Category Archives: working memory

Kids who retain primitive reflexes can have reading, writing problems

Posted on March 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

Babies are born with primitive reflexes—automatic physical responses that increase their chances of being born properly and of surviving infancy. These same primitive reflexes, if they persist beyond the first few months of life, can indicate poor physical functioning in the toddler, and reading and handwriting problems for the young child.

Some common primitive reflexes include:

Moro Reflex (or startle reflex): This reflex has three parts. First, the baby rapidly extends his arms. Then, just as rapidly, he pulls his arms close to his trunk. Lastly, he cries. When a baby feels he is falling or losing his balance, he displays this reflex. It is the baby’s way of showing fear. The Moro reflex shows for the first four months of life and then subsides. If it persists beyond four or five months, the child may show sensory processing problems, anxiety, balance and coordination difficulties, poor muscle tone, motion sickness and poor impulse control.

ATNR: The asymmetrical tonic neck reflex shows when a new baby moves her head from one side to another. If her head turns to one side, her arm and leg on that side extend into a straight position while her arm and leg on the opposite side bend. The ATNR reflex is sometimes called the fencing reflex because the baby takes the same pose as a fencer. This reflex develops before birth and helps the baby navigate through the birth canal. Usually it disappears by six months, but if it continues, it could show as several problems.

Handwriting can be difficult because each time the child turns her head, the hand on that side will want to straighten and the grip on the pencil will loosen. Children compensate by holding their pencils tightly, causing stress in the hand. They focus on the physical process of holding a pencil rather than on the ideas they are writing. The handwriting might slope every which way.

Reading can be difficult because of eye tracking problems. Instead of moving smoothly across a page of text, the eyes jump. The child might lose her place and lose comprehension.

Mixed laterality can show as a child not developing a dominant hand for writing, holding utensils and catching a ball, and not developing a dominant foot for kicking, walking and running. The brain is more efficient if one side dominates. Otherwise both sides compete for dominance. Poor coordination can result.

STNR: The symmetrical tonic neck reflex shows between six and eight months of age. When a child is on his tummy, this reflex allows the child to straighten his arms and bend his legs in order to crawl. This reflex is needed for crawling and for developing hand-eye coordination. As the child grows, the STNR reflex allows the child to read without losing his place and to follow his hand with his eyes while writing.

TLR: The tonic labyrinthine reflex causes the baby’s arms and legs to extend when the baby’s head turns up, and causes the arms and legs to fold when the head bends down. This reflex helps a baby to crawl. Children with poor posture, or who walk on their toes, or who have trouble playing with a ball may have this reflex persisting long after four months of age. If it persists it can also interfere with speaking because the tongue wants to extend.

Spinal Galant Reflex: When an infant’s skin is stroked on the side of her back, she will tend to move toward the stroked side. This helps during birth but usually disappears by nine months. If not, problems could include an inability to sit still; a dislike of tight clothing, especially around the waist; bed wetting; and poor short term memory, making reading comprehension difficult.

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Posted in eye tracking problems, Handwriting, learning, primitive reflexes, reading comprehension, reading disabilities, sensory integration, working memory

Tagged ATNR, Moro reflex, Spinal Galant Reflex, STNR, TLR

Should my kindergarten son read aloud to me? How about my third grade daughter?

Posted on May 25, 2016 | Leave a comment

Reading aloud to a parent or teacher has two purposes: to show that the child can decode words properly and to show that the child can read with fluency. If the child is learning English as a second language, showing proper pronunciation is also a purpose.

child with adult helping to read

First decoding. Probably your kindergarten son is at the decoding stage, that is, learning how to link language sounds with letters to form words. If he is at this stage, then yes, he should read aloud. That way you can tell what he knows, what he needs more practice on, and what he needs instruction on.

If you know from previous reading aloud that your third grader has mastered decoding, then your daughter needn’t read aloud for that purpose. You might sit next to her as she reads. If she has questions about pronouncing an unfamiliar word or if she asks about the meaning of a new word, you can help. Occasionally you might ask her to tell you what she has read to be sure she has understood.

If your older child comes to English from a second language, she might be able to pronounce words perfectly yet have no idea what they mean. If so, ask her to underline words she doesn’t know so you can talk about them. If there are context clues, you might help her identify them. With such a child, you should work on vocabulary development.

As for fluency (reading at a normal speed with voice inflection, pauses for punctuation and emotion in the voice) the kindergartener and ESL child should read aloud. Some readers who are at the decoding stage spend so much energy on decoding that they miss the meaning. By listening to how you say a line and then mimicking the way you say it, the child can pull together decoding and fluency.

Your third grader should be able to read fluently within her head. However, if you notice that your child has trouble with comprehension even though she can decode well, then her reading aloud could help you to figure out why. Is she ignoring punctuation and lumping parts of one sentence with another? Is she sliding over longer words without decoding them because she is lazy or in a hurry? Does she have short term memory problems, allowing her to forget the beginning of a sentence or paragraph before she gets to the end? Is her emotional voice flat? Is she missing inferences? Some of this you can tell by listening to her read aloud, and some by asking her about what she has read.

