A Mind at a Time: America's Top Learning Expert Shows How Every Child Can Succeed by Mel Levine
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Book Reviews of A Mind at a Time: America's Top Learning Expert Shows How Every Child Can Succeed
Book Review: A Mind at a Time
Summary: 5 Stars
This book has changed my way of working with struggling students! I am more alert to their strengths and more willing to help them "demystify" their learning deficits. In a perfect world, every teacher would be trained to implement Dr. Levine's strategies.Book Review: Great! It'll change your perspective!
Summary: 5 Stars
In this book you realize that there is really no such thing as dumb, that all brains work differently. It helps focus on the REAL issues of learning, instead of lumping your understanding into ADHD or some other category. You should read it!Book Review: A Mind at a Time
Summary: 5 Stars
This book provides an excellent explanation of the frustrations that some kids face on a day to day basis. This book should be required reading for all teachers, parents, and any other profession which works with children.Book Review: Learning by exposure
Summary: 5 Stars
Learning is a complex process but Mel Levine makes it easy. Read this book along with the Essential 55.Book Review: Children as Learning Individuals
Summary: 4 Stars
Mel Levine puts understanding before action. His goal is to show us the building blocks of children's minds and how learning can be challenging when one or two bricks are out of place. The approach we take to teach each child depends on which bricks these are. We can use this understanding to help children as they are, rather than focusing on a single, idealized model of the learning child.
Early in the book, the author describes eight learning systems we use to deal with the world around us. Each system behaves differently, operates somewhat independently, and has a different neurological basis in the brain. In successive chapters, we review learning systems for attention control, memory, language, spatial ordering, sequential ordering, motor control, higher thinking, and social reasoning. We learn how each system works, cooperates with other systems, and how it typically develops as children mature. The author also highlights common developmental problems and how both children and the adults around them can meet these challenges. Each chapter closes with a "Practical Considerations" section that describes how the learning system affects a child's behavior in everyday situations.
The book's last four chapters explore the broader implications of these eight learning systems. We learn how to recognize specific learning difficulties and bring the right resources--special services, coaching, medication, etc.--to bear based on an individual child's learning profile. Levine also advises parents how to understand their child's profile and balance remediation of weaknesses with encouragement of talents, interests and strengths. He closes with suggestions about the proper role of teachers and schools given the "neurodevelopmental diversity" of their student population.
I recommend this book for teachers and parents who want to understand individual differences and how these differences affect learning. Readers may also benefit from the author's The Myth of Laziness or his more recent Ready or Not, Here Life Comes.