Nurture for the Future

Handwriting is Dead?

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As a mother with two children from the iPad Generation, it has always been a challenge to encourage them to practice handwriting. As they grow older, it is clear that they would rather type than write. I guess I can’t really blame them. I was the same. I’m still the same! I’d rather type than write. And since they already know how to write by hand, that isn’t really a problem, is it?

It isn’t. And it is.

One of the most obvious problems is that school exams are still handwritten. Until those become computerised, I think some practice writing by hand should still be mandatory.

Even though I have had plenty of practice writing by hand, the years of not needing to pick up a pen for anything more than jotting down a shopping list or dates on a calendar has been telling. If I have to write anything more than a line or two, it shows. My handwriting gets worse and the letters less legible. My hand starts to hurt and I think that it would be better to type the list on my phone.

I tested the theory by keeping a handwritten journal. Every day I would write a page about what happened today. The last time I kept a journal like this was in my 20s. Now, I noticed that before the page was up, my hand would start to hurt. If I struggle to write a page of writing, how would that go if I had to write essays for an exam?

It’s not surprising to hear little kids complain that their hands hurt when they’re learning to write. It’s also part of the reason why they don’t like to write – or not very much. And if we allow our kids the option to always type instead of write, it’s inevitable that their handwriting muscles will get weak. Then, when there is no option but to write by hand, they’re going to be in trouble. Just saying.

But that’s just one reason to keep writing. There are more. IvyPanda – Study and Writing Tips for Smart Students – has a great infographic about them:

20 Ways Handwriting is Good for You and Your Studying

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Talk for Writing – How to Support Your Child with Reading and Writing

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The Word Gap

The Word Gap refers to the startling findings from the groundbreaking study by University of Kansas researchers Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley, titled “The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3“. By 3 years of age, there is a 30 million word gap between children from the wealthiest and poorest families.

University of Kansas researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley entered the homes of 42 families from various socio-economic backgrounds to assess the ways in which daily exchanges between a parent and child shape language and vocabulary development. Their findings were unprecedented, with extraordinary disparities between the sheer number of words spoken as well as the types of messages conveyed. After four years these differences in parent-child interactions produced significant discrepancies in not only children’s knowledge, but also their skills and experiences with children from high-income families being exposed to 30 million more words than children from families on welfare. Follow-up studies showed that these differences in language and interaction experiences have lasting effects on a child’s performance later in life. – West Virginia Early Childhood

Image Source: Get Georgia Reading

Key Findings from Hart & Risley

  1. The variation in children’s IQs and language abilities is relative to the amount parents speak to their children.
  2. Children’s academic successes at ages nine and ten are attributable to the amount of talk they hear from birth to age three.
  3. Parents of advanced children talk significantly more to their children than parents of children who are not as advanced.

What Can We Do?

  • Use new and interesting words in everyday conversation.
  • Use gestures and facial expressions to help children make sense of new words.
  • Sing, recite poetry and rhymes to introduce new words.
  • Talk to your children and encourage them to talk to each other.
  • Read aloud with your child daily.

In addition to increasing exposure to words, we also need to increase their knowledge and understanding. Knowledge can provide context to the words we read, giving us a deeper understanding of the content. So how do we facilitate this? Through reading and writing…

Why Link Reading and Writing?

Image Source: Pinterest

You cannot write it if you cannot say it;

You cannot say it if you haven’t heard it.

In both Reading and Writing it is important to focus on the whole text. By analysing and discussing the text prior to writing, it results in understanding and remembering, including the structure and grammar features within the written text.

Talk for Writing

Talk for Writing

Talk for Writing is a learning strategy for helping children develop their reading and writing skills.

Talk for Writing is powerful because it enables children to imitate the language they need for a particular topic orally before reading and analysing it and then writing their own version. – Pie Corbett

This strategy helps children learn about:

  • Patterns in stories, e.g. the quest, rags to riches, overcoming the monster, etc.
  • Story building blocks – characters, settings, events.
  • The flow of sentences.
  • Vocabulary, e.g. the connectives that link and structure the story – once upon a time, one day, so, next, but, finally.

