This is mine:
I don't understand why online learning has been such a flop thus far. Colleges & universities sank a fortune into "distance learning" in the 1990s & it didn't work. Hasn't worked for me, either.
I think it might have to do with a social element in learning, a la Alex the parrot, who learned virtually nothing in one-on-one, stimulus-response teaching. Irene Pepperberg adopted a "model-rival" learning situation in order to teach Alex. In "model-rival," you have the bird, the trainer, and another "student," who is a person. Pepperberg taught the lesson to the human student and when Alex watched his rival learn the answer and get the reward, he learned.
No one had ever been able to teach birds until trainers changed the paradigm to a social learning set-up.
Parrots are highly social, and so are we.
I subscribed to ALEKS a couple of years ago &, while I thought it was great, I stopped using it. I went back to my math books, which seem "warmer," somehow (maybe because I use them sitting in a room with people?)
Otoh, I'm sticking with Fluenz. I've grown to like the educational telepresence, and books don't talk or record my voice so Fluenz has the advantage there.
Where I can see online learning making a big difference is in homeschooling, where a parent is managing the curriculum.
from Concerned Parent:
I'm certain you're on to something with the lack of social aspect of online learning. As much as ALEKS has been a good supplement, it's definitely not a replacement for math learning. My kids perform better if I'm nearby. They'll actually call me over because they think they're stuck and once I'm there they don't need me to help. I end up watching over their shoulder while they quiet my help with, "I get it Mom." And yet, they don't want me to leave. They'd rather have me there.
me again:
I'm positive there's some weird social "thing" about online and computer learning. Online learning is one of those things that makes perfect sense ---- until you actually try it.
My own case is so "illogical."
I've never UNsubscribed to ALEKS; I'm still paying for it on grounds that it's a terrific program and I'm going to get back to it. Now that I don't have to teach math to C., I'm not in emergency mode; in theory I never have to look at a math book again. And yet I'm plowing through the Dolciani Algebra 2 book, in spite of the fact that I've already plowed through the Saxon Algebra 2. I'm repeating Algebra 2 using a book, not ALEKS.
Why am I doing this?
I don't know why.
My guess is that I'm doing Dolciani's Algebra 2 because C. is doing it! People do what other people do.
back to Concerned:
Absolutely. I hadn't really thought about that aspect of computer learning until you brought up the social aspect. Another interesting observation I didn't mention ocurred when S. was working with Headsprout. She could do the whole thing on her own without a hitch (it's designed that way), but she much preferred if one or preferably both of her siblings watched her do it. They giggled at the silly images, and encouraged her to keep going. I didn't realize that this is probably a need common to most of us. We're very much like Alex the parrot, indeed.
here's my sister:
Online learning is really not going to work for many learners unless it is “live,” say a skyped in lesson. My daughter took her 8th grade Algebra I, among other things, on line through a canned program. She found it very difficult. She said she absolutely preferred having a teacher she could talk to. We tried several on-line programs while we home schooled – three different ones in math trying to find a good fit. She was most comfortable with a program where the instructor was actually standing there teaching and switching back and forth to an artsy chalkboard where examples popped up as he continued talking. She did best with it, but still struggled and wanted a teacher. She missed raising her hand and asking for clarifications. All she could do was stop the program, rewind, and replay. I do fret a bit about the on-line hype.
and, later on:
I really am worried about the new buzz of on-line instruction. I spoke to a 50ish man in his PhD program for education. He has a masters in music and taught music at the middle school for years. He said on-line learning was absolutely the next wave and that the classroom was failing miserably. He left mainstream education to serve as a principal of a continuation school and he knows education is a mess. However, I don’t think on-line is the answer either. I’m afraid it will end up the way of the SMARTBoards. We’ll spend tons, revamp all our programs for on-line, only to later find out it doesn’t work as well as a live classroom. M. is very bright; she's 15, taking all her high school classes in junior college and earning As in courses designated by the UC system as transferable to 4-year universities. If struggled with on-line education, you have to wonder.
