Little Brainiacs

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Brain-based education uses what we know about how the brain functions to create effective teaching methods.

What does brain-based learning mean for your child?

- they will be more likely to be engaged in their learning?

- studying using these methods will lead to higher comprehension

- they will be able to make connections between lessons

- they will be better able to remember what they learn

Little Brainiacs was established in 2018 in Birtle, MB. with the hopes of providing support to students in this rural community. LB was established by Madeline Lass, a professional in the fields of education and mental health.

Since it's beginning, LB has provided its clients with a variety of tutoring programs, as well as parent resource packages all of which have been built using brain-based education teaching strategies.

Lass moved from Manitoba to Ontario in 2020 to further her education in Art Psychotherapy. This move has landed her (and Little Brainiacs!) in Collingwood, ON.

After waiting out the pandemic for some time, Little Brainiacs is ready to begin taking on students once again.
Please DM or follow along to find out more details of what's to come.

Pediatricians Say Kids Need Simple Toys, Not iPads And Electronics The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has released a statement that explains why basic toys like blocks are healthier for kids than gadgets and screens.

I say this over and over - that my goal is to help students LEARN TO LOVE LEARNING.
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I am very proud of my reading programs because of the way they encourage children to become independent and critical thinkers!
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I have just gotten through my second book on my loooong summer reading list!

Just finished- Educated by Tara Westover.

Westover shares the true story of her upbringing and journey for self-education. Westover’s ability to display insight into her childhood, while maintaining the reader’s understanding of her character’s youthful vulnerability is brilliant. This is definitely a MUST READ.

I have also read -The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman.

I appreciated how Goodman was able to relay emotions from harsh events in Quebec’s history to today’s readers, and would recommend this book for this reason.
However, I do wish that she had continued with the authentic undertone, that was created in the beginning of the story, throughout the entire novel. I felt the inconsistency of theme in the story’s closing events was disengaging. –Happy endings don’t always make for good writing.

Next on my list is The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante.

I once wrote a paper on the first book of this series, My Brilliant Friend, for a social psychology class in University. I’m hoping the second book of the series is just as thought provoking as the first!

What are you reading this summer? Let me know below!

Here I am going to share with you Tips on how to support language growth in young children!
Keep in mind that children begin to use language at different rates, and there is no need to ever compare one child to another in the early stages of development.
Below are some great ways to help children build their Vocabulary once they do begin to speak!

1) Minimize the baby talk!
It’s easy and fun to talk to toddlers and infants in cute voices, and there’s nothing wrong with a little fun. But in regular conversations throughout the day, speak to children in full adult sentences. When you use a challenging word, talk about what it means and explain it to the child.
This tip is especially beneficial when giving instructions, the child will have to ask for clarification if they don’t understand- and will learn something new!

2) When you see a child focusing their attention on an object or situation- for example, a person walking their dog outside the window. Explain to them what is happening in that scenario and name the objects involved. If you can see the child is already focusing their attention, take advantage of this opportunity.

3) When reading books, stop and explain what part of the text matches with what parts of the picture. Reading is such an amazing and important thing to do with children, and matching pictures to words can make it even more beneficial.

4) During or after reading a story, ask the child questions about what you read together. This will let you know how much of the story the child understood, and also give the child a chance to think about the meaning of the words that they heard.

Parents have a greater influence on a child’s vocabulary than anyone else in the early stages of development, and continuing all the way through the early school years. Above are some simple things you can do to take advantage of your influence!

It is very true that children (or anyone) can achieve anything they put their minds to.

The trick is – getting children to BELIEVE this.

Goal setting and achieving is a mindset that you can develop at any age… however, having children develop this way of thinking at an early age can greatly help them succeed in the classroom.

Goal setting behaviour starts with the cognitive process of Cognitive self-regulation. This is just a fancy term for saying – the ability to identify a goal, and monitor and adjust one’s behaviour when striving to reach that goal.
This can be applied to all tasks from riding a bike- to doing well on a spelling test.

When a child falls while learning to ride a bike, their mind recalls their mistakes and adjusts their movements to improve for the next try. When the child then accomplishes the goal, their mind will remember the successful movements of riding a bike, and repeat these movements when doing it again.

In the classroom Cognitive self-regulation can be applied to tests-taking. If a child studies for a test and then does poorly, cognitive self-regulation will allow the child to come up with a different study strategy and try to improve for the next test.

