Forcing kids to read things they hate just simply... doesn’t work. Our reading philosophy at Alpha is simple: kids learn to love reading by reading what they love. Sure, it’s important for kids to be exposed to classic literature. But being forced to read highbrow literature as a young teen is often the very thing that makes kids hate reading in the first place. Many of them never bother picking up a novel again. If the goal is to have students fall in love with reading and become life-long readers, then we should cater the material to their interests. Whether it’s comic-books, books about insects, or a biography on the Kardashians, there has to be a better way. We built our own app called Teach Tales to solve this problem.show more

One of the best predictors of how successful a... child will be is the amount of time they spend reading Parents should start reading with their kids as early as possible, even before they understand the words. This should be a daily activity. This is the best way to build a love for reading. Kids who grow up reading every day develop stronger communication skills & have more success in school And parent-child reading time is a great way to build strong bonds. One day your kids will thank you for building this habitshow more

If you've seen how they teach reading these days,... you would understand how kids might see reading as a tedious and difficult chore. They literally teach kids to guess what the next word in a sentence is, and discourage them from sounding words out.show more

A key factor in learning how to read is... ensuring students enjoy the experience. At the #ForestofReading Festival, THOUSANDS of students showed us how they love reading, voting for their fav Canadian books. Listen to them cheer!!! #LiteracyMatters #KidsLoveReading @ColleenNelson14show more

Today we’re announcing our new Mentava Basics curriculum, aimed... at kids who are still a bit too young for the standard Mentava curriculum. Here’s what people don’t understand about teaching a 2 or 3 year old to read: The necessary skills for reading don’t all develop at the same time. The ability to associate letters with sounds happens first, and at a pretty early age. If you think about it, learning “this funny shaped animal says moo” is pretty similar to learning “this funny shaped line says aaa.” However, the second necessary skill for reading is blending those letter sounds together, and kids often aren’t developmentally capable of doing that until at least 6-12 months later. Until today, our recommendation has been to wait until the child is developmentally ready to blend sounds. and then we just go full speed and teach them everything all at once, as fast as possible. But sometimes we have students who start a little younger. And then their parents are confused, because they see that their kids are having a ton of fun learning letter sounds super fast, but then are being gatekept from additional learning because they aren't yet developmentally ready to blend those sounds. That’s why we created the new Mentava Basics curriculum. Mentava Basics lets our youngest students focus on letter/sound pairings until they're developmentally ready to begin blending them. Mentava Basics takes the fun and delight of the core Mentava experience, but applies it to a curriculum that’s developmentally appropriate for even younger children. Mentava’s standard curriculum is still the fastest way to go from zero to reading, but with Mentava Basics now we can give kids a head start by helping them learn their letter sounds in advance. If your child is struggling with blending and you think it may just be a developmental readiness issue, you can use the grownup menu to switch into the Mentava Basics curriculum. We save your progress on both pathways, so you can switch back to our standard curriculum whenever you want.show more

What kind of adults are we preparing our children... to become? Strong kids don't become strong overnight. It starts with the little things they learn when they're young. Teaching them to keep their word, finish what they start, clean up after themselves, help around the house, and take responsibility for their choices gives them a foundation they can carry for the rest of their lives. A good work ethic is built the same way. Kids need to learn that not everything worth having comes easily. Sometimes you have to work when you don't feel like it. Sometimes you fail and have to try again. Sometimes nobody is going to do the job for you. That doesn't mean children shouldn't have fun or enjoy being kids. They absolutely should. But love isn't the same thing as making life easy for them. One of the best things a parent can do is give a child enough responsibility to discover that they're capable of handling it. When kids learn discipline, responsibility, and perseverance early, they gain something much more valuable than an easy childhood. They gain confidence in their ability to face life. Are we raising children who expect everything to be done for them, or children who will be ready to take responsibility for their own lives?show more

Lifelong readers aren’t born, they’re made. I can’t get... enough of this little one, who finds the most exciting discovery at the grocery store: books. Watch his reaction. His excitement. And the way he plops right down on the floor to dig in. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that reading holds a special place of honor in this household - or that this family’s IG account is jam packed with book content. There’s more to learning to read than being read to, of course. But the desire and inclination to read… the association between books and pleasure…those are all things you can begin developing from Day One by making daily reading a part of your child’s life. Look at all the literacy knowledge this little guy has already developed. Just marvelous. Read, read, read with your baby. This literate little one was shared to IG by sambolivat.show more

