The DHA-deprived rats also developed signs of resistance to insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar and regulates synaptic function in the brain. A closer look at the rats' brain tissue suggested that insulin had lost much of its power to influence the brain cells.

"Because insulin can penetrate the blood–brain barrier, the hormone may signal neurons to trigger reactions that disrupt learning and cause memory loss," Gomez-Pinilla said.

He suspects that fructose is the culprit behind the DHA-deficient rats' brain dysfunction. Eating too much fructose could block insulin's ability to regulate how cells use and store sugar for the energy required for processing thoughts and emotions.

"Insulin is important in the body for controlling blood sugar, but it may play a different role in the brain, where insulin appears to disturb memory and learning," he said. "Our study shows that a high-fructose diet harms the brain as well as the body. This is something new."

Gomez-Pinilla, a native of Chile and an exercise enthusiast who practices what he preaches, advises people to keep fructose intake to a minimum and swap sugary desserts for fresh berries and Greek yogurt, which he keeps within arm's reach in a small refrigerator in his office. An occasional bar of dark chocolate that hasn't been processed with a lot of extra sweetener is fine too, he said.

Still planning to throw caution to the wind and indulge in a hot-fudge sundae? Then also eat foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, like salmon, walnuts and flaxseeds, or take a daily DHA capsule. Gomez-Pinilla recommends one gram of DHA per day.

"Our findings suggest that consuming DHA regularly protects the brain against fructose's harmful effects," said Gomez-Pinilla. "It's like saving money in the bank. You want to build a reserve for your brain to tap when it requires extra fuel to fight off future diseases."

The UCLA study was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Gomez-Pinilla's lab will next examine the role of diet in recovery from brain trauma.

A corpus of nearly 150,000 maternal word-tokens used by 53 low-income mothers in 263 mother-child conversations in 5 settings (e.g., play, mealtime, and book readings) was studied. Ninety-nine percent of maternal lexical input consisted of the 3,000 most frequent words. Children's vocabulary performance in kindergarten and later in 2nd grade related more to the occurrence of sophisticated lexical items than to quantity of lexical input overall. Density of sophisticated words heard and the density with which such words were embedded in helpful or instructive interactions, at age 5 at home, independently predicted over a third of the variance in children's vocabulary performance in both kindergarten and 2nd grade. These two variables, with controls for maternal education, child nonverbal IQ, and amount of child's talk produced during the interactive settings, at age 5, predicted 50% of the variance in children's 2nd-grade vocabulary.

Hart and Risley’s Three Key Findings:<br />
<br />
1. The variation in children’s IQs and language abilities is relative to the amount parents speak to their children.<br />
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2. Children’s academic successes at ages nine and ten are attributable to the amount of talk they hear from birth to age three.<br />
<br />
3. Parents of advanced children talk significantly more to their children than parents of children who are not as advanced.<br />
<br />
* “With few exceptions, the more parents talked to their children, the faster the children’s vocabularies were growing and the higher the children’s IQ test scores at age three and later.”<br />
* “The data revealed that the most important aspect of children’s language experience is its amount.”<br />
<br />
<br />
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* “Differences in the amount of cumulative experience children had ... were strongly linked to differences at age three in children’s rates of vocabulary growth, vocabulary use, and general accomplishments and strongly linked to differences in school performance at age nine.”

Talking and listening to young children develops [social and literacy skills; reading aloud is a good way to practise.]. <br />
Babies love [parents' voices and reading aloud can calm during times of distress or unease. [Their favourite book or character can soothe your child and help build bonds.] <br />
Books [help children learn to express] thoughts and emotions. <br />
Stories [help overcome adult inhibitions about talking and listening to children, and provide topics.]<br />
Reading together gives babies and young children the chance to respond. A gurgle in anticipation of a favourite story ending, or a smile of enjoyment, shows [that even the youngest children like to communicate.]. <br />
Characters, words and sounds [in books can be talked about outside story] time. Books are an important source of new vocabulary....<br />
Reading aloud combines the benefits of talking, listening and storytelling...and helps to build the foundation for language development. <br />
[Most] brain development occurs in the first 3 years...

