A popular way to teach vocabulary is to issue a list of words and then instruct kids to look them up, write them in a sentence, record the part of speech, and complete a variety of other related tasks.  Often we give them blanket tasks to perform for all the words even when the tasks can’t be applied to some of the words.  (Adjectives with very specific meanings like “indentured” that don’t really have antonyms, for example.  I heard a child suggest “someone who has to work for their own servant?”)

Kids mostly glaze over at this kind of assignment.  Particularly if it’s a regular part of their school or homework, they just slog through it.  Kids who can’t make sense of the definitions, and this is a lot of them, come away with at best a vague understanding of a few of the words, at worst thorough but inaccurate understandings.  Dictionary definitions are not written for people who have been reading for only a few years.  They’re written with great formality, and by formula, so as to be consistent.  Unfortunately the form renders them nearly unreadable to young readers.  (Not to mention that it exposes a great hypocrisy.  Kids are told not to use a word in its own definition, but the dictionary, it’s OK for the dictionary to do that (and don’t try to tell them that what we meant was they couldn’t use the exact form of the word in its definition; they know that’s not different).) The dictionary ends up feeling like just another club kids aren’t invited to be a part of.

But I digress.  I went looking for an online dictionary that might be written such that it conveyed for at least some words a degree of meaning that could be ascertained by a typical 10 year-old reader.  Here’s the best I found, Scholastic Word Wizard.  Pronunciations, definitions, synonyms, antonyms (where possible), and often a sample sentence.  The pages are mostly unencumbered by advertisements, which can’t be said for most online dictionaries I’ve found.  If you’ve found a better one, please let me know and I’ll pass it on.

In our local paper this morning, I spotted this article about a project that has families (and others) out mapping vernal pools for purposes of protecting critical breeding grounds for ecosystems.  Here’s the link; I’m sure it’s happening elsewhere as well…

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=256728&ac=PHnws

Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, by Stuart Brown, M.D., and Christopher Vaughan.

I haven’t read it yet, but it came out this week and it’s next up on my list. I can’t wait - what an amazing subtitle! Amazon has an excerpt posted. More soon…

I picked up a copy of a local parenting magazine yesterday and found this refreshingly unbiased article about the choice to school or homeschool.  The magazine is published in and about Maine, so the specifics about guidelines don’t apply elsewhere, but I wanted to pass along the article anyway.  I don’t often encounter a piece that’s laid out this way, with the tone suggesting that no educational option gets the distinction of being The Right Thing to Do. 

I’ve been doing fractions for several decades, and only yesterday did I find out how the numerator (the number on the top) and the denominator (the one on the bottom) got their names. I’m not sure that knowing why they’re called what they’re called will help too many folks who struggle with fractions, but I’m pretty sure it will help a few, so here goes. Read more

I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers (subtitle The Story of Success). I found myself reading it breathlessly - I couldn’t get to the next part fast enough.

If you haven’t read any of his work, here’s what it’s like: Gladwell takes a social phenomenon he’s noticed and offers up examples of it. (And it really seems as though that’s how it works for him - he’s walking around on the planet, observes something in society, thinks to himself “hey…” and then starts doing research on whatever he noticed.) The examples he uses are quite disparate. I’m used to reading work like this that’s all in one discipline, like books about education that are about a particular phenomenon and use several different child case studies to illustrate. Gladwell manages to pull from all sorts of different realms. Read more

I’ve been working with Matthew for a year and a half. He’s been homeschooling his whole life, and is a gifted writer and thinker. His mom asked me to work with him when he told her that he’d had enough of struggling with spelling, and wanted to catch up to his peers in math. We’ve been working at both for several months now. I recently suggested he try out a volunteer opportunity I’d heard about. He did, and when he came back to see me the next week, he said sheepishly “You’re going to regret getting me into this volunteering.” I laughed. Read more