Want to give your child a leg up in... kindergarten (and life)? Expose them to a million extra words. It’s easier than it sounds. I wrote recently about the vocabulary building power of reading aloud to your child. Books expose children to new worlds through their storytelling - and with those new worlds come new WORDS. Words that you may not have had occasion to use otherwise. Reading develops this vocabulary quality in part through vocabulary quantity. A recent study from Ohio State University suggests that children who are read five books a day from infancy will be exposed to 1.4 million more words by kindergarten than those who lack this advantage. If five books seems like a lot, rest assured that there’s advantage to any reading at all. Children read a single book a day will benefit to the tune of 290,000 more words. A rich vocabulary lends itself to explosive reading growth when the time comes. That’s because you can’t truly decode words you don’t know. So read, read, read with your little one. You’ll be amazed by the return on investment. This adorable little book worm was shared to IG by pitterpatterpals_.show more

Once your culture is gone, it isn't coming back.... To preserve a culture, you must continually read the books and ideas that created it. That's why we started an online book club to study the greatest texts of Western Civilization. Every month, we study a new great work — so far we've covered Augustine's Confessions, Dante's Inferno, The Count of Monte Cristo, Don Quixote, etc. Currently, we're reading Virgil's Aeneid. Western Civilization has given us the greatest books ever written, but it takes effort to read them, and even more to read them well. That’s what we’re doing here, slowly, together. If you want to support our efforts, please consider a paid subscription. It makes a huge difference to the time and resources we can dedicate to this project. Paid members get: - Live community book discussions (biweekly) - Deep-dive essays to guide you through the books we’re reading - The full archive of book reviews, essays, and our 100 Great Texts reading list - Access to all community discussion threads (via the subscriber chat) - Ability to vote on what we read next This is not school. There are no grades, no credentials, and no status games. Just a community of readers serious about recovering what’s been lost, and using it to build something better. Welcome!show more

Want to give your child a leg up in... kindergarten? Expose them to a million extra words. It’s easier than it sounds. I wrote recently about the vocabulary building power of reading aloud to your child. Books expose children to new worlds through their storytelling - and with those new worlds come new WORDS. Words that you may not have had occasion to use otherwise. Reading develops this vocabulary quality in part through vocabulary quantity. A recent study from Ohio State University suggests that children who are read five books a day from infancy will be exposed to 1.4 million more words by kindergarten than those who lack this advantage. If five books seems like a lot, rest assured that there’s advantage to any reading at all. Children read a single book a day will benefit to the tune of 290,000 more words. A rich vocabulary lends itself to explosive reading growth when the time comes. That’s because you can’t truly decode words you don’t know. So read, read, read with your little one. You’ll be amazed by the return on investment. This adorable little book worm was shared to IG by pitterpatterpals_.show more

🇯🇵🇨🇳 In Japan, we teach our kids to love... and take care of their own country and make as many friends as possible. In China? They teach their kids to stomp on the flags of other countries. Communism has ruined China. We must not let this happen in Japan too.show more

Hills I will die on as an elementary school... teacher, who just wrapped up my 32nd year teaching! 1. If you are not PASSIONATE about blessing, serving, and empowering those you are blessed to teach, this profession is not for you. 2. Our students are not “ours”. They are their families, and we need to understand the magnitude of the calling, and responsibility we have to meet them where they are, and to help them to get to a place that they never thought possible. 3. As important as the curriculum is (and it IS important), the children in our classroom are what matter most. It’s our JOB to teach the curriculum to SERVE our students, NOT to use our students to push any sort of agenda. 4. Just as we teach our students to “leave things better than they found them”, we need to leave our students better than they were when they first entered into our classroom. Never let a day pass without pouring into each and every child. 5. We should not teach our children WHAT to think, but HOW to think, and how to use that knowledge to bless and serve not only themselves, but the world around them. 6. Our words carry little (or NO value), if we do not practice what we preach. 7. If we don’t make learning fun, children will view learning as a chore, and we we will be creating a generation of children who grow up to be young adults who don’t see the joy in learning new things. 8. The child that may be “difficult to reach/teach” (the one who may get on your last nerve more than you could ever imagine), is someone’s EVERYTHING. Get to know them as human beings, find out what motivates them, and do everything you can to help them to thrive. 9. Never tell a child they “can’t” do something. God has blessed each of them with far more strengths and talents than we may know, and it’s not our job to tell them what they can’t do, but to help them to realize all the things they CAN do. 10. The legacy you leave as a teacher will never be determined by your student’s test scores, but by the human beings you helped them become throughout their lives.show more

