Raise Genius Kids

Photographic memory training exercises are used to develop and improve and individual’s memory. Most techniques taught in books focus on the ability to retain and recall information when needed. However, photographic memory training exercises should focus on the learning process, rather than the memorization. It is the learning process that creates links in the mind, allowing it to recall the information at a later time.

There are many common photographic memory training exercises, such as list building, word association (also known as visualization and association) and story telling. These exercises are useful in remembering lists such as birthdays, telephone numbers, or your shopping list.

Whilst there is great controversy regarding the existence of photographic memory, it is without a doubt that these exercises when used, can train the mind to improve on its mental capacity and memory.

The best method that we recommend would be the picture game. This is one that can be adapted to use with children or adults, and the best element of this exercise is that it is fun. This makes it an interesting experience, and people are more likely to remember what they learnt and put it into practice. When working with children, it is also a good suggestion to involve a reward, as this will motivate them to work harder and pay attention to what you are trying to teach.

The Picture Game

This is a fantastic exercise for improving your sensory memory, especially your vision. Start with a simple picture that involves at least a foreground and a background. Study the picture for a minute, then put it away and see how much of it you can recall. For example, what were the people wearing? What colour was the house? How many apples were on the tree? These are simple questions which will inspire you to want to recall everything about the picture, making it a great exercise. With constant practice, you can move on to more complex pictures, and soon you will find yourself on the way towards developing a photographic memory!

Greg Frost is a leading innovator in the memory field, and he specializes in helping people improve and develop their photographic memory To find out more on how to deal with memory loss, learn advanced memory techniques, and have all your questions regarding memory answered, visit this site: http://www.photographic-memory.org

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Greg_Frost

The week of November 23-27, 2009, is observed as National Week for the Gifted and Talented.

The observance is pursuant to Presidential Proclamation No. 199 signed on October 19, 1999, which aims to build public awareness on the education of the gifted and talented in the country and to provide them opportunities, encouragement, greater attention, and assistance to maximize their full potentials.

With the theme “Gifts and Talents:

The Means for Productive Life,” the celebration is geared to strengthening academic excellence, leadership, value formation, and love of country among the gifted and talented.

The Department of Education which leads the five-day celebration has prepared activities which can be integrated in school activities. Among them are visual and performing arts competitions, arts and crafts exhibits, leadership training, academic competitions, educational field trips, fun games and sports activities, symposiums on parenting the gifted and talented on meeting their needs, and lectures on the theme of the celebration.

Filipino talents are known all over the world. Let us support the programs in developing potentials of children who are gifted and talented.

They will be future excellent leaders of our country. www.mb.com.ph

FINDING OUT WHETHER YOUR CHILD IS GIFTED IS THE FIRST STEP IN GETTING HER THE CHALLENGE SHE CRAVES
Article Appeared in the Chicago Tribune
September 19, 1999

Is your child truly gifted, or are you just one of those pushy, “stage mother” types who thinks his or her bright child is really a genius? “Parents’ observations of their own child’s gifts or special talents are the greatest indicator,” says Linda Kreger Silverman, who is director of the Gifted Development Center in Denver. “If your child’s teacher says your child isn’t gifted, and you feel certain that he or she is, seek testing. Of the 3,000 or so children we’ve seen at the center, 84 percent of the parents who thought their child was gifted were right; and 95 percent had a child gifted in some area, even if their total IQ did not fall into the gifted range.”

Mary Edwards of Denver says having gifted children is “a wonderful and amazing world. I have a 12-, 9- and 4-year-old, all gifted; each one is unique. In many ways, it’s like any other parenting.” The term “gifted” is applied, generally, to people with an IQ of 130 or higher. That, in turn, is broken down into subcategories of “moderately gifted” (130-144 IQ), “highly gifted” (145-160) and “profoundly gifted” (161 or higher.) Because most media images of giftedness are at the profoundly gifted extreme (think “Good Will Hunting”), many parents who suspect their child may be exceptional dismiss the idea because little Johnny or Susie isn’t playing Mozart concertos at 4 or working on integral calculus in 1st grade.

Parents of gifted kids are often gifted themselves, so they tend to think their child is not different from other children. (More than 2.5 million children, or 2 percent of the total number of children in the U.S., have been identified as gifted.) The Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado has identified the genetic markers related to giftedness, and there have been numerous articles in Scientific American on the subject. Thus, if the parents are exceptional, having children who are highly intelligent is the norm — for their household, anyway.

