Workshops 2009 Workshop Descriptions   Learning Is Neurological Presenter:  Sharon Madsen DEFINITION:  In practice, the phrase Learning Is Neurological means that when a child is guided to exercise all four of his God-designed, neurological learning avenues in a connected way, he will attain knowledge. NOTE:  These five, hands-on (the presenter expects and directs explicit attendee participation) workshops are optimally understood when presented in sequence; however, each may be a stand-alone workshop. Learning Is Neurological:  Workshop #1    Consider with me in detail the origin and purpose of the Evolutionary-Birthed Phonics Philosophy of Education and compare it to the Word’s answers to these questions: 1) What characterizes godly instruction?  2) What is the godly “goal of instruction?”  3) What is God’s “method of instruction?”  4) What is the “indispensable content” of instruction?  5) Who is able to teach?  6) Who is able to learn?  7) What are promised results of godly instruction?  Do I duplicate, perhaps innocently, the world’s anti-God method of instruction, believe its philosophy, use its terms, and follow a curriculum (even when I say I “don’t use a curriculum”) patterned after evolution’s “conditioned response, selection of the fittest, godless ideology?”  Has God left me no “witness” by which to identify “destructive instruction?”  Can I by “Spirit-made-known truths” teach better than the world teaches, even if my personal instructional experience has huge holes in it?  Finally, do my “in-home” teaching results differ from the world’s “at-large” results?  Let’s rejoice together as we perform explicit tasks and document explicit answers from the Divine Revelation.  Learning Is Neurological:  Workshop #2    Enter with me into these foundational issues about “Attaining Language Literacy.”  Can we teach our children the thing we can “do” when “knowledge” does not attend our “doing?”  How does “doing accompanied by knowing” as well as “doing unaccompanied by knowing” shape our teaching?  How do we “make up for” “lack of knowledge?”  Is “lack of knowledge” the “chief obstacle” preventing us from “generating” Literate Students—students who possess understanding of all “literacy tools”:  1) knowledge of the standard for correct English speech; 2) ability to chose from among English sentence structures when speaking; 3) knowledge of penmanship so the brain’s neurological learning avenues can join to construct as well as sort out print; 4) knowledge of the oral/written partnership between English sounds and their symbolic companions [What they must understand to spell literately!]; 5) ability to identify in print the oral/written partnership between English sounds and their symbolic companions [What they must understand to read literately!]; 6) ability to apply these “tools” in self-study; 7) ability to apply all the above when writing [What they must understand to write literately!]?  “See” how the sweet and gentle Spirit, by the Living Word, “fills up our lack of knowledge” as we participate in seven “literate student” activities. Short Description for #2  Learning Is Neurological:  How does the sweet and gentle Spirit “fill up our lack of knowledge” as He guides us “by the Living Word” so we can guide our children to attain “Language Literacy?”        Participate with me in these foundational issues about English:  Correct Speech, Sentence Structure, Penmanship, Spelling, Reading , and Writing.  Teacher – Parent interactive.  Learning Is Neurological:  Workshop #3    Inspect with me these concerns about “Diagnosing and Labeling Children.”  Does evolutionary, godless, Phonics-based instruction purposefully create obstacles to learning?  Do we agree to evolutionary-trained diagnosticians’ unspiritual assessments?  Are we aware that “assessment tools” defy God’s truth in matters they claim to assess?  Are diagnosticians’ lists of labels limited only by the number of “abnormalities and diversities” they can generalize to the “human species?”  Is every evolutionary-assessed learning problem—learning disabilities, learning styles, right brain/left brain dominance, right handedness, left handedness, gender differences, processing disorders, inattention disorders, memory deficiencies, dyslexia, lack of comprehension, inability to think logically, etc.—really an assessment of a “perverted method of instruction?”  How “invasive” is “method of instruction?”  Let’s “discern” how “women and men of faith” prevent as well as correct method-caused problems as we apply “God’s method of instruction.”  Learning Is Neurological:  Workshop #4    Dissect with me the subject of “training up a child in the way he should go.”  How would God have parents deal with Children’s Behavioral Choices?  How does evolutionary, godless, Phonics-based instruction spawn attitude problems like conceit, dishonesty, pretentiousness, mediocrity, disrespect, discontentment, even rebellion?  How do we guide a child to “submit his attitude” to the Word of God?  Does “example speak louder than words,” or does the Spirit require a “words and example match?”  How early in life should we expect a child to exercise “honest-to-God honesty?”  Why should we not “ramble” with a child into his emotional quagmire?  “How” can parents teach a child to “hang up his coat”, “turn off lights”, “tell the truth”—all that is set before him—so the child “learns” and we may legitimately expect him to “live up to what he has attained?”  Is “telling” and “reminding” teaching?  What is parents’ singular, even spectacular, “instructional equipment?”  Finally, do we settle “how-my-child’s-going-to-end-up fears” by the Word’s “what-God-is-doing-in-my-child truths” or do we seek advice from “unschooled-in-the-Word-of-God experts?”  Let’s examine and demonstrate how a “renewed-by-the-Word mind” transforms behaviors—parent behaviors and children behaviors.  Learning Is Neurological:  Workshop #5    Let’s eavesdrop on a commonplace conversation.  “So you say, ‘I’m a natural speller’.  But you say, ‘I’m a non-speller’.  And you are saying, ‘I was taught to spell’!  My friend and I need help.  1)  She says, ‘I am crippled by an inability to teach spelling because all I have going for me is my “I was born with it” ability to memorize what words look like, and I don’t remember being taught to spell’.  2)  I say, ‘I also am crippled by an inability to teach spelling because I don’t have going for me an “I was born with it” ability to memorize what words look like, and I know I was not taught to spell’.  