Thursday Thirteen #14

Thirteen Things about Right Brain Dominance
I attended a homeschooling conference recently and learned alot about left and right brain dominance. As myself and the majority of my children (if not all) are right brain dominant, I thought I'd share characteristics of right brain thinkers and a few teaching methods better suited for right brain learners!

1. Personality and learning styles are affected by whether one has right or left brain dominance.

2. Right brain learners are usually spontaneous, imaginative, intuitive, and visual.

3. They tend to see the "whole picture". They learns things in wholes rather than parts, so they may understand math concepts but have difficulty with remembering math facts.

4. "In thinking styles, the right brainer often goes by "gut feel" whereas the left brainer prefers multiple facts before coming to a conclusion." Dianne Craft

5. Their strength is in their visual memory.

6. Using emotion, color, or stories makes learning easier.

7. Right brain dominance usually includes the "hands on" learners.

8. Right Brain Spelling methods*:
- Color and "weird up" silent letters in a word
- Use eyes like a camera, taking quick pictures
- Spell words forwards and backwards
- No workbook practice necessary

9. Right Brain Phonics methods*:
- Superimpose letters ON a picture giving the sound
- Look up (at the ceiling) to store in long term memory
- Put "decoding unit" in COLOR in a word
- Progress from short words to multi-syllable words using color and pictures for easy reference
- Use "patterns" instead of phonics rules
- Read lists of colored words daily for 15-20 minutes a day.

10. Reading Comprehension methods*:
- Read aloud to students, having them "look up" on a screen, and make pictures of your words. Encourage detailed, vivid pictures by talking about them.
- Have them "rewind" their movie, and tell you what they see
- After they are proficient in this, have them read aloud a passage, and tell you what their pictures look like.
- Show them how to use this technique to more easily understand word problems in math, and in following oral directions.

11. Math methods*:
- Teach multiplication facts by using ‘visual velcro’ on them…color, picture, weird and humor. They stick easily, then. These are fun.
-For your child who can’t remember how to do the problems, after they have been taught, teach math ‘processes’ (fractions, decimals, measurement) by using a story with each one, with a colorful picture. The ‘weirder’ the story is, the much better they remember it! Works well for Algebra processes also!

12. Teach vocabulary in cartoon form with picture and humor.

13. 50% of the population is right brain dominant, however most of our school curriculum is designed for the left brain learner. Somehow my family ended up 80% or more right brained. My poor left brained husband.

*These were taken directly from the workshop handouts, which can be found at www.DianneCraft.com. All of the info in this TT is from her materials and the workshops I attended at the MassHOPE's homeschool convention.

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Right Brain Ramblings

Third post of the day, I guess I'm playing catch up!

I am still processing all of the information I received at the convention, and have more research to do, but thought I'd ramble a bit for now. Apparently about 50% of the population are right brain dominant (and we tend to marry the opposite. Hm...). Interestingly, 80% of the children who struggle with learning are right brain dominant. This is because our typical educational methods are more suited to left brain learning methods. I am still planning to do my TT on right brain dominance, so I will save the details of what that means for Thursday.

I have been homeschooling for eleven years now. We are most successful when we do things non-traditionally. We have studied one subject in depth for a period of time, we have done lapbooks, wall sized murals, projects, etc. These usually go well. Then I will begin to worry that I am not "doing things right" and I shove us back into more traditional learning methods and we are all miserable. These workshops were freeing to me in that I recognize now that it's not only okay to use these methods but it's what is best for my right brain children (and me!).

Dianne Craft shared methods for teaching spelling, vocabulary, and math through pictures and stories. She stressed the importance of making sure that the word or number you want them to learn is actually on or in the picture, as right brain thinkers will see the picture in their mind. I am planning to order her multiplication facts cards from her website. I will never forget 8 x 7 again after seeing the picture card and hearing the story about the 8 year old who was being bullied by the 7 year old neighbor and so he bought a big dog and named him 56. The number 8 was drawn as a boy, as was the number 7, and the number 56 was written right over the dog's body. I can picture the card in my mind easily and recall the answer to the problem in seconds.

In her "Smart Kids Who Hate to Write" workshop, she described one of my sons to a tee. I originally didn't attend this workshop, as I read it as applying to creative writing. My son loves to write but he uses the computer. Once I realized she was referring to the physical act of writing, I knew I needed to buy the cd. I managed to snag the last copy and listened to it during the drive home. If you have children who have difficulty with handwriting, spelling, and copywork, this cd is worth ordering. She describes the issues, causation factors (steroids was one of the ones mentioned, which I found interesting because my son received steroid shots while in the womb in order to make his lungs develop quickly), and exercises to help retrain the brain. I plan to begin these soon with my son, supposedly it takes about 4 days a week for 6 months to retrain the brain properly.

She also spoke about the importance of good nutrition and essential fatty acids, as the brain needs these to function properly. I missed these sessions but hope to eventually borrow them from a friend who ordered them on cd.

There are articles and workshop notes on her website, Dianne Craft, if this is a topic of interest to you!

XPS

A couple of weeks ago I hopped up out of my chair, to take something out of the oven, and tripped over the cord of my laptop. I went flying, the laptop went flying, and it was not good. The computer fell flat on it's face and the screen cracked, shattering my world with it. Okay, the last part's an exaggeration, lol, but I wasn't happy. :-) Since then, the screen has slowly been leaking green ink and it became apparent that a new computer would soon be needed. I have been waiting to receive the tax rebate and now that it's here, I just found a refurbished laptop at the Dell Outlet for only a little over my price range, heehee. So by the end of the month I will be the proud owner of a Dell XPS! Woot! And by ordering an older, refurbished model, I get Windows XP instead of messing around with Vista and all it's issues. I am slightly excited and my husband is slightly jealous. This is the model he wanted a couple of years ago but it was twice as expensive as it is now and so he settled for something else. I'll let him use mine once in awhile. Maybe. ;-)

Not Remembered

My husband officiated at a Memorial Service on Sunday, for a woman who had recently died of cancer. She was only in her forties and left a husband and two young children. It was a nice service and her friends did an excellent job at making it about her and who she was and why they loved her.

While I was sitting and listening to all of the reasons why she was loved and all the positive, wonderful attributes she possessed, a thought struck me. This is how God must see us. While I am sure this woman was a wonderful person, she was also human and so must have also possessed several negative traits. These were not remembered, they were forgotten and only the good was remembered. Maybe this is how God can look at us, through Christ, and see only His precious and loved children. The punishment was paid, the failures forgotten "as far as East is from West" and He sees us as we were meant to be, pure and holy in Him.

Pencils

My oldest son is taking his SAT's right now. Apparently I am a little nervous about the prospect because I had a dream that when he went to sharpen his pencils before he left, the electric sharpener ate the pencils. Shouldn't he be the one having those dreams?

When it was time to leave this morning (waaaaay too early this morning, they had to be there at 7:45 am), he and my husband were walking around the house looking for something and apparently they had somehow misplaced one of the pencils we had set carefully on the sofa table next to the calculator and prerequisite Snickers bar. The pencil dream wasn't too far off I guess.

Time to go yard sale with the in-laws on a drippy day. We'll see if we find anything.

Quick Update

I missed all my memes this week and wanted to at least post an "I'm alive" update. One of my closest friends had her baby on Wednesday and my in laws arrived yesterday, so computer time has been slim (and probably will stay that way through the weekend). I was hoping to do a "right brain" themed TT, but I guess it will have to wait until next Thursday. And if I could figure out how to get pictures off my phone and into my computer, I would post a picture of the adorable, so cute baby girl, but so far no luck with that! But believe me, she's cute.