Talk for Writing builds on 3 key stages:

  1. Imitation – children learn the text orally
  2. Innovation – children change an element of the text (this could be the character, or the setting)
  3. Independent Application – children invent a new story

Talk for Writing
Image Source: Slide Player

Imitation

In this stage, the teachers model a short story that the children with learn with accompanying actions. This is followed by a story map which is drawn showing the story sequence in pictures, words and actions.

This is what this stage looks like:

Based on what we have already learned about the role of gesturing in learning, I can see how Talk for Writing can help children’s reading and comprehension:

After learning the story through action, the children will develop a story map that looks something like this:

They can also “box up” the story – which will look something like this:

Talk for Writing - Boxing up
Image Source: Pie Corbett

Innovation

In this stage, the children will look at the different aspects of the story – the opening, build up, problems, resolution, and ending. Then they will try to adapt the story they have just learned by changing one aspect of it. It could be substitution, addition, alteration, or retelling the same story from a different point of view.

Invention

In the final stage, the children will work independently on a story of their own creation.

Supporting Talk for Writing at Home

  • Ask your child to retell the story or text they are learning in class.
  • Ask them to teach you! Learn with them.
  • Make up stories – the googly game; fortunately/unfortunately (luckily or unluckily); Story Cubes
  • Use the basic story structure – “one day…”, “so…”, “then…”, “suddenly…”, “in the end…”.
  • Ask “what if…?” – take a story you both know and change an angle or feature. How would it change the story?

The Googly Game

One person tells a story. The other says a word and the storyteller must include that word into the next sentence of the story.

Fortunately/Unfortunately

One person tells a story. The other says fortunately/unfortunately and the storyteller has to adapt the story accordingly.

Story Cubes

Roll the dice and make up a story linking all the pictures shown.

 

Next Up! Reciprocal Reading

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Book Week Workshop by Malaysian Author Shamini Flint

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Shamini Flint - Inspector SinghShamini Flint visited our school for Book Week. She was amazing and also delightfully witty. I regret that I had never heard of her before despite the wide success of her books. If you don’t know who she is either, Shamini Flint is a Malaysian writer. Yes, I’m claiming her for Malaysia even though she lives in Singapore because she was born and raised in Kuantan and we should be proud of her.

Shamini Flint lives in Singapore with her husband and two children. She began her career in law in Malaysia and also worked at an international law firm in Singapore. She travelled extensively around Asia for her work, before resigning to be a stay-at-home mum, writer, part-time lecturer and environmental activist, all in an effort to make up for her ‘evil’ past as a corporate lawyer!

Shamini writes children’s books with cultural and environmental themes including Jungle Blues and Turtle takes a Trip as well as the ‘Sasha’ series of children’s books. She also writes crime fiction,commencing with Inspector Singh Investigates – A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder and Inspector Singh Investigates: A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul. – Amazon

Books by Shamini Flint

Over the course of her 12-year career as a writer, Shamini has sold over a million books under the following series:

And a number of stand-alone titles.

  

Suddenly, I feel like a fraud calling myself a writer but I digress.

On Cultural Identity

One of the things Shamini Flint talked about that really stayed in my mind was about a lack of books that help us build up our cultural identity. The reason Shamini started writing was because she felt a lack of books that reflected on the true everyday life of her daughter. Most books are written about children living in other countries, living lives that resemble nothing like her daughter’s. It’s hard to identify with books like that when that isn’t what your life is like.

It made me think of G1 and how he used to insist he was an English boy. I used to get upset that he was denying his own cultural identity but I guess it makes sense now. He had never read books about little Chinese boys growing up in Southeast Asia because there aren’t many. What books that are available are usually historical – on arranged marriages, bound feet, and repressed lives. They are of our history – not a reflection of our present.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that publishers don’t want stories that they feel have a limited audience. And yet, these are the books we should be demanding for our children because they need to have that cultural identity.