Here’s the catch when it comes to giftedness: It’s well known that children’s early development sets them on the path for future learning. Educational psychologist Maurice Fisher, publisher and owner of Gifted Education Press of Manassas, Va., says, “All the research evidence that I have read about the human brain shows that if infants don’t get proper stimulation at an early age, their brains don’t develop properly. This is true in humans; it’s also true in lower animals, as shown in controlled scientific studies. “If the gifted child is not stimulated in infancy, preschool and early elementary education,” Fisher says, “they lose their potential. If we don’t pay enough attention at ages 3, 4 and 5, which are critical periods to develop their brains to their maximum ability, they will lose their giftedness because they are not challenged and nurtured by their families and/or schools.”

Meanwhile, most public schools that have gifted programs don’t start with students until around 4th grade, which is past this critical period. Some gifted children begin school just like every other child, when they’re 5. That’s when the trouble can start. By definition, giftedness is “out-of-step” development. That is, intellectual, physical and emotional development occurs at different rates — higher, faster growth that’s out of sync with the norm. So a child who is 5 years old may read at a 10-year-old level, understand math at a 7-year-old level, and be socially adept at a 4-year-old level.

In her book “Counseling the Gifted and Talented” (Love Publishing, $45), Silverman points out that gifted children are two standard deviations from the norm, or the top 2 percent of the population, just like those children who comprise the lower 2 percent of the population. Because public schools are set up to attend to the needs of those in the middle, Silverman writes in her book, those children on either end of the spectrum are left outside. Gifted children have tremendous difficulty learning within the structure of a “normal” classroom, she writes; they require special education in order to meet their unique way — and speed — of learning.

Elizabeth Meckstroth is author of several books on giftedness, including “Guiding the Gifted Child” (with J. T. Webb and Stephanie S. Tolan; Columbus Ohio Psychology Publishing, $18) and “Teaching Young Gifted Children in the Regular Classroom” (with Joan Franklin Smutny and Sally Yahnke Walker; Free Spirit Publishing, $12.95). Meckstroth used this analogy: “If we were TV sets, some of us would only get five channels. Others are wired for cable — the general population — and some of us (the gifted) are hooked up to a satellite dish. That makes these gifted children capable of making connections that others don’t even know exist! “Teaching those types of voracious minds in a regular classroom without enhancement is like feeding an elephant one blade of grass at time. You’ll starve them.”

Edwards’ experience with her three children has convinced her that gifted kids seek stimulation. “One of the most common misconceptions,” she says, “is that the parents are pushing the child. In my household, my children are dragging me through the muck and mud, and I have to struggle to keep up with them. I spend an average of three hours a day driving the three of them to and from school and sports activities. They basically choose their own interests — passions, really. If my children aren’t challenged, their behavior deteriorates. Their minds have to be occupied at a high level for all our lives to run smoothly.”

There are factors that may hide or “mask” giftedness in a child, particularly when the parents and/or teachers don’t know what to look for or when learning disabilities and giftedness exist within the same child. Those children are considered “twice exceptional” and can languish in a public school setting without the proper identification and support, says Meckstroth. Experts point out that gifted children can have an enhanced nervous system, which translates into a boundless supply of curiosity and physical energy. According to Meckstroth, it’s a common mistake to assume a child like this is hyperactive. She says most gifted children who are misdiagnosed with ADD (attention deficit disorder) or ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) are those high-energy, high intensity, brilliant young children who are expected to sit still in a traditional classroom and listen to information they already know.

Some ways to tell whether your child is hyperactive or merely in need of intellectual stimulation? In Silverman’s book “Counseling the Gifted and Talented,” she writes, “Hyperactive children tend to lack voluntary control of attention and behavior, such as interrupting and then losing the thread of the conversation. Gifted children who are high in psychomotor energy are simply very active, with few other symptoms of hyperactivity. They are capable of focused attention and intense concentration when they are interested; aimless activity seems to occur most often when there is insufficient mental stimulation.”

Surviving on less sleep than their “normal” counterparts, gifted children are capable of multiple focusing (watching TV, talking on the phone and doing their homework), and in fact may find working on one task at a time more difficult than “multiplexing.” As Meckstroth puts it, “It’s like asking them to nail Jell-O to a tree — these children need more to sink their teeth into than one simple task at one time.”

FINDING SIGNS OF GIFTEDNESS

In many cases, parents of these children suspect giftedness long before kindergarten. Joan Franklin Smutny, director of the Center for Gifted at National Louis University in Evanston, says these are some of the early signs of giftedness in preschoolers:

Has curiosity about many things.

