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)

Independent publisher Nosy Crow is pleased to announce that its Cinderella App for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is now available on the App Store. Cinderella, an interactive picture book app for children, is the second in Nosy Crow’s series of 3-D fairy tale apps, recommended for children ages 3 and up.

The Cinderella App is a fresh take on the favorite fairytale. It features beautiful and witty illustrations by Ed Bryan; sophisticated animation; an original score by BAFTA award-winner Robin Beanland; and lively narration by child actors.

But it’s the rich interactivity that brings this book app to life. In Cinderella, readers make the magic happen. By tapping, swiping, dragging and dropping, they can help Cinderella clean the kitchen and find things the fairy godmother can transform into the magical carriage. They can even choose Cinderella’s dress for the ball. These activities give children an active role in advancing the story.

There’s also a special treat for readers using an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch that has a front-facing camera. Their faces will appear inside the “magic mirror” in some scenes of the story!

“With Cinderella, we’ve taken advantage of the features of the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch to deepen children’s engagement with the plot and characters,” says Kate Wilson, Managing Director of Nosy Crow. “Our touch-triggered activities are a seamless part of the narrative. This makes the reading experience exciting and different every time.”

Availability and Pricing
Starting September 13th, the Cinderella App is available from the App Store for an introductory price of $5.99 on iPad (regularly $7.99) and $3.99 on iPhone and iPod touch (regularly $4.99). Visit http://www.itunes.com/appstore/.

Links To Download
Cinderella for iPad
Cinderella for iPhone
Visit the Media Kit on Nosy Crow’s website for videos, screenshots and additional resources.

Device Requirements:
Compatible with all iPads. For iPhone and iPod touch, requires minimum iPhone 3GS or 3rd generation iPod touch running iOS 3.1.3 or higher.

About Nosy Crow
Nosy Crow is a London-based children’s book and app publisher founded in 2010 by veterans of the children’s publishing industry. In 2011, Nosy Crow will publish 26 books for children and young adults, as well as 4 interactive book apps for children. In the U.S. and Canada, the Nosy Crow imprint is published under the umbrella of Candlewick Press. In Australia and New Zealand, Nosy Crow partners with Allen and Unwin. (PRWeb)

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)

As our country’s 55 million school-aged kids head back to the classroom this fall, many are facing learning challenges, struggling to grasp what they are being taught, and others exhibit behavioral problems that challenge their teachers and make it difficult for them to make friends.

Poor working memory may be the cause of their difficulties. Working memory is the cognitive function responsible for keeping information accessible, manipulating it and using it in thinking. Often called the “engine of learning,” working memory capacity is strongly correlated with academic performance and successful socialization.

To help schools ensure that all students are successful, Pearson today launched Cogmed Working Memory Training for K-12 students in U.S. schools. Successfully used in schools in Sweden since 2003, Cogmed training is an evidence-based, computer training program that strengthens students’ working memory and learning abilities. Delivered to students via computer at school or at home, Cogmed Working Memory Training consists of 25 sessions of 30 to 40 minutes each over a five-week period.

“Cogmed has a record of successfully transforming the lives of students and adults when used by clinicians in private practice, as well as in schools in Sweden and pilot schools in the United States,” said Jonas Jendi, general manager and vice president, Cogmed. “With today’s launch of Cogmed Working Memory Training for schools, we will be able to reach even more children around the country who need help building the working memory capacity that will allow them to succeed academically.”

Joni Holmes, Ph.D., a cognitive developmental psychologist and senior investigator scientist at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom, was one of the first independent academic researchers to investigate the effects of Cogmed training.

“Children with poor working memory skills struggle to complete many common classroom activities that require large amounts of information to be held in mind, and typically fall behind in both reading and math at school. In our research, working memory scores improved for the majority of these children immediately after completing the Cogmed program and were sustained for a further six months without any additional intervention. Gains in working memory were measured by independent, and validated working memory assessments that were not trained,” said Dr. Holmes.

Rob Budwig, special-education supervisor for Southern Trinity Unified School District in Dinsmore, Calif., has been piloting Cogmed with students since 2009. His district has also seen dramatic academic improvements in students who completed the Cogmed training. “Overall, we have seen students no longer qualify for special education and no longer need it. We have seen students move from being two years behind their peers in academics to, in one year, catching up and staying with their peers. We have seen students move from struggling academically, hating school so much that they developed psychosomatic symptoms of being sick to avoid school, and not having any friends – to being among the top students in the class, enjoying school and developing friendships.”