Mentava’s early literacy software has taken 2yos (almost 3)... to an early 2nd grade reading level in as little as 3 months. Some people think this is a miracle. I do not. If a kid can learn fast, we let them learn fast. If a kid learns slower, we let them learn slower. This should be common sense, but unfortunately it’s opposed by the National Education Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Council of Teachers in Mathematics, and many other groups who drive education policy. It’s a tragic indictment of our education system that Mentava simply reveals how fast some kids can learn and people think it’s a miracle. Mentava’s early literacy software has two main ingredients: curriculum + motivation There’s nothing revolutionary about Mentava’s curriculum. Our curriculum is a typical, extremely structured phonics curriculum. There is a massive body of evidence (and common sense) backing the idea that kids should learn to read by sounding out words. Armed with any decent phonics curriculum, I would expect a skilled parent/teacher who can motivate, engage, and teach a kid 1-1 on a daily basis over a period of several months to get similar results to our software. (I frequently recommend the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons as a cheaper alternative to Mentava.) So why do some families choose to pay $500/month for Mentava? Well, not everyone has the time/motivation/desire to become that teacher. Some people do, and they love that process. On the other hand, some families come to Mentava and say, “I used that book to teach my first child to read. It worked, we both hated it, and I will never do it again.” By contrast, my 4yo wakes me up in the morning asking to do Mentava. He gets mad in the evenings when I don’t have time to do it with him. He LOVES learning to read. What Mentava does exceptionally well is provide motivation and fun - without sacrificing academic rigor. Our team members led some of the top mobile and AAA games in the world. We are very very good at motivation design. In short, we take phonics and gamify it to be as fun, easy, efficient, and motivating as we can possibly make it. So, claims: - Mentava works really, really well for SOME kids - Mentava probably does not work well for ALL kids - Under ideal conditions, other phonics programs will probably perform similarly to Mentava (or better!) No research study will tell you whether Mentava is the best fit for your family. So we offer a two-week free trial. That’s enough time for some families to make it most of the way through our kindergarten curriculum. Use Mentava with the kids it works for. Don't use it with kids for whom it doesn't. Don’t overcomplicate things.show more

Once your culture is gone, it isn't coming back.... If the schools and universities won't teach us the great books of the West, we will do it ourselves. We are forming an independent group dedicated to the study and preservation of the Western canon of literature — the books that built our civilization. If that sounds like something you'd like to be part of, please join us. We tackle a new classic text every month. Currently, we're reading Virgil's Aeneid, and discussing it together. We meet biweekly.show more

