Learn to Add with Addimal Adventure

Wouldn’t it be great if few Ph.D.s from Columbia University’s Teachers College could be on hand 24-7 to teach your child to add? If you have an iPad, download the free Addimal Adventure app from the iTunes store and you’ll get just that. 

Addimal Adventure is the brainchild of Teachley, a foundation that creates interactive electronic learning tools based on cognitive science research. In Addimal Adventure, Captain Memo and his pals will recruit your child to defeat the evil Professor Possum. The sharp graphics pop off the iPad’s screen appealingly, looking more like a show on Cartoon Network than an educational computer game. There’s a storyline here, and an engaging one at that, and your child will giggle at the characters’ funny quips and delight in being included in the adventure.

Addimal Adventure isn’t just great at catching and holding your child’s attention, though. It teaches genuinely useful strategies for learning and using addition. In each “Tool Round,” simple problems are presented and children can choose which strategy they want to use to solve each one. For example, the “Count All” button will present the problem using digital manipulatives. Kids count them, then indicate the answer using the number line at the bottom of the screen. Three additional, more advanced strategies are also taught. Between Tool Rounds, kids can watch the plot of the game unfold in short scenes, then practice their fact speed in the Speed Round. If they’re stumped, they can choose to get a hint that will remind them how to use one of the strategies they've learned. 

Addimal Adventures keeps track of all the facts a child answers correctly and incorrectly and displays them between rounds. The result is a motivating display of all the facts kids got right, which grows as they progress through the app.

Currently, Addimal Adventures is intended for home use. In January, however, Teachley will be launching a pilot data- reporting system for classrooms that will allow teachers to track students’ progress. Think your school might be interested in participating? Sign up now.

When Must School Districts Pay for Evaluations?

Parents sometimes ask us if they can have their school district pay for their child's evaluation at The Yellin Center. The simple answer is "maybe, under certain circumstances," and we thought it might be helpful to explain the laws and regulations that govern this area.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) recognizes that an evaluation of a student in all suspected areas of disability is a crucial first step to determining whether that student is eligible for IDEA services and what kind of services will help that student to succeed in school. In fact, the "clock begins to run" with respect to the time limits set forth in the IDEA only once the parent consents to an evaluation of the student. The law anticipates that the school will then conduct an evaluation of the child and share the results with the parents and the IEP team, the committee that creates the student's Individualized Education Program. 

It's Our City

In many situations, this works out well for all concerned. The school district conducts an evaluation at no cost to the family; the findings make sense to the parents; the findings are incorporated into the student's IEP; and nothing more needs to be done. 

However, sometimes families do not agree with the findings of the school district evaluators and feel there may be something more going on with their child. Sometimes parents have had a long history of difficulties with the school and simply do not trust them to do an evaluation. Some parents of children enrolled in a private school do not want to have to work with the local public school district (especially in New York City). And, quite often, parents want the kind of in-depth, multi-disciplinary kind of evaluation done here at The Yellin Center, rather than a more "cookie-cutter" series of tests given by their school's evaluators. In each of these situations, the parents seek an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) such as the ones we conduct here at The Yellin Center.

Before we look at specific rules and scenarios, we need to emphasize one important point. Parents have the absolute right to have their child independently evaluated and federal law requires that the public school district must consider the results of such evaluation. Dr. Yellin and his team frequently attend IEP meetings (via phone or other technology) to discuss the results of our evaluations and have been universally well-received by schools. However, the law does not require that districts follow the recommendations of our reports (or any outside evaluator).

So, when can a parent have a district pay for an IEE? 

1. The parent must disagree with the evaluation conducted by the district or consider it inadequate and notify the district of their intention to obtain an IEE.
2. The district must then either file for a due process hearing with a State Hearing Officer or agree to pay for the IEE.
3. The district can set criteria for the IEE's they will fund -- how much they cost, the geographic location of the evaluator(s), and the specific qualifications of the evaluator(s). However, the U.S. Department of Education notes that, "the district must allow parents the opportunity to demonstrate that unique circumstances justify an IEE that does not fall within the district's criteria. If an IEE that falls outside the district's criteria is justified by the child's unique circumstances, that IEE must be publicly funded." So, even if your district tells you that you are restricted to using the private evaluators on a list they provide, that is not strictly correct and you can and should push back to obtain the services of the evaluator you choose. 
4. An IEE can also be ordered by a State Hearing Officer as part of a due process hearing when aspects of an IEP are in dispute. 

We also encounter situations where a district paid evaluation at The Yellin Center is part of an ongoing discussion between a family and a school district, especially when the district has not been successful in addressing a child's educational needs. And families need to keep in mind that The Yellin Center has always had a sliding scale for families who need assistance in paying for our services. 

