Univision Noticias – Staff Writer

“Can Speaking More Than One Language Make You Smarter In Other Ways? New research indicates that the brains of bilinguals can adapt more quickly to change stimuli than the brains of monolinguals.”(more)

Bilinguish – Staff Writer

“People used to think that exposure to two languages was bad for children….Now we know that the opposite is true. Bilingual children, for example, know as many words as monolingual children, but they know some of them in each language. Their brains are more limber, too, and they have more practice at executive-function tasks. Here’s a breakdown of how foreign language education is important at every age.”(more)

KSDK.com – Kristen Gosling

“Summer Brain Drain is a real phenomenon. Kids forget the skills they worked so hard on during the school year, especially in math and reading. Educators have a message for parents. Get your kids involved in a reading program. Go over math facts with them. Not homework drills, but something fun. Use family outings as teachable moments.”(more)

Solar News – Kate Kelland

“Applying painless but targeted electrical stimulation to parts of the brain that play a role in number manipulation may in future be a way to help people who struggle with math, scientists said on Thursday.”(more)

Onislam – Mona A. Moneim

“Studies have also proven that the earlier a child is exposed to a foreign language the greater the chances are that this child will master both his native and second languages…Even if you missed the opportunity of teaching your child a language before they are ten years old, not to worry; learning a second language is always a plus point at any age.”(more)

Education News – John Jensen

“From these findings, researchers concluded that an expectation of interruption and an intent to counteract it enabled participants to learn how to adapt to the distraction and sustain their concentration. We draw from these findings that 1) concentration is important for mental tasks and 2) people can learn how to stay focused.”(more)

The New York Times – Suzanne Baruch Asherson

“Putting pen to paper stimulates the brain like nothing else, even in this age of e-mails, texts and tweets. In fact, learning to write in cursive is shown to improve brain development in the areas of thinking, language and working memory.”(more)

News Herald – Juliann Talkington

Over the past thirty years there has been a great deal of debate about different learning styles and what is the best way to get boys and girls to reach their maximum potential. During this same period, there has been tremendous advancement in the science of the brain, specifically how the brain develops from infancy to puberty.

Boys and girls enter the world wired in different ways. According to Michael Gurian, a family therapist and award winning author, “Boys show more areas in the brain dedicated to spatial-mechanical strengths, whereas girls generally demonstrate a focus on verbal-emotive processing.” Girls are generally less impulsive, enabling them to sit still, focus, read and write more easily. However, girls are often quickly confused when presented with spatial problems and instruction.

There are many viewpoints on how to address these gender differences. One popular viewpoint is that boys and girls should be in separate classrooms and the teaching should be geared to the learning styles that are easiest for that gender. Another viewpoint is that children should be able to choose when and how they learn material.

We now know that the human brain is not hardwired, but can be molded between birth to puberty. According to Dr. Lise Elliot with the Chicago School of Medicine, “… an infant’s experience can have permanent effects on the wiring of the brain.” At birth the brain contains the cells necessary to handle trillions of processes. If signals are sent between brains cells, the connections become hard-wired. However, if signals are not sent between cells, the connections are discarded. Most researchers believe the hard-wiring/discarding process is complete at the beginning of puberty, leaving adults with many fewer brain connections than infants.

If the goal is to maximize the number of brain connections that are preserved, it is probably not wise to encourage boys and girls to attend classes that cater to their genetically predisposed learning styles. In addition, it does not make sense to allow students to move at their own pace through material or to choose their own focus.

Instead it can be argued, that the best solution is to blend teaching approaches that encourage girls to think more spatially and boys to refine their verbal-emotive processing abilities. After all, the 21st Century rewards broad thinkers who can easily cross disciples and tackle problems in new and different ways.

The Mercury News – Jessica Shugart

“When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs — and even past math scores — at showing whether a tutor can help a child master everything from trapezoids to trigonometry.”(more)

Time – Jeffrey Kluger

“The mind of the polyglot is a very particular thing, and scientists are only beginning to look closely at how acquiring a second language influences learning, behavior and the very structure of the brain itself. At a bilingualism conference last weekend…language experts gathered to explore where the science stands so far and where it’s heading next…”(more)