* The most avid reader reads in two days what the most reluctant reads in a year.<br />
* The amount that someone reads makes a difference not just to development of reading ability, but to the growth of vocabulary and general knowledge.What you know is directly related to the amount that you read. <br />
* Children with poor reading skills and habits are in danger of low educational attainment....<br />
Books are the source of most of the new words that children learn once they are in school. Of course, children learn new words from television and through conversation, but the research shows that the majority of new vocabulary comes from books. <br />
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Research has also shown that children who read more have wider vocabularies. This is not just to do with social advantage or intellectual ability - research has found that the beneficial relationship between reading ‘volume’ (amount) and vocabulary is not affected by a child’s intellectual ability.

In Clackmannanshire, Scotland, a seven-year study [linked phonics instruction with] more progress in reading and spelling...<br />
A 2005 Australian report, Teaching Reading, found: <br />
[Children during the early years of schooling link spoken language to written language by mastering the alphabetic code–the grapheme-phoneme correspondences that link words to pronunciation. These foundational, essential skills for the development of competence in reading, writing and spelling] must be taught explicitly, systematically, early and well. <br />
The US National Reading Panel report of 2006 said:<br />
Systematic synthetic phonics instruction had a positive and significant effect on disabled readers[, who improved substantially in ability to read words and gained significantly in ability to process text. Phonics instruction benefits students with learning disabilities, low-achieving students who are not disabled, and] low socio-economic status (SES) children’s alphabetic knowledge and word reading skills...

Part of the explanation can be traced to gender differences in the cognitive abilities of middle-school students. In late elementary school, females outperform males on several verbal skills tasks: verbal reasoning, verbal fluency, comprehension, and understanding logical relations (Hedges & Nowell, 1995). Males, on the other hand, outperform females on spatial skills tasks such as mental rotation, spatial perception, and spatial visualization (Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995). Males also perform better on mathematical achievement tests than females. However, gender differences do not apply to all aspects of mathematical skill. Males and females do equally well in basic math knowledge, and girls actually have better computational skills. [Tests of] mathematical reasoning and geometry shows the greatest difference (Fennema, Sowder, & Carpenter, 1999). Males also display greater confidence in their math skills[:] a strong predictor of math performance (Casey, Nuttall, & Pezaris, 2001).

Smith and Wilhelm (2002) identified a number of...research findings about boys, girls, and reading:<br />
* Girls comprehend fiction better than boys.<br />
* [Boys] prefer nonfiction, magazines, and newspapers.<br />
* [Boys] prefer short texts or texts with short sections.<br />
* Girls enjoy leisure reading more than boys.<br />
* [Boys] enjoy reading about sports and hobbies.<br />
* [Boys] enjoy fantasy and science fiction.<br />
* Graphic novels and comic books are more popular with boys...<br />
* Boys prefer visual texts.<br />
* Boys really do judge a book by its cover... <br />
[Wilhelm and Smith (Wilhelm, 2001) caution] that boys can be “more different than alike” (p. 60) and that depending on statistics alone can cause educators to “lose sight of individual differences”. Citing Millard (1997) and Telford (1999), Wilhelm and Smith [note] that “teachers tend to use conventional wisdom to reinforce traditional notions of gender and gender preferences, thereby denying boys wider choices and chances to expand their tastes”.