There are countless resources available to explain this process to parents and school administrators, but some you might find useful are:

• For New Jersey familes, a memo from the New Jersey Department of Education, with a list of Frequently Asked Questions about IEEs.
• From the U.S. Department of Education, a memo discussing why districts cannot set absolute cost limits on IEEs and a link to a number of other memos discussing other aspects of the IEE funding process.
• For a review of court cases that have dealt with the IEE issue, a law review survey of cases by Perry Zirkel.

Testing as a Way to Boost College Achievement

While parents and students throughout the country lament the constant testing of students in elementary and high schools, a new study has found that frequent testing of college students -- each day of class -- boosted achievement of all students, especially those from lower income backgrounds.

Robert S. Donovan

The findings, from a team of psychology professors at the University of Texas at Austin, were published in the online science journal PloS One. The professors were co-instructors of two large introductory psychology classes, with a total of over 900 students. They had taught the same course for several years and thus had data on student performance to compare to the classes in which they implemented the daily testing. Students were advised to bring their laptops to class and were given personalized online quizzes containing eight questions at the beginning of each class, one of which was a question that the student had gotten wrong on a prior quiz. Students could drop their lowest quiz grades and could take a limited number of quizzes outside class. The quizzes included material from both the course lectures and the assigned readings.

The professors found that the students in the classes subject to quizzing did better not just in the introductory psychology course, but in other courses that semester and in courses in subsequent semesters. There was also a significant reduction in the difference in performance between students of higher and lower socioeconomic standing, something that had been notable in prior sections of the course.

The professors noted that the improvements they observed "most plausibly reflect changes in students’ self-regulated learning – their ability to study and learn more effectively." They also noted that attendance was high in the classes where quizzes were given, which would also influence student performance. It stands to reason that when students attend class regularly and do the course reading, that they will learn more and that their performance on tests will be improved. No one likes testing, but it can help keep students -- at least college students -- on track for success.

The Importance of Being There

When most parents think about student absences from school, they think of high school students who skip school or cut classes -- something we generally think of as truancy. But absence from school is also an issue for students as young as kindergarten and first grade and the organization Attendance Works notes that, "one in 10 kindergarten and 1st grade students misses a month of school every year. In some districts, as many as one in four students in the primary grades are missing too much school time."

Students in primary grades are rarely absent without parental knowledge. Many parents don't really think too much of having a young student miss school for a family event, or even just parental convenience. For many families the impact of occasional absences may not be significant, but for students who are at risk of failure -- whether because of poverty, English language barriers, or unstable family situations -- absences even in early grades can have a cumulative impact upon academic performance. A seminal paper on this topic, Present, Engaged, and Accounted For: The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades, from the National Center for Children in Poverty, found that for students in ninth grade, missing 20 percent of the school year is a better predictor of dropping out than test scores.

Furthermore, students with chronic or frequent illness may have excused absences, but unless efforts are made to continue their schoolwork or to make up missed work, something that is often difficult or impossible in less affluent school districts, the fact that these absences may be unavoidable does not diminish their impact upon future performance and graduation. 

via boostattendance.org

In an effort to raise awareness of the impact of absences, The Advertising Council and the U.S. Army created a website, boostattendance.org which includes tools to help parents understand the impact that absences can have on student achievement. There is also a link to a student-focused tool which enables students to sign up for celebrity wake-up calls. As Woody Allen is credited with saying: "80 percent of life is just showing up." Showing up for school, even in early years, can have an important and positive impact on a student's educational success.

American Heritage College Planning

High school students and their families are always looking for useful sources of information about college planning, colleges, and everything related to the process of moving beyond high school to the next step in a student's education. There are countless articles, books, websites, and colleges themselves to learn about, but it is difficult for students and their parents to keep up with the constant flow of information and the seemingly endless lists of colleges to consider. High school guidance counselors and web-based college planning programs can be helpful, but we have found another terrific resource for students, parents, and their counselors alike.

American Heritage College Planning is a Facebook page administered by Luciana Mandal, M.Ed., Director of College Planning at American Heritage School, a private Pre-12 school (with over 1400 high school students) in Plantation, Florida. Featuring the oft heard quotation attributed to Frank Sachs, Past President of the National Association of College Admission Counselors (NACAC), "College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won," the page includes links to current books and articles, information about specific colleges, and planning tips that can be useful to all students thinking about college. 

