There are four basic types of communication: Reading and writing, listening and speaking. Most of our days are spent communicating in some form or the other. Our school days are filled with learning to become better readers and writers, but how much time do we spend in learning to become more effective listeners to understand […]
Habit 4 | Thinking Win/Win
One of the habits of highly effective people is to think win/win. In our building of relationships there is a fundamental idea that comes into play: We cannot create interdependent connections until we have established independence in ourselves. The first three habits help us develop independence: Be Proactive Begin With The End In Mind Put […]
Habit 3 | Put First Things First
In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey tells us that time management is a misnomer. Our challenge is not to manage time but to manage ourselves. Our focus should be on enhancing relationships and accomplishing results instead of focusing on things and time. Covey says that our activities can be categorized into […]
Habit 2 | Begin With The End In Mind
Begin with the end in mind. A simple yet profound idea. How many of us would start to build a house without having a detailed blueprint? But many of us go through life without much of a plan. Begin with the end in mind is a habit to help us be more effective in our […]
Habit 1 | Be Proactive
Recently I made a list of books that I felt had been pivotal in my growth as a leader. Needless to say, Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People made that list. In early 1989 my husband, Mark, came home one evening telling me he had been in a corporate training session that day […]
Ten Minutes From Overwhelmed To Overjoyed
An article In The Harvard Business Review, How to Spend The First 10 Minutes of Your Day, reinforced my own practice of how I spend the first part of my day. Yeah! For a while I’ve made it a daily practice to plan my day with worksheets that I keep in a notebook. These ten minutes planning […]
Articles for the Holidays
Here are some Kids Talk articles that might be helpful for the holidays: Gimmee! Gimmee! ‘Tis the season to be jolly. If only our over-demanding children would stop with the demands for this and that, and this again. For a second, try to see the world from your child’s point of view and you might […]
Feeling Over?
“I’m so over!” Jennifer said. “Overwhelmed. Overworked. Overscheduled.” As school leaders, the demands on our time, as well as our own tendencies toward perfection or procrastination, can create a situation where we are over our heads. How can we go from overwhelmed to overdrive, to feeling like we are cruising in the driver’s seat? Make […]
Questions About Multilingual Children
Today in my Understanding How Children Learn To Read webinar, I received this question about teaching young multilingual children how to write and read. I seem to be getting these types of questions frequently, so I thought I’d do a blog post about it. Maren, Wondering why age 4.5 is recommended for introducing a foreign […]
Overcoming Obstacles To Success
As we work with adults we often wonder why our expectations or standards aren’t being met. We believe in assuring success for children. How can we assure success for adults? Success usually requires more of the following: Skills and training Experience Time to get the job done Support from others Materials Confidence Desire or motivation to […]