[A comprehensive review found that in 124 meta-analyses of over 7,000 studies of a wide range of cognitive, social, and personality variables, 78% showed small or close-to-zero effect sizes—i.e.,] few statistical differences between males and females in these studies (Hyde, 2005, 2006). For some variables, context affects whether gender differences were found. For example, when participants were told that gender differences had been found on previous administrations of a math test, males taking the test performed better than females. In contrast, when the participants were told the test was gender-fair, no gender differences were found (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999). Similar context effects have been found for both aggressive and helping behavior (Hyde, 2005). While it is important to understand how, when, and why gender differences exist, it is equally important to know when they do not exist so that neither girls nor boys are kept from developing their individual potentials.

there is work from a lot of other labs that suggests that as a function of growing up bilingual, babies are learning something more general.<br />
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FLATOW: So we should not try to teach them just one language. Having a bilingual family is an advantage.<br />
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Dr. WERKER: Well, I think that's what the work shows. And I don't think it's the case that if you are monolingual you should run out tomorrow and try to learn a new language so that you can grow - you know, so you can speak two languages to your child and give them the opportunity to grow up bilingual.<br />
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I think what the work shows is that if you - if in your home more than one languages is spoken, that that's something to be comfortable with, and it's an opportunity to provide your infant with both languages because there may be advantages that accrue.

beautiful site. small, thoughtful selection of poets, not necessarily known for children's poetry. good representation across gender, race, "classic"/modern <br />
"tour" links broken at visit 7/9; best bet the "All themes/forms/poets" indices.

rich!

overview of current anthologies, via Parents' Choice Foundation

[Research on the efficacy of poetry reading to help struggling readers found significant gains in the treatment group in the areas of words correct per minute, word recognition, and attitude toward academic reading, with a marginally significant gain in comprehension.]

Never teach a poem you don't like. <br />
Teach poems that you're not certain you understand. Teach poems about which you may have some real doubt. <br />
Teach poems that are new to you as well as your store of "old standards." <br />
Become a daily reader of poems, a habitue of used bookstores, a scavenger of old New Yorkers and other magazines that contain poetry <br />
Give students the freedom to dislike great poetry. <br />
[Books recommended for their suggestions for teaching poetry] include Louise Rosenblatt's seminal The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work; Patrick Dias and Michael Hayhoe's Developing Response to Poetry; and Stephen Dunning's Teaching Literature to Adolescents: Poetry. With the help of these books and poems gleaned from teachers' reading, any teacher can soon have several hundred poems worth reading and using in class. Here we offer some other suggestions....

You'd be surprised what kids can do even in 3rd grade. That first year, both my kids had "Jabberwocky" down in a single afternoon. They both (rather redundantly) recited it for the assembled school. The appeal there is the cool language; kids at that point are just reading, and the sounds of Lewis Carroll's imaginary words won them over. <br />
(Most of the rest of the class will be using Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" poems, if my experience is any indication.) <br />
My favorite children's poetry book, hands-down, is Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses." My grandmother gave it to me when I was little, and I still have the same copy with beautiful watercolor illustrations. <br />
I can still recite 'The Swing' by heart. (I've included a link to it below; it's a very brief, but sweet poem.) <br />
I also second Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends." A classic! <br />
http://www.lone-star.net/mall/literature/rls/TheSwing.htm <br />
"Kids Pick The Funniest Poems," ed. Bruce Lansky

Reading poetry is a wonderful tactic for helping struggling readers. Poetry gives the student easily managed small word portions that are fun and engaging.... <br />
Reading poetry on a regular basis helps children learn to read because they get to practice fluency, work on word recognition abilities, and build confidence. <br />
[Research on the efficacy of poetry reading to help struggling readers found significant gains in the treatment group in the areas of words correct per minute, word recognition, and attitude toward academic reading, with a marginally significant gain in comprehension.] <br />
Introducing students to poetry can actually enhance their performance on high-stakes tests...[Professor Nile Stanley, reading specialist and researcher, writes,] “Poetry helps students do well on high-stakes tests because it gives their minds an exhilarating workout. Poetry inspires students to read more, imagine more, think more, discuss more and write more.” All of which...will help them on tests.

