| But what if you
start late? |
375 |
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percent of the students
showed "significant improvement" (at least one year's growth in eight weeks) in
three of six learning abilities tested, 50 percent in one and 27 percent in two others.10
The world abounds with other excellent catch-up
programs. Among the best we have found:
Doman-Palmer-Niklasson-Hartigan models
Variations of the physical routine programs developed
by Glenn Doman, Lyelle Palmer, Irene and Mats Niklasson, and Jerome and Sophie Hartigan
are now being used effectively in many parts of the world. Montessori International, in
Montana, puts its older preschool children every day through a routine of log rolls,
alligator crawls, rapid spinning and swinging on bars. In the Hartigans' Jumping Beans
program children as young as 18 months go through a series of routines to music, starting
with gentle rolling, and balancing, then moving up to brachiating exercises: swinging from
their hands on 'jungle gyms' or 'monkey bars'.
Before three, the Hartigans recommend plenty of fun and
dance to music. After three, the more structured program can begin.11
In
Shidchida, Japan, you'll also now find more than 100 centres where parents can do advanced
developmental activities with their children.
The ball/stick/bird method
In Maryland, USA, outstanding results have been
achieved by Dr. Renee Fuller while on the staff at Rosewood Hospital Centre Psychology
Department. She worked with 26 persons who were institutionalized for retardation -
ranging in age from 11 to 48 and in I.Q. tests from 28 to 72.
Fuller taught them to read. And that achievement
greatly increased both their learning ability and their self-esteem. "Not only did
they learn to read advanced story material with comprehension," she reports,
"they also showed some unexpected emotional and behavioral changes."12
By learning to read they learned to think. And when
they learned to think, their behavior changed and their appearance changed.
Fuller provided them with a tool to break the reading
code: the ball/stick/bird method. In this method, the ball represents all the parts of
letters of the alphabet having a circle; the stick represents the parts of letters with a
line; and the bird the "wings" of letters, such as an "r."
Contents Page Preface
Introduction