High self-regulation can be attributed to a student finding effective study strategies, ability to focus when challenged, and even positive social interactions. This process gives students the tools to improve their performance, and is linked to academic success at all levels.

There are many things that parents can do to help their children strengthen this cognitive process and become goal setters.

One of the simplest ways to do this is to have them practice their fine-motor skills.
Fine-motor skill activities allow children’s brains to practice focusing on a task and continually self-correcting until the task is achieved.
My favourite fine-motor skill activity is COLOURING BOOKS. When colouring, a child is focused on the task of staying inside the lines (their GOAL). When the child slips outside of the lines, their brain recognizes the mistake and adjusts their movements slightly to try again.

It sounds simple, and maybe silly that this can all happen from them colouring in a colouring book. However, self-regulation is difficult for some young students to achieve, and having them strengthen this skill through practicing fine-motor skills will give them a good start.

What happened when I turned my back on traditional teaching methods.

When I made the switch between teaching in the traditional methods to scaffolding learning, I saw amazing differences in my students.

The scaffolding method involves helping students learn by building off of what they already know. When teaching with this method, you must support and guide the student’s thinking, but allow them to complete the task as independently as possible. Scaffolding eliminates the --”let me show you, then you do as I do”-- style of teaching.

My favourite time to use Scaffolding is when helping students to improve their spelling.

My typical spelling lesson looks something like this…
1) Reviewing words that the student is familiar with. I often have three sets of shorter words, and within these sets are rhyming words.

2) Present the student with more difficult words, or words they have not yet learned. These words will have similar sounds and letter patterns to the words they just reviewed.

3) If the student becomes stuck when spelling one of their new words, ask them to write down a word from the first (easy) list that relates to the new word. I encourage the student to recognize the similarities between the old and new words, then use these similarities to complete the second word’s spelling.

For example -

If a student can spell the word Make, I will encourage them to think about this spelling when attempting to write the word Awake.

My goal for this lesson is not only to have the student learn a new list of spelling words, but also to give them the skills and confidence to attempt difficult words in the future.

Through Scaffolding learning students are able to LEARN HOW TO LEARN; Little Brainiacs ultimate teaching goal. 🙌🏻

Welcome to Little Brainiacs page!

Here you will find -->

-Information/updates on new available tutoring programs

-Tips and tricks on helping your child become a strong reader

-Insight into your child's brain- how it works, and cognitive
development

-Effective learning strategies you can implement at home

-Information on Brain-based Education, how it works and how you can use it

ALWAYS feel free to comment questions, have discussions, or message me privately- Little Brainiacs is here to support all learning!

I’m often asked by parents of children in my reading program, what else they can do to help their child improve their reading
- in addition to my tutoring sessions. I always tell these parents the exact same thing- EXPOSURE. Consistent exposure is the key to teaching young children anything. Their brains are developing faster as young children, then they ever will again in their lifetime. For parents, this means that during this time, you have the wonderful opportunity to fill your little brainiacs full of advantageous knowledge and skills.

Among these skills, of course, are language and reading. Consistent story time, and allowing a child to interact with the story through exploring pictures and following along with the words, are great ways to give your child a good start, and awakening the skills needed to be efficient little readers.
There are many cognitive skills that are required for reading, and once children are at the elementary school age, these specific skills can be targeted directly.

In my reading program, one of the first skills that I focus on is Phonological Awareness. I often find this to be a weaker area for children, and is a common reason for lower reading levels. Great inability for phonemic awareness can even be the cause for reading disabilities.

What is Phonological Awareness?
This is the cognitive skill that allows us to hear, and recognize individual sounds within a word, and identify the letter connected to that sound. In other words… this is the ability that allows us to sound out words in our head when we are unsure of the spelling- and to be able to guess the spelling of a word, even if we have never heard it before.

For my reading program I have written lessons to help children improve their phonological awareness abilities- and today I am going to share with you an activity from one of those lessons.
This activity involves reading words aloud to the student, and allowing them to pick out all of the sounds that they hear from a bank of letter tiles. Once the child has picked out the sounds that they hear, they can continue to build the word in the order that the sounds are heard.
View photos below for full instructions AND a sneak peak into my reading program!

Message Little Brainiacs for more information on what Little Brainiacs can do for your child.