Qualitative data analysis (manual and computer-assisted techniques) yielded categories and frequencies of response. Major findings included respondents': (a) belief that the teaching of poetry was important, (b) general disagreement for single, "correct" interpretations of poetry and general agreement in support of multiple interpretations, (c) general disagreement whether current curricular demands have prevented or impaired their teaching of poetry, (e) high frequency of reading poetry out loud in class, (f) emphasis on inclusion of award-winning poets in assignments, (g) instructional emphasis on variety and breadth in the selection of poets highlighted in a particular course, (h) goals for inclusion of poetry centered on pedagogical issues (e.g., frequent use, appreciation of craft; writing models; thematic uses) in language arts and across content areas.

WorldCat.org lets you search the collections of libraries in your community and thousands more around the world.... <br />
[Checking out materials] depends on whether you have an active membership with a library that owns the item, and whether that library's Web site permits remote checkout of an item. WorldCat.org lets you find an item of interest and then locate a library near you that owns it. Usually you will link directly to the item record on the library's Web site....You may be able to join a waiting list, reserve the item, check it out or even have it shipped or delivered.... <br />
Some WorldCat libraries make their specialized reference databases available on their Web sites, but only to library members. Your search on WorldCat.org may produce direct links to articles and other resources in these databases. To access these resources...you may first be required to log in with a valid library membership.

Both simple visual patterns and text activated a similar area of the visual cortex, while both written and spoken words caused activity in both the temporal and frontal language areas. [In this case, literacy seems to use brain structures] already specialized for specific tasks.
However the activity within the visual cortex was distributed differently in literate and non-literate individuals. [The visual word form area] was activated by text to the exclusion of other categories, such as images or patterns....Literate individuals [showed] reduced activity when looking at [faces, and increased activity when looking at text-like patterns—black-and-white images, horizontal checkerboards].
[Decreased activity in response to faces occurred in those who learned to read as children (one of the only differences between them and adult learners). T]he area that responds to faces normally expands with age, and learning to read may limit this expansion by putting nearby brain areas to other uses.

By 1920, a new and promising technology was emerging—the radio. In 1921 the first educational radio license was issued to Latter Day Saints University. Over the next two decades the federal government issued more than 200 radio broadcasting licenses to school boards, colleges, and universities. Pennsylvania State College started broadcasting courses over the radio in 1922 and in 1925 the State University of Iowa offered five radio courses for credit. However, this new technology failed to attract a large audience and distance learning by radio never became popular.
During the 1930s yet another major development in distance education appeared—the television. In 1934 the State University of Iowa began televised course broadcasts and in 1950 Iowa State launched the first educational television program. In 1964 PBS was created and educational television began its successful journey.

TL Russell: The best thing many of the newer technologies have going for them is the public's favorable perception, based on media-driven hype, and the fact that [proponents enjoy a clear majority over doubters]....
In the 1992 [announcement of] this listing, a number of issues were raised for further deliberation. The following questions are illustrative of the kinds of issues that must still be resolved among the distance education community:
1. Why are empirical research results ignored to the detriment of constituencies?
2. Why do professional educators embrace high-cost technologies when low-cost technologies work as well?
3. Why do administration and faculty—despite research results—perceive that distance education technologies, especially those without interaction, are inferior?
4. Why does interactivity achieve no better results in learning, when individual students and teachers believe that it does?
5. How can technology-based distance student dropout rates be improved?

Leptin is a hormone released from fat cells that acts on the brain to inhibit feeding.  Researchers [have] found that when leptin was delivered directly to the hippocampus in rats, the animals consumed less food and lost body weight.  Leptin delivered to this region of the brain also impaired the ability of the animals to learn about the...location of food.
[More research may identify] the role of cognitive processes in food intake and body [fat] control. “Feeding is a complex behavior...not always driven by hunger or need.  [We seek to understand] how learning and memory contribute to excessive food intake [and] obesity....[T]hese findings suggest that the brain receives and responds to signals about...the amount of body fat reserves, and in turn these signals influence what type of environmental cues we learn about.  When leptin signaling is impaired, which is common in obesity, cognitive processes that normally would help inhibit or decrease food intake may also be compromised.”

