By BRIAN SLODYSKO WASHINGTON (AP) — Twenty years ago, a Green Party activist running for the Phoenix City Council named Kyrsten Sinema likened raising campaign cash to “bribery.” Now a first-term senator from Arizona, she no longer has such qualms. Once a self-styled “Prada socialist” labeled as “too extreme” by Arizona’s Democratic Party, Sinema has found new power as a centrist in a 50-50 Senate where there are no votes to spare, forcing President Joe Biden to downsize his agenda and other Democratic ambitions. Her outsize authority highlights one senator’s ability to exploit her party’s narrow hold on the chamber and bend the will of the majority. That prowess is also a reason that corporate interests eager to influence Democrats’...
Here are extracts from a post by Jeffery Bowers and my comments. Jeffrey Bowers: I expect some advocates of phonics will say that the term “phonics” refers to knowledge of letter-sound correspondences, and children need to learn these correspondences to read aloud. The problem with this is that almost all forms of reading instruction teach letter-sound correspondences, including whole language, balanced literacy, and SWI. The issue at hand is whether phonics instruction (as defined in all the meta-analyses and government reports) is the best way to teach these mappings. My comment: True! All forms of reading instruction teach letter- sound correspondences. Unfortunately, most teachers teach the wrong pronunciation of the sounds represented by consonants. This is why most kids...
By Christopher A. Kearney, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Sending a child to school in the morning is a daily ritual for millions of families worldwide. Unfortunately, the attendance process has become highly disrupted due to COVID-19. The fact that many kids have been away from a physical school building for a year or more presents a number of challenges for them and for their family members as schools reopen and resume in-person classes. As a clinical child psychologist who specializes in school attendance problems, I offer four ways parents can help students adapt to the new school year and improve their attendance. 1. Solidify the morning routine Morning preparation routines may have become very laid-back or even unnecessary during the...
Homo erectus was much like us. But similarities can be deceptive. If we looked into the eyes of Homo erectus, we would not see the shock of recognition but rather the cunning of a predator, like a hyena or a lion. Homo erectus was disconcertingly inhuman. Most mammals are born, grow up rapidly, reproduce as quickly as possible, and, as soon as their capacity for reproduction is spent, they die. The same was true for Homo erectus. Their young grew rapidly from infancy to maturity without the lengthy period of childhood that characterizes human beings. When they died, their bodies were ignored, left as so much carrion. Homo erectus lacked any concept of the afterlife. They had no visions of heaven....
SvedOliver/ShutterstockLanguage has traditionally been considered a complex skill which mobilises brain networks specifically dedicated to linguistic processing. But in recent years, neuroscience research has returned to this idea and offered new insights. Notably, studies have suggested that areas of the brain which control certain language functions, such as processing the meaning of words, are also involved in the control of fine motor skills. Syntax, the ability to correctly structure words into a sentence, is one of the most important features of language. While evidence had yet to link syntax skills specifically with motor control in the brain, research published in 2019 revealed a correlation between having good syntactic ability and being skilled at using tools. With this in mind, our...