GM. #NoStrollers parenting has been the focus of this... page and will remain so but going forward I will be adding several other parenting foci that have had profoundly positive and important impacts on my children and family. 1. *Socratic dialogue*. Thanks to Michael Strong Michael Strong for showing the way here and helping our family wield this proven, powerful, free educational (and relationship building) too. Shout out to Socrates, too. I will be sharing clips and links to the YouTube page that Michael and my now 12 year old daughter have been building since Alana was 3.5 demonstrating the what, why, how, and IMPACT of Socratic dialogue. Here is the Michael-Alana YT, and a recent representative clip is attached. 2. *Early Childhood Literacy*. If you are unaware, literacy levels in the USA are deplorable. The 'reading gap' is an active tragedy mentally crippling more than half of the young people in America. As a parent to be I was determined my child would be a a strong and early reader. Drawing upon my time as a volunteer reading tutor to 4th and 5th graders (!!) In San Diego, I composed alternate lyrics to the ABC song about how to read (the mechanics of reading), dubbed 'The Secind Verse to the ABCs.' My wife and I sang this verse to our children as often or more than any other kids song. We sincerely believe the 'Second Verse' strongly contributed to our children reading and comprehending chapter books by age 4. Reading well at a young age opened the world for them, as it did for me as a child. Almost nothing matters more than fostering a love of learning and strong reading skills at a young age. I hope you will sing and widely share the Second Verse. A few years ago I published a children's book of the same title featuring child-led Socratic dialogue to teach reading, and I will be sharing that as well (foreword by Mark Victor Hansen -- ty again Sir -- and afterword by Michael Strong). A soft cover version is available on Amazon and I have a couple hundred original hardcovers available too (DM me if interested). In the meantime, teach and sing the Second Verse to children! 3. *Healthy Kids Food". We raised children whose default is enjoy healthy foods including liver and sardines. I'll be sharing some of what worked for us. And yes I am anti-goldfish. Finally, don't forget that strollers (and mental strollers aka tablets) are suboptimal and deprive children of an enormous amount of invaluable time in the stream of life. Abandon them! Thank you for your interest and I hope you will share this post. Aloha. #homeschool #ParentingTips #parenting #socratic #socraticdialogue #newborn #toddlers #readingcommunity #literacy #kindergartenshow more

Want to prepare your baby for a lifetime of... success? Make literacy a priority from the start. Surround your child with spoken and written language. Speak, read, sing. And model reading as a skill - and interest - of your own. (Remember there’s nobody your child wants to emulate more than you.) I love what this family has created, adding literacy to their daily mealtime routines. After each meal, the children hear books read aloud - which is followed by a short period of independent exploration with books. Look at how attentive these little guys are. At this age, start small… even a minute or two at a time can help start a lifetime habit. And never forget that literacy learning begins long before children enter kindergarten. Want them to do well in school? Don’t wait until they get there to begin. Does/did your baby have favorite board books? I’d love to add them to my list. This highly literate lunchtime was posted to IG by zaintwinzz.show more

We have an opportunity to make New Hampshire an... even better place to learn by passing a bell-to-bell ban on cell phones in schools. Getting cell phones out of the classroom is the right thing to do for our kids.show more

Washington Teacher FIRED after reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird'... in Class Matthew Mastronardi, a teacher at West Valley School District in WA, has been terminated after he was secretly recorded reading a passage from the school-approved book 'To Kill A Mockingbird' which contained the "N-word." The board is now refusing to renew his contract as a teacher. Students and the community have started a petition demanding he be reinstated. Yet these schools say giving kids p**n is fine…show more

Are we making childhood so comfortable that we're accidentally... making adulthood harder? There's something worth thinking about when you look at kids today. A lot of children have more comfort, entertainment, convenience, and protection than previous generations ever had, yet most still seem to have less experience dealing with discomfort, boredom, failure, physical effort, and the ordinary frustrations of life. Part of the problem might be that we've gotten really good at removing obstacles. Kids can spend hours sitting in front of screens instead of running around outside. Parents can solve problems for them before they ever have a chance to figure them out. We're constantly entertaining them, protecting them from disappointment, and sometimes treating every uncomfortable feeling like something that needs to be immediately fixed. None of this means children shouldn't be protected or cared for. They absolutely should. But there's a difference between protecting a child from genuine danger and protecting them from every difficult experience. Kids need opportunities to be physically active. They need chores and responsibilities. They need to experience losing a game, making a mistake, hearing the word no, waiting for something they want, and figuring out how to solve problems without an adult stepping in every time. They need to learn that being uncomfortable isn't necessarily the same thing as being unsafe. They also need parents who teach emotional strength without teaching emotional suppression. It's perfectly okay for a child to be sad, frustrated, scared, or disappointed. The lesson should be that those feelings can be handled. You can acknowledge the emotion while still expecting the child to move forward with self control. And maybe one of the biggest things parents can do is lead by example. Children watch what adults do even more than they listen to what adults say. If they see parents avoiding every challenge, complaining about every inconvenience, and giving up when things get difficult, they're going to notice. The goal isn't to make childhood miserable. It's to give kids enough love and security that they feel confident stepping outside their comfort zone. Are we preparing our children to expect the world to accommodate them, or are we preparing them to be strong enough to handle the world as it is?show more