PARENT TALK

Research findings in education and ways to help your child - Volume 98-9

Helping Your Child Learn How to Study

Your children are the first generation of an era called "The Information Society." This means that they will spend most of their working time gathering or using information. They will certainly have to learn how to read and write effectively or they will severely limit their future employment and standard of living.

It also seems increasingly clear that the most successful people in the information age will be self-directed learners; that is, people who know how to set purposes and use information to accomplish those purposes. They will have confidence in their abilities to read and to organize information for those purposes.

This issue of PARENT TALK operates on the assumption that the self-directed learner will take charge of his or her search for information and meaning. It offers guidance for parents to help them develop an approach to learning which we call Bookthinking. Bookthinking is a shorthand term for strategies that facilitate learning and reading to learn, strategies that guide people in finding and in using information. Included in this issue are guidelines on:

- How to study
- Adjusting to difficult books
- Building mental maps
- Interacting with authors and the text
- Other hints for improving study reading.

How to Study

Learning how to learn does not mean learning to memorize facts. Rather, it means learning to think in an organized way. It means using a plan to achieve a purpose. For example, when you buy a new computer software program, you have a reason for wanting that program. That's your purpose.

Perhaps you bought a home accounting program so you can automate your checkbook. You ask, therefore, "What do I know about using computers to write my checks?" And "What do I need to know?" By answering those two questions you clarify your search for the information and directions that you want. You have a clearer idea of how to proceed. You can search the instruction manual and learn what you need to know. The rest of the manual can wait until you need other information.

Adjusting to Difficult Books

Your child may complain she can't understand the book she has been assigned. The book's style or vocabulary may not communicate with your child. You can help by finding a book that better fits your child, or you can show her how to master the vocabulary that bothers her (see page 4). Building Mental Maps

Modem research concludes that mental maps or schemes form the platform for building new knowledge. That's the reason why you should always ask your child what he actually knows about a subject before pushing for new knowledge. You want to know what scheme or map your child has that will support expanded knowledge (see page 3).

Be an Active Learner

The human mind is not a sponge, soaking up drops of knowledge that slosh around it. Effective learners wrestle with the text and ideas found in books. They interact with the text-asking questions, making comments, and challenging events that don't match their experience or their mental map.

You guide your child now when you discuss how you learn or ask how he can learn more effectively. Don't be hesitant about noting the differences that occur from one text to another. Discuss the changes from fiction (storytelling) to the different way that information is presented in science, social studies, and math books.

Those are the things that a bookthinker does. He becomes sensitive to differences in text organization and learns to manage those differences for his own purposes.

Over the years, your child can increase her ease in using the strategies presented in this issue. With your help, she will see herself as an active thinker, a determined seeker, and an organized notetaker. She will grow into a mature, self-directed learner.

Think Aloud

A focused learner brings a sense of engagement between himself and the author. One of the ways that you can promote that engagement is to think out loud as you read with your child. As an active reader, you make comments to yourself, raise questions, and either agree or disagree with what you are reading. Model that activity for your child. Show your child that you are thinking all the while you are reading. It may help you and your child to think of reading and study as a kind of dialogue between reader and writer. The diagram below gives you a sense of how the reader and writer begin and engage in a dialogue.

The Dialogue Between Reader and Writer

- The writer arranges text in a way that he hopes will affect the reader. Both the subject and the overall appearance of the text stimulate feelings and attitudes in the reader. Is it inviting?

- In order to make his point, the writer organizes his ideas and tries to lead the reader in the direction he wants to take him. An active reader searches for this organization, and always asks, "Is this the best way for this concept to be moving? Does it match my own experience?"

The author brings his own background to the text that colors the language he uses. The reader looks for matches to his own experience.

Both author and reader have a purpose for getting together. If their purposes match, they congratulate each other. Otherwise, they squabble.

- As the author develops his entire concept, so does the reader. The reader has to decide what his resulting concept is and whether or not he wants to set apart his learning from the concept of the author.

- The final result is usually a new idea for the reader - exactly what we hoped for.

Author-reader relationship. Mature reading requires author and reader to bring related concepts, language, and purposes to the process. Their interaction should produce new ideas for the reader. Concept Load - A Significant Factor

Look at the difference between how a young child might write the story of Moby Dick for her peers and the way a mature person might do the same thing.