Junot Diaz
Image Source: QuoteFancy

The following quote from Junot Díaz was shared with me by a friend and it highlights the very danger of denying our children their cultural identity:

“You guys know about vampires? … You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist?” And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.” – Goodreads

So here’s to authors like Shamini Flint and Junot Díaz and may they continue to make mirrors for us.

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Nanowrimo 2016

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Last year, G1 and I joined Nanowrimo together – he joined the Young Writer’s Program and I joined the full Nanowrimo program. Neither of us made it. My excuse was that I was distracted by the non-fiction book I was working on. G1, admittedly, wasn’t particularly committed to the cause. While he liked the idea of being a writer, he wasn’t prepared to suffer the pain of being one.

This year, G1 started a story writing blog and I’ve noticed that he has been writing to it quite consistently. Encouraged by his teacher at school and his friends who want to be featured in his stories, he seems to have found his mojo for writing. So I nudged him again about Nanowrimo and he agreed. He gave himself a more worthy target this year – the standard 30000 word limit set by the Young Writer’s Program. As of today, he’s some 6000 words in and counting – woohoo!

To be sure that I can keep up with the harsh demands of Nanowrimo, I am taking a hiatus from all other writing projects. It may get a little quiet around here for the month of November. Hopefully that will be because we’re all busy writing our Nanowrimo novels…

I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.
—William Faulkner

Image Source: Buzzfeed

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G1’s Stories:

My Published Works:

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Writing Resources to Encourage the Reluctant Writer

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The following writing resources were recommended at a school workshop for encouraging the reluctant writer in secondary but I thought they were great ideas and tools for the younger aspiring writers.

Writing Resources for School:

Image Source: Enchanted Learning
  • Socratic Seminars encourage students to explore academic  topics in full (all subjects) – mapping both sides of a debate.
  • Provide learners with clear structure for writing to show logical progress of ideas.
  • Graphic organisers to help generate and organise ideas.
  • Student generated word and phrase banks to help stimulate writing and offer starting points.
  • Pictures and videos used to generate ideas for creative and argumentative writing.

Writing Resources for Home:

  • Storybird.com is a great site for encouraging creative writing work. It uses pictures to stimulate ideas and creativity. G1 wrote his second story using Story Bird – How the Bee Got Home.
  • Writing ideas – Thoughtful Learning offers lists of writing topics by grade that your child can choose from. Conversations at home will also help with ideas for written work.
  • Style and structure – Hemingwayapp will assess the style of written work to help with improvements.
  • Vocabulary – expresso-app identifies commonly used words and helps learners add variety.
  • Grammar and Punctuation – Grammarly offers support with grammar, punctuation, and clarity of written work.

Apps like Hemingway and Expresso can help children to assess their work and improve upon it before asking for help.

Programs for Improving Writing

Hemingway App

Hemingway App

Cut and paste your work into the Hemingway App and it will analyse the work for:

  • Approximate grade level
  • Readability – how easy is it to read
  • Ways to simplify the writing
  • Adverbs
  • Use of passive voice

Expresso App

Expresso App is an online tool that allows students to edit texts and improve their writing style. It will teach them to express themselves through writing more efficiently and help make their texts more readable, precise, and engaging.

