Houston, Texas (PRWEB) – Leon The Lion teaches children that they have potential. The author Leon Terrell Ash emphasizes through Leon The Lion that with potential the sky is the limit. Children enthusiastically follow along in the book as the big bright pictures tell a clear and simple story about the word, “Potential.” Leon The Lion believes everything can be done and anything can be achieved.

Join Leon The Lion as he inspires and encourage the youth. Leon explains to his friend Krystal the “Potential” that she has and how it works. Join Leon The Lion on this journey. Leon The Lion’s message is one word, “Potential!” Visit http://www.TerrellAsh.com for more information and to order Leon The Lion. Contact: Facebook “Leon Terrell Ash.”

Leon Terrell Ash is the author of three books. He worked as a chemist, nurse, and now author.

Recession is really hitting every one in the family hard. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, many parents are now opting to do away with disposable diapers. Hence, sales for these have gone down.

The volume of diapers sold in the U.S. slipped 1% in the four weeks ended Sept. 4 from a year earlier, extending a string of similar or steeper declines stretching back to August 2010, according to Consumer Edge Research, whose retail-sales tracking doesn’t include Costco Wholesale Corp. or Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Dollar sales fell nearly 3%, indicating parents are both cutting back and trading down to cheaper private labels.

Dollar sales of diapers in the four weeks fell 4% at Huggies maker Kimberly-Clark Corp. Procter & Gamble, maker of Pampers and Luvs, saw dollar sales drop 2.5%. Even generics were down, with sales of private-label diapers slipping 0.5%.

Disposable diapers, when you really factor in the cost, can be very expensive for a family who barely gets by with minimum wage. As a result, some families are opting to use disposable diapers longer than they should, resulting in the rise in the sales of rash creams.

There may also be other indication as to why this is happening, aside from the recession. Parents may be choosing to use cloth diapers because it’s a lot more practical and healthy for the environment.

Other parents may also be opting to buy in bulk or at discounts, to save on cost.

Are you still using disposable diapers for your baby or have you taken an alternative route?

New research reveals that the majority of American adults think that children need more pressure to succeed academically. Interestingly, students do not agree.

OnlineDegrees.com has designed an infographic that highlights information from a 2011 Pew Global Attitudes Survey and a study of American students called “Success with Less Stress,” which both discuss parental involvement and pressure when it comes to their child’s academics.

More than six out of 10 Americans surveyed in the Pew report say that parents do not put enough pressure on their children to succeed academically. Their views are shared in nearly half of the countries surveyed, including Lithuania, Spain, Brazil and Israel.

Surprisingly, students at high-performing American schools feel the exact opposite, as the student survey revealed. Instead, they shared that they feel overwhelmed and 70 percent of students said that they “often or always” feel stressed about their school work. For example, students are persuaded to succeed in school, sports and other extracurricular activities, which can leave them feeling burnt out. On average, students spend 3.07 hours doing homework per night, which equals to 552.6 hours a year.

“Parents and their children have been battling over school and homework for decades,” said Michael Stearns, spokesperson for OnlineDegrees.com. “This study gives us the numbers we need to understand both sides and viewpoints.”

Evidently, the debate between parents and students is not only an issue in the United States. Adults surveyed in India, Kenya and Pakistan think that parents push their children too much to be successful.

“It’s hard to say what the right amount of academic pressure is,” commented Stearns. “Both parents and students understand the importance of academia, but the numbers of who thinks how much is too much are definitely different than what we expected.” (PRWeb)

Spongebob Squarepants, a very popular animated series among kids, may actually bad for children who who are below six years old. This is according to a study done by the Psychology Department of the University of Virginia.

The study says, the cartoon show can impair a child’s memory, attention span and problem solving skills — which are essential for doing well at school. Kids apparently develop a harder time with decision making and the effects of watching a program such as this, are felt overtime and can be long term,

According to the psychologists who did the research:

“Connecting fast-paced television viewing to deficits in executive function … has profound impacts for children’s cognitive and social development that need to be considered and reacted to”

The methodology of the research was done, as follows:

To test what those might be, Lillard and Peterson randomly assigned 60 4-year-olds to three groups: one that watched nine minutes of a fast-paced, “very popular fantastical cartoon about an animated sponge that lives under the sea;” one that watched nine minutes of slower-paced programming from a PBS show “about a typical U.S. preschool-aged boy;” and a third group that was asked to draw for nine minutes with markers and crayons.

Immediately after their viewing and drawing tasks were complete, the kids were asked to perform four tests to assess executive function. Unfortunately for the denizens of Bikini Bottom, the kids who watched nine minutes of the frenetic high jinks of the “animated sponge” scored significantly worse than the other kids.

The show airs on the Nickelodeon channel and for the cable TV’s part, they have noted that Spongebob’s target audience is actually kids 6 years old to 11 years old. The cartoons was never meant to be watched by pre-schoolers.

Imagine Learning has released a significant upgrade to Bookster™, an interactive reading app for kids. The popular app was designed to entertain young readers while helping them develop reading skills. The app now features a bookshelf with eight new books and is available for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, as well as Android devices.

Bookster is a read-along storytelling app that not only reads to kids but also records and plays their voices—all while teaching vocabulary. With turnable pages, a read-along mode that highlights words as they’re read aloud, and an easy-to-use interface, Bookster is designed to make reading fun and easy for even the youngest of learners.

The upgraded version of Bookster features nine books filled with dynamic artwork from acclaimed artists, including New York Times bestselling illustrator Maryn Roos. New page previews and story summaries allow users to preview books before adding them to their bookshelves. The app can be downloaded for free through iTunes, the Android Market, or the Amazon Appstore for Android. More books will be added to the app in the coming months.

Imagine Learning, best known for its award-winning language and literacy software solution, Imagine Learning English, sees mobile applications as another way to deliver engaging, effective literacy instruction to children.

“Kids naturally love to explore picture books, but today’s mobile devices invite an even higher level of engagement,” said Clydie Wakefield, executive director of curriculum development. “With Bookster, kids can touch the words on the screen and hear them read again, turn pages, listen to a narrator and even become narrators themselves by recording their own voices. In the process, they learn print concepts, expand their vocabulary and develop a love of reading.”

The app was designed with both children and educators in mind, said Derek Dobson, director of product management at Imagine Learning. “Bookster is a wonderful app for both home and school use,” said Dobson. “More and more classrooms are implementing mobile devices like iPads and iPods as part of the curriculum, and we are working to meet schools’ technology needs by supplying them with quality content that is both educational and engaging.”

In a review on iPad Curriculum, a website that spotlights top educational iPad applications and practices, Edublog award-winner Kelly Tenkely identified Bookster as a valuable tool for helping students develop fluency.

Tenkely noted that giving students feedback on proper pronunciation and enunciation can be a challenge. Bookster helps teachers provide better feedback by enabling students to “play back their recording and compare what they recorded with the prerecorded narration, hearing the difference for themselves,” Tenkely wrote.

About Bookster
Designed by educators to help kids of all ages develop literacy skills, Bookster makes beginning to recognize and read new words fun and easy for even the youngest of readers.

Your kids will love Bookster’s

• Entertaining illustrations
• Engaging narration by kids their age
• Read-and-record mode that records as they (or you) read out loud
• Listen-to-recording mode that reads the book with their narration
• Read-along mode that highlights words as they are read aloud, teaching word recognition and vocabulary
• Easy-to-use interface
• Turnable pages that let them move at their own pace
• Interactive pages with tappable words

(PRWeb)