Private and Parochial School Newsletter
March 2015

10 Words to the Wise! 10 Most Commonly Misused Words

Originally pinned from: http://www.dailyfailcenter.com/147508


View full infographic here. Find more pins about improving student grammar, visit our Pinterest board pinterest.com/HMHCo/grammar-activities.

In this Issue:

Word to the Wise! 10 Most Commonly Misused Words

Context, Conversation and Non-Verbal Clues

Regional Education Summits- Coming to a city near you!

Product Spotlight

Professional Development Corner—HMH Education Services ®Services

School of the Month: Bishop Kenny High School

Financial Resources to Help Your School Excel

Monthly Poll: What role do you think STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) plays in the future of education?

Local Events

Previous Issues

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Learn more about our commitment to Private and Parochial Schools at hmhco.com/privateschools.

Context, Conversation and Non-Verbal Clues.

Susan Magsamen, SVP of Early Learning, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Young children are natural experts when it comes to learning critical skills. Unlike other mammals, babies

need adult help for nearly everything. In their first year, while kittens are already batting at mice and colts are walking on their own, young humans are studying and mimicking their parents. Children come to understand that their survival depends on learning from their families and environments. As they acquire language skills, little ones become attuned to using words and gestures to help express what they feel and to get what they need.

In 1995, University of Kansas researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley published a seminal study on vocabulary acquisition in preschool aged children, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children. Hart and Risley spent over two years studying the lives of 42 families of varied socioeconomic backgrounds, discovering substantial differences in how families spoke with children and how many words children were exposed to regularly. This research underscored the core principle that exposure to language early and often is crucial in preparing young children for success and closing achievement gaps at the elementary school level.

But language is not only about verbal skills and words. Context, gesture and environmental awareness are key factors in the way humans communicate, and young learners pay close attention here as well.

Erica Cartmill, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UCLA, has produced fascinating research on the dynamic relationship between early social interactions and infant communicative development. Her research reinforces the theory that preschool vocabulary is a major predictor of school success, with particular focus on the role that both verbal and nonverbal forms of communication play in language acquisition. She notes that gesture in particular is an essential tool for children before they are fluid with verbal language.

As we can easily imagine, most of the words very young children acquire are derived from their parents’ vocabulary. But more than hearing words, the non-verbal clues that parents give toddlers about words are part of the context of learning, and influence the depth of children’s vocabularies upon entering school. As parents and caregivers, we can take advantage of the experiences we share with our children to support language acquisition, especially if we keep in mind their perspective. Here are our top six practical, everyday suggestions to help boost vocabulary in early learners:

    • See Something, Say Something: Describe things that are happening as they are happening, e.g. “Here comes a dog,” as opposed to “We’re going to see a dog.” Children have been shown to learn words more quickly when they can see and feel the object, as opposed to an abstract word with no apparent context.
    • Be Descriptive: Encourage children to describe what they see. Typically when we point out objects to young children, for example a cow, car, boat, etc., we get stuck on nouns. Invite descriptions including shape and color (adjectives) and movement (verbs).
    • Practice Anytime, Anywhere: Take advantage of time in the car or at the supermarket to practice word play, pointing out objects of interest as you talk about them to help provide immediate context and explanation.
    • Provide Feedback: Reflect back what children say to you. This confirms their experience and affirms their ability to have a successful conversation.
    • Use Nonverbal Clues: Remember; children are sensitive to gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice and other non-verbal actions, both in conversation and in educational situations.
    • Offer Positive Reinforcement: When children are pointing at people or objects, validate and name them.

Susan Magsamen is the Senior Vice President of Early Learning at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt™, a member of the Educational Advisory Board for the Goddard School, co-founder of The Johns Hopkins Neuro-Education Initiative and founder of Curiosityville.

This blog was originally published as part of the Language and Literacy Series on hmhco.com.

Regional Education Summits- Coming to a city near you!

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is pleased to announce our summer Education Summit event series “Connect Converse. Cultivate.”

We recognize that your school isn’t like any other school and your student body isn’t one size fits all. There is no “uniform” methodology that works from desk to desk or school to school. There are however great ideas, useful anecdotes, and best practices amongst school leaders in your community. The Education Summits are designed to bring together education leaders in the Private, Parochial and Charter school communities to foster in-depth dialogue coupled with presentations and collaborative workshops that offer strategies and tools to better serve your students and faculty.

Further, we will be there with our industry expertise and powerful full-scale solutions to equip you with the confidence you need to face the challenges moving forward and end-to-end offerings to effectively impact your school’s success and your students’ achievement.

To view cities and dates, visit our registration site today!

We look forward to seeing you this summer!