Similar to the Hemingway App, Expresso App allows students to cut and paste their work for analysis. It will highlight:

  • weak verbs – verbs that are overused and vague
  • filler words – unnecessary words that can be omitted
  • nominalisations – complex nouns that have been extended from shorter verbs, adjectives or nouns
  • entity substitutions – pronouns and vague determiners
  • negations per sentence
  • clustered nouns – three or more consecutive nouns
  • modals – verb modifiers signifying ability or necessity
  • rare words
  • extra long sentences
  • extra short sentences
  • frequent words
  • and other general metrics

Grammarly

Grammarly is another writing tool that helps identify spelling errors, grammatical errors, and weak writing. This program offers tips and suggestions on how to make these corrections.

https://www.figur8.net/writing-resource-improve-your-writing-with-grammarly/

See also: Grammarly Handbook – how to improve your writing

Apps for Creative Writing

Creative Writer

  • Compose songs
  • Write short stories
  • Write poems
  • Break through writer’s block
  • Record the stream of consciousness
  • Learn English – explore, have fun with words

Tap on the stream of suggested words, picking words until the sentences come out; or combine normal typing with predictive writing. You can easily switch among genres: Poetry, Prose, Classics, Dialogues, Lyrics, You & Me, Cooking, Quotations and Romance.

Rory’s Story Cubes

9 cubes, 54 images, over 10 million combinations and infinite stories. Shake to roll the cubes. Create a story using all 9 face-up images. Add more cubes for more ideas:

  • Actions
  • Enchanted
  • Voyages
  • Animalia
  • Prehistoria
  • Fright

Rory’s Story Cubes is also available as a physical dice set:

  • 9 original dice, 9 Actions dice, 9 Voyages dice
  • 3 fairy tale themed dice, 3 dinosaur themed dice, 3 crime themed dice
  • 3 sports themed dice, 3 outer space themed dice, 3 medical themed dice
  • Encourages speaking skills, creativity, confidence – no reading required
  • Use them individually or together for unlimited story possibilities

Writing Prompts for Kids

Boost students’ creative writing skills with writing prompts that will spark their imaginations. This writing prompt generator is quick and easy to use; your students will have an inspiring writing topic in seconds. Just tap the screen to pick a situation, a character, a setting, and an object.

Book Creator

Create your own eBooks on the iPad:

  • Add text, choosing from over 50 fonts
  • Add photos and images from your iPad’s photo library, from the web, or use the iPad’s Camera
  • Resize, rotate and position content as you like with guidelines and snap positioning
  • Add video and music, and even record your voice
  • Use the pen tool to draw and annotate your book
  • Choose from portrait, landscape or square book sizes
  • Add super powers to your books with comic templates, stickers and styles
  • Share your eBook with family and friends or publish it on the iBooks Store.

Write About This

Write About This is a visual writing prompt & creation platform perfect for classrooms and families! With endless ways to respond and the ability to craft custom photo prompts, it will kick-start any writing activity.

Writing Challenge

Take on a writing challenge with writing prompts to spark your creative writing inspiration. Press “start” and the app will give you the first prompt to start writing your story. Choose the one that you most like and fire up your writing. Then, every minute (or the time you choose in the app settings) the app will give you a new prompt for you to add new ideas, words, characters, sentences, places or actions to the plot. Quite a challenge to turn your writing into a game!

Apps for Writing Poetry

Haiku Poem

This app teaches students how to write haiku, a popular Japanese poem that traditionally has three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. They begin by brainstorming words for their poem, and then they compose their poem with attention to how many syllables they’ve written for each line. The final step allows students to customize the design of their poem with one of the provided artistic backgrounds or by uploading their own image.

Apps for Recording Your Child’s Work

Adobe Spark Page

Spark Page makes it easy for anyone to turn words and images into a beautiful gliding web story. Transform your next newsletter, report, invitation or travel adventure into a gorgeous visual story that delights readers on any device. Get inspired by a wide variety of curated designs, then simply tap to select a beautiful, unique look. Gorgeous fonts, color and magazine-style design are automatically incorporated — no design experience required. Fluid movement and elegant motion happen instantly. Share your Page to grab attention, increase awareness and inspire action. You can even access, edit and share your web story from a browser with Adobe Spark for web.

More Writing Resources

Writing Resources
Image Source: Bid4Papers

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I Wrote a Parenting Book – Brainchild!