Asks thoughtful questions (why, how, what if).

Has an extensive vocabulary.

Solves problems in unique ways.

Has a good memory.

Exhibits wit.

Has a sustained attention span.

Is very observant.

Shows talent in making up and telling stories.

Hello Friend,

Yesterday Jennifer called me. She left a message saying that she got my name and phone number from the head of PTA for Northern California. She explained that she is working on the casting for a new TV show. In the show genius children ages 4 to 12 will answer trivia questions. She asked if I can help her identify participants for the show.

I told her that I will send out an email to “Develop Your Child’s Genius” subscribers, and parents who are interested will be able to contact her directly. Here is her email:

Hi Esther!

Below is the casting info for our show. Thanks so much for sending it out! Hopefully something will work out

Best,
Jennifer Cron

Below is the casting info for our new show for a MAJOR network. We have a limited time to narrow down our candidates for the project so the sooner you respond, the better your chances are of being selected.

Are you the parent of a little genius? Is your child a walking encyclopedia of knowledge? Now casting children (ages 4-12) who are extremely bright for a new major network series from Mark Burnett Productions (cast Survivor, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, etc). We are looking for children who are exceptionally advanced for their age in one or more subjects.

Does your child know all there is to know about Baseball, the Presidents of the United States, English Literature, etc.? If so, then we want to meet you! Parents, this is your chance to let your child’s genius shine.

Please email us NOW at casting.jennifer@gmail.com (the sooner the better!), make sure you include your name, phone number, your child’s name & age, the city you live in, a brief description of their genius and several photos of all of you (please note your photos will not be returned).

All the best,
Esther

She is barely out of diapers, but the world already knows 2-year-old Karina Oakley is a genius. Her mother, Charlotte Fraser, revealed to the British media Tuesday that a London-based intelligence researcher estimated her young daughter’s IQ around 160.

Share Inside an innovative class for some of the world’s most brilliant kids. This March, America learned it had its own genius child. Six-year-old Pranav Veera of Ohio made the media rounds after he scored 176 on an IQ test.

Although millions of us celebrate these children’s brilliance on TV shows that air past their bedtime, childhood development experts debate whether Pranav and Karina should ever have been told.

“We don’t usually tell children what their IQ scores are,” said Sylvia Rimm, a child psychologist and author of “Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades, and What You Can Do About It.” By LAUREN COX ABC News Medical Unit

There’s no doubt about it, homework is a vital part of children’s development. As parents, it is our duty to encourage them to do their homework and learn so that they can reach their full potential. Not only will this help them learn but it will instill a sense of pride within them. Plus, they’ll have a better understanding of the concepts at school and can do better overa

ll. But, what if your child hates homework and it is a struggle to get them to do it every day? Well, I can help. In this article, I will teach you how to make homework more appealing for your child.

>>1. Help them get into work mode.

When children hear the word homework, they automatically remember something that is not fun. In addition, they’re often exhausted after school. Therefore it important that we give them ample time to unwind before we insist that they complete their academic work. We can do this by administering a health snack and giving them a bit of personal time immediately after school.

>>2. Change their vision about homework.

Many kids don’t like homework therefore we must turn their vision around. We must teach them that homework can be a lot of fun. Instead of thinking of it as work to do at home, we can encourage them to see it as a time to further educate our brains in a fun and enriching manner. This simply paradigm shift will get results, trust me.

>>3. Make an enrichment plan with your kids.

Get your children involved and excited about their homework. This can be done by getting them involved in a homework plan that gets them excited. To create this plan, brainstorm with your kids. Ask them questions like, “Why do we need to have enrichment time? How much time should you spend every day on enrichment time? Where will you set up enrichment time? What can we both do to make enrichment time more fun and enrichment? Both of you should take time to really think about the plan and how to make it worth for the both of you.

>>4. Be versatile.

Just remember that children are not soldiers. They’ve been in school all day and they need a breaks as well as a snack before they get started with homework. So, give them a bit of down town before you create the enrichment at home program. Not only will this make them more excited about the plan but it will excite them as well. Understand that nothing is set in stone. So, make changes to the schedule when necessary. After all, you want to keep your kids happy and excited about completing their work. Right?

>>5. In conclusion, .. if you and your children work together to develop a realistic home enrichment program, they will be more excited about getting their work done and will feel a sense of immense pride and accomplishment as a result of their involvement with the plan. Good luck parent