Product Spotlight

Connections Extended Text Teaching Guides are perfectly matched with your favorite fiction and

informational titles and presented in an easy-to-use format that supports your instruction with the expertise you’ve come to expect from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt™. Select from a growing list of titles (available as print or digital) to engage and challenge your students to meet today’s standards, and use the Teaching Guides to provide the required depth of coverage and rigor.

Learn more about Connections here.

Professional Development Corner—HMH Education Services

Navigating Text Complexity with Carol Jago

Text complexity is something all teachers struggle with when selecting reading for their class. They can look at lexile levels, but that doesn't always represent that text complexity or deeper meaning of the text. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Program Consultant Carol Jago discusses the considerations for navigating text complexity in this excerpt from one of a series of on-demand, point-of-use professional development podcasts.

Private and Parochial School of the Month

Bishop Kenny High School —Jacksonville, Florida


Bishop Kenny High School is a Catholic, college-preparatory high school that serves students in Grades 9–12 in Jacksonville, Florida. In 2013, the school embarked on an ambitious program in deploying iPads to its nearly 1,200 students. This deployment was the largest in the Jacksonville area and the result of extensive research by the school’s visionary principal, Todd Orlando, and the collaboration of administrators, faculty, and staff on how to transform the learning environment to best prepare students for a digital world. Since this deployment, the nature of learning at Bishop Kenny has fundamentally changed for the better and the excitement for learning has dramatically increased. Students now create, curate and collaborate as they develop a digital skill set for the future, while continuing to be formed by the school’s Catholic, college-preparatory curriculum.

The integration of technology on campus is not limited to the device. Instead, having devices in the hands of teachers and students has changed the dynamics of learning by offering limitless opportunities.In one example of this, the school’s Social Studies department has adopted HMH’s iBooks for World History, U.S. History, U.S. Government and World Geography. According to department chairman Michael Broach, “The embedded multimedia content of the iBooks series has helped provide a more differentiated approach to student learning in our social studies classrooms.”

Course content and curriculum is shaped directly by teachers and students together, instead of a reliance on a static curriculum and a fixed textbook. Since this deployment, students are becoming more involved in project-based learning, in collaborative activities and in redefining academic tasks. Students are encouraged to build their own personal collection of digital supplemental resources, such as apps and other materials, organize these resources in a useful way, and share their discoveries with classmates and teachers. In addition to content and curriculum changes, the school has supported the rollout with infrastructure upgrades to the campus, including the opening of the Demetree Learning Commons, a collaborative, multi-media workspace for students and teachers. This new space provides an area where students can visit the help desk, meet in a lounge area to work on projects, gain access to a variety of digital and print resources, and more. The shift to technology has also redefined professional development. Teachers collaborate more frequently in person and online through various professional learning communities (PLCs).

In addition, faculty meetings now take a “flipped” approach where business items are sent out in advance via email and video messages so that meeting time can be used in hands-on activities for faculty members. As a result of its thorough deployment of its 1:1 device initiative, Bishop Kenny High School has not only implemented new technology but succeeded in transforming education on its campus to even better prepare students for the future.

Is your school a leader? Do you have a great success story you’d like to share? Tell us about it and you could see your school featured in a future edition!

 

Financial Resources to Help Your School Excel

Education Grants from the Kinder Morgan Foundation are primarily directed to educational programs for youth in Grades K–12. Funding is provided to local, state, provincial and regional educational institutions, libraries and programs that provide ongoing support, such as Junior Achievement. The foundation also supports youth programs provided by local arts organizations, symphony orchestras, museums and others.
Average Amount Awarded: Varies between $1,000 - $5,000
Deadline to Apply: 10th of each month
Apply online here.

Find more grants with our Free Grant Database.

Monthly Poll

Last month’s poll results: Typically, how do you first find out about new books to read in your classroom?

Other teachers and/or students   19%
 
Book reviews   15%
 
Browsing in book stores   33%
 
A combination of the above  29%
 
Not applicable/other  4%
 

This month's question: What role do you think STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) plays in the future of education?

See how you compare next month when we reveal the poll results!

Local Events

Visit us at one of these local events in your area:

  • March 13th – Diocese of Providence Catholic Educators Symposium, Providence, RI
  • April 7th–9th – National Catholic Educators Conference, Orlando, FL
  • April 29th – NYSTL Vendor Fair, Brookly, NY

Our Vision: From the Desk of HMH® Leadership

“To meet the challenges facing education across the US and beyond, it's going to take experimentation and the incubation of new ideas. Digital innovation has the power to enable the transformation of the learning experience, but we know we've only scratched the surface,”

——says Brook Colangelo, Chief Technology Officer at HMH. - See more here.