A child might tell the story this way:	For a sophisticated audience the message might be expressed this way:
Moby Dick is a whole. He is all white. He is big. Captain Ahab is a sea captain. He hates Moby Dick. Moby Dick hates Ahab. Captain Ahab tried to kill Moby Dick. Moby Dick got mad and he killed Captain Ahab instead.	Moby Dick, a great white whale, pursued by Ahab, leaped across a watery abyss, and in retaliation, slew Ahab with vengeance.

The young child's version presents one concept at a time, in concrete language, and requires little inference. That kind of writing, with simple vocabulary and short sentences, makes assumptions about the background, language, and thinking abilities of the reader. The second statement makes different assumptions. The use of an apposition, "a great white whale, pursued by Ahab", shows that the writer takes the reader's language and thinking abilities for granted. The writer also assumes that the reader will be able to fill in the logical gaps in the one-sentence summary. Notice that although few polysyllabic words appear, the sentence is longer than any written by the young child. The words vengeance and slew are not commonly used and also could cause some trouble.

Readability Formulas

There are several strategies to determine the difficulty of a passage of text. One of the simplest, the Fog Index, involves only four simple steps.

The Fog Index

1. Take three 100-word passages; one from the beginning, one from the middle, and one from the end of the chapter or book.

2. In each passage, count the number of words that have three or more syllables. Do not count proper names, compound words or verb forms that become three syllables by adding -ed or -es.

3. Determine the average sentence length of each passage. For a partial sentence, estimate the percentage that is included in the 100-word passage (for instance, .6 of a sentence).

4. Total factors 2 and 3 and multiply the sum by 0.4. The result is the Fog Index, which represents the approximate level of education needed to read the passage.

Robert Gunning, developer of the Fog Index, found a high correlation between his index and the difficulty of writing. For example, his sampling indicated that The Atlantic Monthly has an index of 12; Time, 10; and True Confessions, 7. But grade-equivalent numbers may have little value, as other factors contribute to the difficulty of a passage. Try it yourself. Take any article from this issue of PARENT TALK and apply the Fog Index. If words of three or more syllables appear several times, count each of them because they are difficult each time you read them.

What is your judgment? Is this text too difficult?

Finding the Appropriate Level of Book

It is highly recommended that you use a variety of books when working with your child. But how do you judge if a book is appropriate for your youngster? Here are some valuable insights into the kinds of information that can tell you about the difficulties of texts.

Fistful of Words

You can estimate the apparent difficulty of a book by having your child read several 1 100word passages silently and independently. As she reads, she should close a finger into her fist when she encounters a word or idea she cannot pronounce or does not understand. On a piece of paper, she should write the number of difficult words for each passage she has read. Two fists (ten difficult words) indicate slow, frustrating reading that may be too tough for her to manage on her own. Although the method is not highly scientific, it does indicate the vocabulary and concept load and lets you know that she may need less cliff difficult passages to read.

Matching Up

You know your child's experience and enthusiasm play a large part in determining what he reads. After the movie Jaws roared across screens in the mid '70s, sharks made a big splash in biology classes. Motivation and interest are not everything in reading instruction, but they certainly help. As you review books and magazines, remember that if your child's enthusiasm, vocabulary, and experience operate at a low level, it will be more difficult to move him forward. Choosing the right books is more than seeing if major concepts are covered. You should also consider how he relates to the ideas and the writing style in which the concepts are presented.

Technical Is Not Difficult

When reading subject-matter texts, you might think that your child's problems are solved as soon as technical words are identified, pronounced, and defined. Not true. Some studies of science texts indicate many problems come from the nontechnical vocabulary. Along with the unique technical terms are other difficult words with associated meanings.

Valuable dividends can be gained from anticipating the nontechnical words that may cause frustration and including them in a discussion with your child. For example, for each new passage to be read, ask your child to make a list of words that might be difficult.

Here are two good procedures to follow to help your child learn new words:

Making Glossary Cards

Have your child place a word on a file card headed by the word and its phonetic spelling. Next, have her write the definition and sample usage. When filed alphabetically in a file box, the words are available for daily review.

Building Vocabulary

1. Write it on a card or slip of paper.

2. Pronounce it.

3. Define it and use it in a sentence.

4. Read the sentence in context.

5. Carry the card in a shirt pocket for two days.

Interactive Study - Asking Questions

When your child has to study for a test or report, you want to move him beyond listing facts or specific items. You and the teacher want children to become critical thinkers, people who can analyze and interpret, not merely parrot bits of information.