In general, newer readers should read aloud with instruction and monitoring while experienced readers should read silently.

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Posted in English as a second language (ESL), fluency, methods of teaching reading, phonics, practice reading skills, reading comprehension, reading in kindergarten, reading strategies, working memory

Turn car rides into educational opportunities

Posted on March 23, 2016 | Leave a comment

Spring break is almost here. For many kids, that means road trips to Disney World, the Grand Canyon or maybe to Grandma’s house.

cars in travvic

Those long hours in the car might mean movie time, video game time or time playing on the phone. But they also offer great learning opportunities.

For preschoolers learning their letters or numbers, make a game of finding a particular letter on a billboard, license plate or directional sign.

Say a letter sound (not a letter name) and let your child identify which letter matches that sound.

If it’s dark, you can say two words and ask the child which word begins with a particular letter. Stick to letters the child knows so she can feel successful.

For kids learning rhymes (sometimes called word families), suggest a word which the child can then rhyme once, twice or three times. Or go back and forth, first you, then the child, then you, then the child, until no one can think of another word. The last one to think of a word could decide what the first word of the next round is.

For kids learning how to put letter sounds together to form words, sound out a CVC word and ask the child to identify it. Then let the child sound out a word and see if you can identify it.

Another rhyming game is for the adult to say a nursery rhyme and ask the child to name the words which rhyme. (Hickory, dickory dock, the mouse climbed up the clock.)

Sequencing is a skill kindergarteners work on. You could say three activities—not in time order—and the child could put the events in the correct order. (Mom filled the car with gas. Dad put the suitcases in the car. Billy packed his suitcase.)

Cause and effect is a skill third graders work on. You could name both a cause and an effect, and the child could identify which is which. (Sleeping Beauty slept for 100 years. Sleeping beauty pricked her finger.)

Categorizing words is an elementary school-aged skill. For example, you could say blue jay, cardinal and bird. The child needs to find out which one in the category word.

Comparisons are another easy word game. You say that the answers are bigger than, smaller than or the same size. Then you say, “An elephant is something than a mouse.” The child tells the correct relationship. You could use longer than and shorter than, heavier and lighter and older and younger.

Working memory is a skill children need to extend. Start with two words (or numbers or letters) which the child needs to repeat. Let the child add another word and you repeat all three words. Then let the child repeat all three words and add a fourth. For some children this skill is incredibly difficult, so for them you might want to cap the list at four words. For other children, seven or ten words might be possible.

This is a great time to review math facts. If your third grader has just learned multiplication, review the facts.

For older children or children learning English as a second language, car time can be vocabulary review time. You give the definition and the child gives the word. Or let your child throw out a word meaning, and you have to identify it. Children love stumping their parents.
Older children encounter idioms all the time, but they don’t always understand them. Throw out an idiom–Jason is blue–and let your child explain what it means.

Of course these educational moments could also happen on your long flight to India or Taiwan. They could just as easily happen on the way to school in the morning or on the way to soccer practice in the afternoon. There are so many times you can exploit one-on-one education with your child.

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Posted in English as a second language (ESL), how to make learning fun, idioms, letter sounds, phonics, reading readiness., reading strategies, vocabulary, working memory

Working memory problems can lead to reading comprehension problems

Posted on December 16, 2015 | Leave a comment

Working memory is the amount of information a student can hold in his mind while working with it. If a child has trouble remembering what he just read, he will have comprehension problems.

Think of working memory as a post-it note in your brain, according to reading expert Susan Gathercole.* Like a post-it note,

long directions, kids confused

Working memory contains limited information. Once it runs out of space, it can’t hold any more information.

Working memory works better with simple information such as lists or easy-to-understand relationships. Complex thoughts and complex sentences need to be simplified for working memory to use them.

Working memory doesn’t last long. It has a limited shelf life—minutes or even seconds. Distractions can wipe out working memory like a snap of fingers.

How do working memory problems arise? Let’s look at a few examples.

If a teacher gives multiple-step directions, a child can forget the first direction before the teacher says the last direction. Or if a teacher gives one long direction, a child can forget most of it before she follows it. For example, a teacher can spell a whole word for a kindergartener, but the child’s hand cannot write fast as the teacher can say the letters. The child might write two letters and then look up, confused.

Or a teacher might say, “Okay, class, put away your math workbook and take out your spelling book and turn to page 10.” That is three steps, more steps than some little children can retain in their working memory.

Or test directions might say, “As you read the selection, underline important facts before you answer the multiple-choice questions.” The sentence structure of the directions is complicated: a subordinate clause, followed by an independent clause, followed by another subordinate clause. Complex sentences can be difficult for young children to understand. Also, the sequencing of what to do might confuse a child. “Before” would seem to indicate “Do this first,” but the direction in the “before” clause is the last action the child should do. Children with small working memories might give up and do everything in the order stated.

If a student needs to read a selection of five or six sentences, he might forget what was said in the first sentence by the time he finishes the last sentence. If you ask him what he read, he might remember only the information in the last two sentences. His working memory can’t hold onto all that information.

In our next blog we’ll talk about how to strengthen a child’s working memory.