Nan and Ewa. Fuererstein approach.

Linda, my son has just started in a new school this school year, so I cannot tell much from his experience- besides, he is in lower school where they do not use directly Instrumental Enrichment (Fuererstein approach), but use Meta Learning based on his ideas. So, I can only comment about the Meta Learning class my son has (from mom’s perspective- hopefully Nan will give you teacher’s perspective).

Shirin had also mentioned Instrumental Enrichment in one of her posts (somewhere on one of these BB), so maybe she will comment more.

My understanding is that the Meta Learning class in the lower school (grades 2-6) is mostly about increasing verbal skills in problem solving activities. What I mean by that is that the students are given a problem and they have to define the problem (in words), and explain the solution (also verbally), and finally write down a step-by-step solution that can be followed without additional information/comments. The school is geared toward students with language problems, hence majority of them can solve the problems easily, what they have problems with is describe in words how did they do that and why they had chosen this solution (why it is a right one). The emphasis is on precise usage of language - defining precisely the problems and giving the exact directions for solving it. They also learn vocabulary for that class that is about language usage, categorizing, sorting et.c.

At the moment they have sets of blocks (different colors, sizes and shapes) and they have templates of various shapes that can be generated while combining the blocks. They have to find the solution and describe it. For example, they started with two “half circles” and they are supposed to make a full circle. They would say “put them together”. The teacher will put the halves one at the top of the other and of course it will not work, so they have to reformulate the answer until it is precise enough to create a desire solution. This is how far they had gone so far (they had solved 15 puzzles giving the exact answers in writing). The experience my son had so far (they only had this class for three months- it started in October) is more like what he describes at:
http://www.icelp.org/Pages/WhatIsMLE.htm (the teachers in my son’s school are called mediators).

The students are supposed to reflect on how did they get the solution and present it clearly to others rather than getting it right (most of them will get the solution easily).

Whether it works on improving cognitive functioning- I do not know yet. I was told by our advocate who knows the school well, that I should give the school a few months to see results (when I was concern with my son’s very poor short/working memory, memory for words in particular, especially when compared to his other cognitive skills).

I like what I see here. This is the general approach that really works in teaching math concepts too. Please do update us on this!

There are two home-based cognitive training programs on the market. One is Audiblox (http://www.audiblox2000.com) and the other is BrainSkills (http://www.learninginfo.com).

The track records for PACE (the provider-version of BrainSkills, and a much more comprehensive program) and Audiblox are very good. BrainSkills hasn’t been around as long, but is probably also very good. You should be able to find posts about Audiblox on the Homeschooling Special Needs discussion board at http://www.vegsource.com. Or, if you post here, there are usually a number of people who will respond with personal experiences using one of the programs.

These cognitive training programs work for most kids. The exercises start out very easy, becoming more difficult only in small increments.

Fuererstein is generally considered to be the “father” of cognitive training, as he was the first in this field. Audiblox, PACE and BrainSkills have all drawn on his work. Each program has a slightly different slant and exercises.

Few schools use these programs, although Audiblox is available in a classroom format (requires training). They are almost always done at home by parents.

Thank you for your responses. Wow, Sylvie you really helped me to understand this.

Ewa, keep us updated on how you think this is working out.

I have been a follower of Deming for quite some time. He is the father of process improvement techiniques used in business. His work is brilliant. I see the correlations in their work.

Victoria, your approach to teaching has always impressed upon me the idea that you get at core deficits. I see similarities to this work.

I found these sites very helpful.

http://www.virls.com/fie5.htm

http://www.newhorizons.org/neuro/front_neuro.html

Oooooh thanks for sharing those great sites Linda!

Ewa, I wish my son could go to your school. It sounds wonderful!
Please do share with us the results and what you’ve noticed in your son’s langauge and learning skills.

Laura,

As a result of this thread, I just ordered audiblox. I figure for $60 it is worth it. I will do it with my 4 year old too.