CAN SPELLING BE TAUGHT?  We both think it reasonable that if ‘ability with spelling’ is natural, those unable to spell naturally will die in their non-spelling condition, but IF ANY PERSON AT ANY TIME HAS BEEN ‘TAUGHT TO SPELL’, WE MAY NOT TRUTHFULLY CONJECTURE that 1) spelling is similar to possessing narrow feet—you either have them or you don’t, 2) therefore some are destined to ‘spelling ignorance’, but WE MAY CONJECTURE that 3) spelling is a ‘teachable’ and ‘learnable’ skill.  Tell us truly; can spelling be taught?  Can we learn to teach spelling?”  The Lord is on our side!  Evidence exists for a duplicable “Yes” answer to your questions.  Engage with me, by the Spirit’s enabling, the “means” of becoming a good speller, therefore the “means” of teaching spelling ... to all your children.   Workshop Title & Description: Learning is Neurological What is the one and only thing a teacher is required to know about her student(s) prior to teaching them?  What are the three things a teacher ought to know about her curriculum before using it?  What is Neurological Response Instruction (NRI)?  Why the name?  Is NRI a new theory?  Is NRI easy to use?  How does NRI give each student a “natural learning advantage?”  How does NRI teach you to interact with students “neurologically?”  How does NRI compare with multi-sensory direct instruction?  With worksheet/workbook instruction?  Learn the value of the following italicized statements: NRI is full-spectrum neurological training; therefore students perform consistently and authoritatively in all cognitive and skill areas whereas students receiving fragmented neurological instruction do not.  Each student receiving NRI experiences synergistic cognitive integration, which translates into superior organizational, analytical, associative and comprehension abilities.  Proficiencies are quickly and permanently learned, freeing students’ minds to move to the next cognitive level, thus accelerating the twofold process of cognitive development and skill acquisition.  NRI restores “order and sense” to students who have been trained via fragmented and/or upside-down neurological instruction.  How does NRI reorder a student’s learning neurology from an unnatural descending order to a natural ascending order so what and how the student learns is shaped by his learning neurology and not by his age or grade or by curricula paradigms?  Experience through guided practice how to teach integrated language arts—penmanship, spelling, grammar, written composition, reading—and integrated cognitive development—attention, memory, organization, analytical thinking, association, comprehension—using NRI.  How is NRI pure individualized instruction and how do I use it when teaching any number of students?  How is “individualization” the student’s prerogative—his unique and literal neurological response to instruction—not a teacher-managed or curriculum-managed outcome?  Learn to identify whether or not your curriculum requires your student to respond in a natural ascending or an unnatural descending neurological order and whether or not it impedes or supports NRI.  Learn to choose an NRI-supporting curriculum.  How do I change the neurological ordering of my instruction?  How do I analyze the instruction my student has received (is receiving)?  How do I identify the difference between “student inabilities” (problems that are instructionally based, therefore not true disabilities) and “student disabilities” (problems that are organically based, therefore true disabilities)?  How does NRI remedy instructionally based (instructionally caused and/or instructionally solvable) “inabilities?”  Teachers using NRI appear to be performing miracles, but credit goes to the method.  How do I apply NRI to all my curricula and to all my students?  How does putting NRI into action bring success and satisfaction to me and my students?! Learning Is Neurological Workshop Outline Workshop Title & Description:   Good Spellers Are Always Good Readers!   How can we teach all students to become good spellers, therefore good readers, who also are able to give correct written responses?  Why do we use full-spectrum Neurological Response Instruction (NRI) to teach spelling?  How does being able to spell become a reality for all students?  Why do we teach print-like penmanship?  How does penmanship tie in with spelling?  How does speaking tie in with spelling?  How can we sound out a word for spelling when we don’t speak it correctly?  How many sound-symbol relationships are there?  What is a phonogram?  Are they easy to teach?  Are they easy to learn?  How does workbook-worksheet-flash card spelling instruction confuse the sound-symbol relationships of English?  Why does assignment completion not equal spelling proficiency or reading proficiency?  How do syllables tie in with spelling?  How does sequencing tie in with spelling?  What explicit processes produce good spellers, guaranteed?  How does sound-blending tie in with spelling?    Why is “sounding out words” a spelling process, not a reading process?  How does spelling with alphabet letters confuse the sound-symbol connection, postponing spelling for nearly all students who experience this technique?  Why can some students spell some without undergoing instruction in explicit spelling processes?  Are they spellers in the “literate sense?”  Why do “untaught” spellers fall apart in spelling, writing and reading before or in 4th grade?  Why can some students read some without undergoing instruction in explicit and essential spelling processes?  Are they readers in the “literate sense?”  Why are “untaught” readers rarely good spellers, who also are unable to give correct written responses?  How does learning print-like penmanship, learning phonograms, speaking for spelling, identifying syllables, saying sounds while writing matching phonograms, and sound-blending phonograms enable all students to read plus correctly perform written tasks?!     How to Make Every Student a Good Speller Workshop Outline For Information about bringing one of these workshops to your community please contact:   English for Life—The Madsen Method® Line & Precept Education Foundation • P.O. Box 4298 • Helena, MT 59604 800-640-3607 • info@madsenmethod.com   COPYRIGHT 2005-2009. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. "THE MADSEN METHOD," "ENGLISH FOR LIFE" AND THE SHIELD GRAPHIC AT THE TOP OF THE HOME PAGE ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF THE LINE & PRECEPT EDUCATION FOUNDATION.