For many children, this allows them a rare chance to experience stress free reading. Once they are in this situation, children find themselves relaxing and having fun while reading! They come to think of themselves as good readers, which helps their self esteem and makes them eager to read. And eager readers practice their reading more often, leading to improved reading skill.
All of these elements work together to increase a child's motivation to read, which is an essential element in becoming a successful reader.
When Paquette brought the boys to meet the family for the first time, the Parkers cried.
“Just to see this outpouring of people,’’ Rick Parker began, his eyes welling at the memory. “To see that these people were willing to put their hands and feet to what they believed. . .’’
After the talk, Lotto and Dave Strudwick, Blackawton Primary School’s head teacher, decided to try to do an original research project with the students where the kids would have full control. Lotto also ran a scientific outreach program called Street Science, whose aim was to get non-scientists to do original experiments outside the lab. He and Strudwick wondered if the same idea would work in a classroom.[...]
Ultimately, the class decided to investigate whether bees could use spatial relationships between colors to figure out which flowers had sugar water in them, and which didn’t. The question has interesting implications for bees in the wild, the kids pointed out. If some flowers are bad or have already been sucked dry of nectar, bees should learn to avoid them, “which is like a puzzle.”[...]
Getting the paper published was a struggle as well. In particular, several journals got stuck on the fact that the paper doesn’t cite any references. Lotto says they left the references out because the historical context wasn’t what inspired the kids, anyway.
“That wasn’t the basis for doing the experiment, it was what was interesting to them. That’s the driver of any quality science study,” Lotto said. “That’s what I tell my PhD students: Don’t do any reading. Figure out why you wake up in the morning, what you’re passionate about, and then read the literature. But don’t figure out what’s interesting based on what other people say.”
This book is perfect for kids age 10+. I know it’s perfect because when I handed it to my 10-year-old son, he flipped through it and said with disgust, “Jeez, Mom, is this just a book of cartoon pictures of naked people?” He then proceeded to never put it down. As a follow-on to It’s So Amazing, above, this book takes the same subject matter and advances it in complexity and frankness for its older audience. It still uses the same open, colorful, fun illustrations and authoritative yet friendly tone. A cartoon bird and bee go through the book with the reader, getting just as engrossed — or grossed out — as a young reader might. This gives the reader a couple of fun friends throughout. This book will present to your kids all the topics that might make you squeamish: sex, contraception, diseases, homosexuality, abortion, pubertal changes, masturbation, you name it. This edition also has new information on HPV, infertility treatments and using the internet safely. As a reproductive health professional myself, and as a mom on the northern-European model of talking openly with kids about sex, I endorse this book with all my heart and mind. Get it!
What really got me about the whole story was what it proved, right out there where anybody could see it, pure objective truth, that our imaginations are pure and boundless and can take us anywhere that we let them, no matter how much these bodies might fail us, that even if you're born without a right atrium and ventricle in your heart and no spleen and all your organs on the wrong side of your body and are extremely sensitive to the touch and you beat cancer once when you're eleven and then it comes back again when you're thirteen, you can overcome all of that, because you still have the power to do anything, become just who you've always dreamed of being.
“We pried the door off and I brought the child out and lifted her up and said, ‘here’s my prize,'” said Chief Paul Kashmer.
The child was removed safely from the claw machine and suffered no injuries.
“We got inside and sure enough there was the cutest little girl you ever seen, sucking a bink inside a toy machine with all the other toys,” said Kashmer.
Kashmer said the child never cried and even seemed to be enjoying herself.
The new machine will enable the researchers to study in greater detail how the baby moves through the mother’s pelvis and down the birth canal – issues that have long been studied and debated. The hospital’s Institute for Radiology and Obstetrics Clinic will work closely together on the project.
Among other benefits, it should help researchers to understand why about 15 percent of pregnant women need a Caesarian section because the baby does not progress properly into the birth canal.