'Later that day...participants performed a new round of learning exercises. Those who remained awake throughout the day became worse at learning[;] those who napped did markedly better and actually improved in their capacity to learn....
'[S]leep researchers have established that fact-based memories are temporarily stored in the hippocampus before being sent to the brain's prefrontal cortex[:] "It's as though the e-mail inbox in your hippocampus is full and, until you sleep and clear out those fact e-mails, you're not going to receive any more mail. It's just going to bounce until you sleep and move it into another folder"....
'Electroencephalogram[s]...indicated that this refreshing of memory capacity is related to Stage 2 non-REM sleep, which takes place between deep sleep (non-REM) and the dream state known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM). [The purpose of this stage has been unclear, but the new results suggest] why humans spend at least half their sleeping hours in Stage 2, non-REM...'

'[I]nability to direct attention has important consequences when it comes to learning about uncertain events. [I]magine you are playing a guessing game: You have to choose...either A or B, one of which leads to a prize, and one of which does not. After a few rounds, you notice that about 3/4 of the time the prize is at A, and the rest of the time it is at B, so you decide to guess “A” 75% of the time and “B” 25% of the time. This is called probability matching[: the pattern most adults] adopt in these circumstances. [But] if the goal is to win the most prizes...you should always pick the more frequent outcome (or, in this case, always pick “A”).
'[Toddlers playing this game use] the maximization strategy almost immediately[; they may] lack the cognitive flexibility that would allow them to alternate between A and B. [U]nable to selectively switch between responses, they can only choose the most likely option. Fortunately for them, in this...scenario, maximization is the right choice.'

'[Obese children] studied were more likely than the general population to have learning difficulties. Further evidence for a connection between brain development and obesity is also being claimed by [Philippe Froguel, whose team] scanned the genomes of 16,000 adults and children, some obese and some not, for a different deletion on chromosome 16 which had previously been linked to learning difficulties. Every single adult over 30 and half the children with this mutation – 19 in total – were obese...Although in both studies, the deletions discovered are rare, and so cannot account for all cases of obesity...the mutations will point to genes and biological pathways that tend to go awry in obesity, offering potential targets for drug therapies. "Just because something is not common does not mean that the discovery you make from it won't be applicable to lots of people," says Andrew Hattersley, a geneticist at Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, UK, who was not involved in either study.'

'Don't take criticism as a punch to the gut—most likely it isn't personal. Strive to do your best work[;] it isn't your show/game. You are providing a service. If a director wants something, and you think it’s a bad decision or a problem, make it known to your supervisor or animation director, but don't fight it. If they elect to follow your opinion great, you’re a hero for pointing it out. If not don't latch on like a pit bull...do the best you can given the constraints...[Y]ou are showing that you recognize issues, care about your work, and confront them head on, but are still a team player....[E]veryone seems to have their own flavor of "How to do it?" What I...tell my students is, [whoever] is currently teaching you is who you listen to....When you move on from them, do the same with the next teacher. "But everyone does it differently, won't it get confusing?" [N]o, what you are doing is focusing on what you have to learn...not looking down the road.'

'Christopher Bird of Cambridge University...exposed the rooks to a 6-inch-tall clear plastic tube containing water, with a worm on its surface. The birds used the stone-dropping trick spontaneously and appeared to estimate how many stones they would need. They learned quickly that larger stones work better. In an accompanying commentary, Alex Taylor and Russell Gray of the University of Auckland...noted that in an earlier experiment, the same birds had dropped a single stone into a tube to get food released at the bottom. So maybe they were just following that strategy again when they saw the tube in the new experiment, the scientists suggested. But Bird's paper argued there's more to it: The rooks dropped multiple stones rather than just one before reaching for the worm, and they reached for it at the top of the tube rather than checking the bottom. The researchers also said Aesop's crow might have actually been a rook, since both kinds of birds were called crows in the past.'