Best of all, Budwig said, the results have lasted. “Our first group of trainees is in their third school year since their training, and we have not seen any change in their new behaviors or success. In fact, some are still making gains.”

Across the country in Ohio, Barbara Marsh, the district literacy specialist for Bay Village City Schools, used Cogmed with the students in her ninth-grade reading intervention class during the 2010-2011 school year. Her class is composed of students who have learning disabilities, English Language Learners and many who face socio-economic challenges. Marsh credits Cogmed with a significant part of her students’ success last school year.

“My students saw three years’ growth on a nationally standardized reading test, and 100 percent passed the state reading test,” said Marsh. “That kind of transformation is truly exceptional. When my students saw that they could be academically successful, it helped them build confidence in every aspect of their life at school. We will definitely be using Cogmed training next school year and, I hope, for many years to come.”

For nearly a decade, rigorous scientific research has been conducted and published in leading, peer-reviewed scientific journals, such as Science, Nature Neuroscience, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, demonstrating that Cogmed training is effective. No other brain-training product or attention-training method has Cogmed’s extensive foundation of research validation.

“There are so many interventions being marketed to parents and schools who are desperate to help kids who struggle with memory retention, but they don’t have a research base and proven results. With its strong foundation in research, Cogmed is a program that can be relied on to make a difference,” said Arthur Lavin, M.D., Cleveland. Dr. Lavin was a pioneer in introducing Cogmed to the United States and has been successfully using Cogmed training in his pediatric practice since 2006. “We can tell teachers and parents that there is an 80 percent chance that it will improve children’s lives. That cannot be said about any other intervention for cognitive function in the United States.”

Pearson provides professional development and implementation support for schools that use Cogmed Working Memory Training. Introductory pricing is $980 for a group of students. For more information about Cogmed Working Memory training for schools, visit http://www.education.cogmed.com or contact Susan Parrino, susan.parrino(at)pearson(dot)com, 888-748-3828.

About Pearson

Pearson (NYSE:PSO), the global leader in education services, education technology and school solutions, provides innovative print and digital education materials for preK through college, student information systems and learning management systems, teacher professional development, career certification programs, and testing and assessment products that set the standard for the industry. Pearson’s other primary businesses include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group. For more information, go to http://www.pearsonassessments.com. (PRWeb)

…at least in Washington State.  The article is here.

I have extremely mixed feelings about this.  When I was in high school, it made no sense to me that the law said that people have to be in school until age 16, but that 18-year-olds could still be punished for non-attendance.  If we didn’t HAVE to be there, legally, how could we be punished for not being there every now and then?  I always thought that we should be rewarded for all the days we did show up.

My point in sharing that is that legally, 18 is in a different category than 16, even if the student is in high school.  I don’t think it’s right, for example, that an 18-year-old can be drafted but not buy a beer the night before he ships out (and yes, I would be all for raising the draft age to 21; all I’m asking for is some consistency here).

So, an 18-year-old can get married (I was at a wedding of two 18-year-olds recently, about a week after they graduated), and she can consent to sex with a partner of any age.  An 18-year-old is a legal adult, and has the rights and responsibilities of one.

What is the problem with this judicial ruling, then?

Whether a person is 18 or not, our culture really considers the end of high school to be the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood.  I mean, my daughter will turn 18 two weeks before 12th grade starts (in 7 years), and I’m not okay with her spending her senior year carrying on with one of the teachers.  Because we consider high school not-adulthood. 

But I teach college, and have students who are anywhere from 17 to 65, and it’s still not okay for me to have sex with any of them (besides the fact that I’m married!)…at least while they’re in my class.  The power differential is too great, and the opportunities for abuse are too great.  Trading grades for sex, whether initiated by the teacher or the student, might not always happen, but it could so easily happen, and often does.  This is the same for any hierarchical relationship–boss/employee, higher rank/lower rank, doctor/patient, etc. 

The best idea is to get out of the hierarchical relationship before you start the sexual/romantic one.  At least avoid having sex with your teachers or your students.  The potential for disaster is very great if you don’t.  Somebody’s going to get arrested or sued or fired or beaten up in the parking lot.

But once a student’s 18, they have the legal right to enter these relationships.  That doesn’t make it a good idea, that doesn’t mean they’re ready, that doesn’t mean there won’t be long term consequences.  But we could say any of those things about the draft, too, and we let 18-year-olds do that.