This thread and the information I have been reading related to cognitive enhancement got me off the audiblox fence.

I will of course let you know how it goes. Like you could stop me LOL.

Hi Linda,
I have Audiblox and I think it’s very good. We did it for a few months, but had to take a break because of time restraints (I’ve had to pick and choose what “home therapies” to concentrate on).

But when we do have extra time,

(as it is my son didn’t finish homework until 9pm tonight! His school work was overwhelming!!!!! He was expected to read and outline one chapter in social studies — Yikes!!! — put his spelling words in alphabetical order — and now he’s expected to do everything in cursive when he can barely handwrite it!!! Double yikes!!!!— do 20 minutes of “fun reading” as if that’s even possible!)

I’d like to start it again.

Vacation is over!!! :-(

Laura,

I don’t know what has happened exactly but my son is doing really well. He started a new math curriculum which is easy for him. It is called math trailblazers. They go into depth on each concept and it is less rote memorization. I could actually see how some would hate it. I think he views it as interesting and fun so attends to it better. He told me that the boy who sits next to him is the best reader in the class but has trouble with this new math. My son helps him!
This has really been a big jump for him.

I know he wouldn’t be where he is without all the help of the people on this board.
I will let you know how audiblox goes for him. I don’t know where we will fit it in either but I figure we can at least do it some of the time.

Laura and Linda,
yes, we are really pleased/happy (say the least) we got him into this school… We see great improvements in his writing already (although he has a long way to go) and his expressive language has improved. His math facts are coming along as well, which finally gave him the confidence to approach divisions (he was in advance math in 4th grade doing well, but he still did not master divisions). The greatest gain however, we see in his self-esteem.

I am also hoping he will realize that not knowing the answer/solution instantaneously, does not mean he cannot do it- he just needs to try first before saying- I cannot do it (the learned helplessness is overwhelming). This will be almost impossible to address had he stayed in regular public school.

But, this is the over 1 hour commute each way deal, which we finally decided he needed (or more precisely our whole family needed…). We can only be grateful that the school district gave him this opportunity- there is no way we could afford this privately… The school tuition is exactly equal to Yale’s…

Will keep you posted- so far he has reached the goal his public school had set for him in terms of reading fluency, i.e. reading a 5th grade material with 100 wpm. What I am worried about at the moment is his poor endurance. And 100 wpm will not carry him a long way either.…

In terms of learning skills/organization- all children have day planners from ElanPublish
similar to:
http://www.elanpublish.com/PDF%27s/W202.pdf

where they record any HWs (for a given day) and the notes from teachers are coming home stapled to this assignment book. They have HWs that need to be done every day (including Sat. and Sun.), which are the computer fluencies, reading fluencies, hard words (any word that they have problem with while reading) and silent reading for which they got stickers for each day. Each HW needs to be initialed by either teacher (when done during study hall), by their friends (if they have reviewed vocab during a ride home) or by parent (when done at home). What makes a huge difference is that they are expected to do all their assignments (either HWs , or tests et.c.) with at least 85% correct- if they do not at the first attempt they need to error-repair until it reaches that level. I think it teaches them that they need to master any skill they learn, because it will come back to them if they do not.

They also have a “feedback” system for “paying attention”, “asking questions” (when somebody talks too fast or they do not understand) and “asking for help”, and for “blurring” (if they answered without being asked or without thinking first what they want to say). In their IEPs they have goals for each of these tasks.

We (parents) were told that this external structure is eventually internalized and they do carry on these habits when they return to their local schools. I do not know obviously, but I can see that my son’s attitude had changed and he does not question that he needs to do HW, he knows it needs to be done. Of course, he is given HW that challenges him and do not frustrates him (which was a major problem with English in regular school). In general, the school is living the motto of hard work and a lot of it and I think that’s where the results are coming from.

As of now, my son is still missing his local school (as do others that came with him this fall), although he admitted that he had learned more in the new school when compared with his old one, but… there is no art, no science and no music, so all this comes at a price.