazing actually, because here in New Zealand, our children usually start school around 9am; the thought of kids starting school at 7.30 sends me into a spin!)
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/school-start-time-and-sleep

The National Sleep Foundation also has a site for children who want to learn about sleep and healthy sleep habits: www.SleepforKids.org For children from 7 up; with educational games and activities, as well as a downloadable copy of NSF’s new Sleep Diary designed especially for children.

This article originally appeared in the November 2004 newsletter.

Most people believe that an adult learner can't hope to replicate the fluency of someone who learned another language in childhood. And certainly there is research to support this. However, people tend to confuse these findings - that the age of acquisition affects your representation of grammar - with the idea that children can learn words vastly quicker than adults. This is not true. Adults have a number of advantages over children:

• they usually have more and practiced strategies available to them,
• they have a wider vocabulary in their native language (which makes it easier to find similarities between languages),
• they have (for a while) a greater working memory capacity,
• they are more likely to have experience of other languages, and of language learning.

For all these reasons, adults can usually learn more words faster than children.

Part of the reason for the belief is that children seem to learn their native language "by magic". While there is certainly something magical about the way they pick up grammar, their learning of new words doesn't come under the same category. In fact, children are quite slow at learning new words, learning on average:

12 - 16 months: 0.3 words/day

16 - 23 months: 0.8 words/day

23 - 30 months: 1.6 words/day

30 months - 6 years: 3.6 words/day

6 - 8 years: 6.6 words/day

8 - 10 years: 12.1 words/day

(from Paul Bloom's (2000) "How Children Learn the Meanings of Words")

Original language can be completely forgotten

The following research is also interesting, since it exposes another cherished myth. A study₁ of adults who were born in Korea but adopted by French families in childhood, found not only that they had no conscious memory of Korean, but that imaging showed no difference in brain activation when they heard Korean compared to any other unknown foreign language (activation patterns were different when they heard French).

I don't, however, know the age of the children when they were adopted. It would also be interesting to know whether such children would learn their original language with greater facility - this would imply that present imaging techniques are insufficiently subtle to pick up some differences.