"The media can often skew information," Ms. Mandal noted. "So, when we see well-written and accurate articles in the media that represent our real experiences in the field, we like to make them available to anyone who follows our Facebook Page." She continued, "The practice in our college office at American Heritage is to guide students individually, based on family and student priorities. We believe that education is a process and not a race, and that the college degree is a step toward a career. That "good fit" college is what we seek for each student, so having toured over 250+ colleges (collectively in our department), we know much more about the college fit than where it sits on a rank list. Therefore, the articles we post present important angles not well-known to the public."

It's easy enough to keep up with the information posted by Ms. Mandal and her colleagues; just add the page to your "friends" list and be prepared to be informed.  

Recommended Reads: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Ages: Teen and young adult                                                  

Sequels: Divergent is the first in a trilogy. Look for Insurgent and Allegiant once your teenager whips through this first installment.

Plot: Sixteen-year-old Beatrice lives in dystopian Chicago, a world of absolutes. After undergoing an aptitude test to determine which of five traits they possess, all sixteen-year-olds must choose the faction (i.e. social group) to which they will devote the rest of their lives. Their choice can be based on the trait they’ve been shown to have, or the trait they most wish to cultivate. Beatrice grew up in Abnegation, the faction chosen by people dedicated to selflessness and charity. Her aptitude test reveals that she is an aberration, however, meaning that she displays equal aptitude for more than one trait. Beatrice’s tester, alarmed, warns her that if anyone finds out that she is divergent, she is as good as dead. (Sounds a bit dramatic, but the reasons are explained later.) 

Resolved to hide this fact, Beatrice enters the choosing ceremony still torn between factions. Knowing that she has qualities of both Abnegation and Dauntless (the brave faction), which should she select? She surprises everyone by pledging herself to Dauntless in a last-minute decision and begins a highly competitive, brutal initiation process that only a fraction of the candidates will pass and some will not survive. Beatrice invents a new identity, changing her name to Tris and adopting a new wardrobe, style, and attitude in attempts to leave her past behind her. Tris learns to use weapons and fight, but also to take risks and face her fears. And, of course, she falls for one of her instructors, a slightly older Dauntless named Four. Just when it seems that Tris will finally triumph over the initiation and those who wish her harm, she stumbles upon a sinister plot hatched by the leaders of the Erudite faction, domain of those who prize intellect and learning above all else. Tris must put her life on the line and fight to save her family, her friends, and her whole world.

Adult themes: Some mild sexual references and themes of violence

Our Take: Divergent is the first book of yet another dystopian trilogy. But it is an unquestionably engrossing read that fans of books like The Hunger Games and Uglies will devour. The premise is intriguing and most of the characters are reasonably well developed. The book’s strongest asset, though, is its page-turning plot, which will feel compelling even to those who have read many books of this genre before. It’s predictable in some places but there are still a few surprises here. Young readers will enjoy exploring themes like control, fear, bravery, individuality, loyalty, and strength of all sorts with Tris’s story.

Good to Know: Divergent will hit big screens in March of 2014, with Kate Winslet in the role of primary antagonist Jeanine. Watch a trailer here.

Pitch Painter App Introduces Kids to Musical Composition

Painting and playing music may seem, at best, to be loosely related to each other. They’re both forms of art, of course, but is there really more to it than that? Composer and so-called Godfather of Electronic Music Morton Subotnick thinks there is. Subotnick is a classically trained musician turned rogue. He catapulted into fame with his revolutionary album Silver Apples on the Moon in 1968 (now on CD) and has been pushing barriers, entertaining presidential families, and winning awards ever since. Most recently, he's developed an app that can introduce children to musical composition in a characteristically fresh, innovative way.

Morton Subotnick (source)

Pitch Painter is Subotnick’s latest effort to put electronic music-making tools in the hands of the young. Subotnick says the idea of recording, as opposed to live performance, has always appealed to him. He likes the idea of being like a painter, who gets to look at a piece and perfect it before sharing it, knowing that viewers will see is just what he wanted them to see. With electronic music, Subotnick had that ability. Now, with Pitch Painter, children between the ages of 3 and 5 can have it, too.

Pitch Painter is a simple app that allows children to experiment with sound and musical composition with a few taps of a finger. First, a child chooses from a variety of familiar and exotic musical instruments. Next, the child “paints” on the screen with a finger, perhaps sticking with just one instrument or maybe adding a few more. At any time, she can play back what she’s painted. A long, straight line down the middle of the screen will result in a single, mid-register note held for a long time. Upward swoops will lead to higher-pitched sounds. Single dots will be played as individual notes. Each instrument shows up on the canvas as a different color, so children can layer them, listen to the resulting piece, then go back and make changes.

The app, Subotnick confesses, won’t make symphonies. But it introduces young children to music in the same way that playing with building blocks introduces kids to engineering. Pitch Painter is available through the iTunes store for $3.99.