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The first ever career aspiration I can remember having was to be a writer. I have been writing from as far back as the days of the Apple IIe when my work was saved on 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. It was a child’s dream and I honestly never believed I would ever see the day when my first book would be published. I always thought I wasn’t good enough although it didn’t stop me from writing because I love writing. I would still do it even if nobody read a word of it but I won’t deny that it’s a nice feeling when someone enjoys the stuff you write.

It has only taken me some 30 years but I am finally here. My first book is going into publication after 11 years of writing on the Internet. I guess it’s true what they say: it’s never too late.

Admittedly, I always thought that I would write fiction. It wasn’t until the arrival of my first son that a deep-seated interest in child development awoke within me and continued to grow as my children have grown.

Although I have been learning and writing about child development for the past 9 years (longer by far than any other career I have ever had), I confess that I still do not feel qualified to lend my name to a book about child development. Then I remembered the lesson I learned when I first became a parent – many of us never really feel ready to be a parent. Even when we are parents, we inevitably question what we’re doing and if we’re doing it right. Nevertheless, we continue to bumble along until one day our children are grown and we realise that we’ve done it.

If I wait until I felt ready to be an author, the chances are that I may never write a book. So here I am with a message to other parents:

To be a parent is not to be perfect but to aspire to be the best that we can be and to always be open to learning. I do not write this book from an ivory tower, sitting on a high horse, waiting to judge any parent who chooses a different path. I know that there is often no right way, only a preferred way.

While I believe that everything I have written in my book is for the betterment of our children, I won’t pretend that this is the household I achieve with my children because it isn’t – although it is not from a lack of trying. You may agree with me or you may not but I do sincerely hope that there will be something you can take away from my book.

And now I’ve arrived at the part where it is time to let the world know about my book and I do so with no small amount of trepidation.

In the Bookstores

When will it be available? Some time in June, my book will be appearing in the bookstores – most notably MPH since they published it. I don’t have an official book cover I can share just yet, but here’s a snapshot of the title page:

Parenting Book Brainchild - by Dr Shen-Li Lee

About Brainchild

Our children begin life with promise and potential. With the wide array of programmes, classes, curriculum and systems that promise to unlock the brilliance in our children, where do we begin? Simple, your child’s chance in brilliance begins with YOU and a few basic necessities.

Dr. Shen-Li Lee, founder of figur8.net has been scouring educational and development resources since the birth of her first child in 2007. In this time, she has discovered that providing the best in the fundamental basics to survival is key to unlocking excellence in your child.

Brain Child explores the importance of providing optimum fundamental necessities such as sleep, rest, nutrition, touch and security to your children so that they can focus on being the best that they can be.

Backed by case studies and various research findings, Brain Child provides you straight-forward insights on how to get the best results from your child in anything that they commit to do. YOU are the key to unlocking their excellence.

Brain Child

About the Author

Yes, that’s me…

Dr. Shen-Li Lee is best known for her parenting website, Figur8 – Nurture for the future. Formally trained in dentistry, Dr. Lee found her calling upon the birth of her first child in 2007 when she quickly discovered the challenge in seeking consolidated resources for raising a ‘whole child’ in Malaysia. Garnering more than 20,000 views every month, Figur8 is a chronicle of Dr. Lee’s experience in raising a child who is self-motivated to excellence by nurturing their heart, mind and body.

Brainchild Book Events

I had a soft introduction to my book recently at my boys’ school when I conducted a talk on “Raising Successful Children in the 21st Century” (click on the link to see that topics discussed).

GIS Talk

Thanks to some very supportive parents – you know who you are – I was blown away with a full house! I confess that speaking in front of a group of people has always terrified me but it is certainly better than speaking to no one so I am extremely grateful to all the people who made this talk possible.

GIS Talk2

The next event will be the book launch which will be taking place early June – date to be confirmed. Stay tuned!

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