You can be a live example of how a reader reacts to text by commenting while you are reading, and trying to figure out the direction of the text or the patterns of thought that are emerging. When the history book reports that one army overcomes great odds to win the battle, you can ask how they did that. What are the circumstances or the forces that led to that result? When a character in a story makes an unexpected decision, you will note the surprise and begin to interpret his character to explain why he did the unexpected. You can also prompt your child to give his thoughts on the logic of the events or his reasons for saying that he likes a story (or doesn't).

Different Types of Questions

Remind your child that she can respond to issues and problems in a variety of ways. She can accept a text as a personal experience, or as a reality in which she places herself emotionally in order to acknowledge its excitement or pleasure. Some teachers ask children to draw a picture to indicate that kind of response.

In preparing for a quiz (or a game of trivia), your child may want to read in order to identify the facts that she thinks will be on the test. For this kind of reading, recalling the important facts may be the focus of the reader's attention.

For some material, the appropriate approach may be to ask analytical questions like "How did that happen?" or "Why did that occur?" These questions may lead the reader to re-read portions of the text.

Often statements are made, conclusions are drawn, and details are stacked up so the reader has to decide what is valuable and what is not. Is the conclusion valid? Are the details worth keeping? Is the story any good? Is it worth repeating? These kinds of judgments challenge the reader to use criteria or standards that will help make the decision.

The ultimate test for most study material is whether or not it can be used. Can I apply this idea or this story in my own life, on my job, in my studies? Challenge your child to respond at this level by consistently asking, "How can you Make use of this?"

Asking Questions
Operation	Activities and Questions
Recognize	Identify the purpose of the topic. Put yourself in the setting. Establish your own conceptual framework. Sample Question: Is there something about space travel that has special meaning for you?
Recall	Search for and select information. Remember details or find them in a second reading. Sample Question: What are the characteristics of deciduous plants?
Analyze	Make inferences to determine main ideas, comparisons, cause and effect, and organizational patterns. Sort information and relate it to the author's purpose or scheme. Sample Question: What is the theme of this chapter?
Judge	Select criteria and apply them to decide on worth, appeal, or other standards that fit the subject matter. Sample Question: Would you recommend this book to your friends?
Use	Extend the information or feeling of the reading by applying it, creating an art form, or relating it to personal experiences. Sample Question: How has your view of life changed as a result of reading this book?

Using Bookthinking in Specific Content Areas

When students begin most classes, they must learn to use reading as a primary means of learning. They are expected to be able to read independently and to adapt to different kinds of material. As a parent, you might find that your child cannot handle the amount and diversity of reading thrust upon him. He needs preparation, guidance, and specific strategies for reading and learning in each content area.

English

Diversity is the rule in English classes. Your child will read stories, novels, poetry, essays, and plays, in addition to texts on grammar and writing. Through this kind of reading, she extends her personal experience by entering into the world of others.

Fiction allows your child two major types of responses: 1) a personal reaction ("I like it because..."), and 2) an analysis of story structure or of its characters ("The reader gets lost in a plot that wanders aimlessly.")

Guide your child in writing a personal reaction by having him give reasons or events that back up his feelings. "I like it because the author draws me into the adventure through street-tough dialogue."

You can also guide your child through the writing of an analysis by asking her to compare this story with what she knows about story or character development ("The bad guy turned good at the end, but the author didn't show me what made him change into a good guy.")

Social Studies

Social Studies focus on the human dimension of the environment and give your child the social consciousness she will need to think as a member of groups and communities. That often means putting events in perspective and relating major events to the conditions of time. For example, when the general public has high confidence in their government, usually there are conditions of high employment and peace.

In a similar manner, you can ask your child to think about causes of historical events. For example, ask specific questions, such as, "What were the immediate causes of World War II?"

Science

Western civilization has been shaped by its scientific mode of thought, characterized by controlled observation, analysis, and careful reasoning.

For logical thinking, start with a hypothesis, and then do research and conduct experiments to prove or disprove the theory.

Mathematics

In mathematics, thinking is condensed to logic and the emphasis is on performing logical operations rather than on storing information and understanding ideas. Mathematics has its own symbol system, vocabulary, and syntax which must be learned before one can read in this subject.

For logical operations, practice the vocabulary of symbols and notations, and explain the syntax of equations and formulas.

For problem-solving, emphasize step-by-step procedures that represent logical chains and lead to solution strategies.

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