I talked to Tex, too:
...What about courses where there are scheduled class/discussion times online. I've read about them, and my only experience with anything similar is participating in "webinars."
Webinars that I've been part of include a screen presentation and a conference call format, with discussions monitored by the leader. I imagine sometimes the discussions are only online, but this would seem to address some of the social issues.
Kids, and many adults, feel a strong sense of community with their online chat friends, who may or many not be friend in RL (real life). Couldn't this carry over to successful online learning for teens?
That's my question.
Obviously, people spend a lot of time hanging out on the web, chatting with friends, Twittering, updating, etc. (Which reminds me: I have to figure out LinkedIn, finally.) My social life is mostly online these days.
So would Skyped-in courses work for a lot of kids?
Or is there some funky in-person effect in teaching & learning that we aren't aware of and don't understand? (Speaking of which, some of you may remember the various times I've mentioned that C. couldn't learn his math facts using online flash cards but mastered them at once when he wrote them on the Saxon work sheets - turns out there is research connecting handwriting to learning! I'll get that posted.)
If you or your kids have had experience with online learning, I'd love to hear about it.
I'm finishing up with another mention of The Logic of Failure by Dietrich Dorner, a life-altering book about solutions that seem logical in theory and fail in reality.
Thanks to Dorner, I am now a committed fan of pilot studies and test cases; I believe that in most walks of life nothing should be "implemented" on a grand scale before it's been tried locally & on a small scale first.
I think this blog post is a pretty good summary of the book:
The thesis: "...we have been turned loose in the industrial age equipped with the brain of prehistoric times." Simply stated, most human beings are terrible at managing complex systems. Dorner's students run a model of a small fictitious African village -- changing variables like cattle stocks, food stores, arable land. Invariably the students kill off the entire "population" through their miss-planning
As it turns out, good managers of complex systems showed common approaches:
1) They started by laying out clear, measurable goals -- they didn't just jump in and start pulling levers.
2) Good managers acted "more complexly." Their decisions took different aspects of the entire system into account, not just dominant factors.
3) They tested their hypotheses. The bad participants failed to do this. Instead of generating hypotheses, they generated "truths."
4) The good participants asked more "why" questions.
5) They showed high capacity to tolerate uncertainty. They didn't get caught up in the "methodism" of bad managers.
I love this book jacket.
Engelmann's rules for installing a new curriculum
I'm a little confused. I would have thought the answer was obvious, but maybe I'm wrong. My answer can be summed up in one word that none of you hit on:
ReplyDeletemotivation.
that's what we humans get from others.
There's almost no such thing as self motivation in healthy people. Motivation comes from external sources, and most normal humans can't be bothered to do anything as hard as work without motivation.
You can motivate by money or clicks, but what really motivates is that someone is present watching. For some, the other watching is an audience, and they want to perform well. For others, the others form a source of competition, and they need competition to perform well. Others need encouragement. But these are all human emotional responses where your learning affecst you and someone else. Be it joy, shame, fear, etc. most people's motivation comes from seeing a change in someone else's response to themselves.
But online learning provides miniscule reinforcement in any of those ways, unless the rewards are highly tuned or the telepresence is excellent, and even then, they get boring.
Most people need someone who is moving at or slightly above or below their own pace to maintain motivation over a period longer than a few minutes. Peers provide this in a classroom. The prof provides this when he knows your name, when he might call on you, or even when he calls on someone else in such a way as to convince you he MIGHT call on you.
twitter and chat don't provide that kind of feedback.
online learning is really no better than correspondence courses. unless you're in a highly disciplined environment, with some clear other needs to keep you motivated, it's extremely difficult for most people to build enough forward momentum to work on their own, and online learning is still really truly on their own.
I think Allison has hit the nail on the head.
ReplyDeleteHere's our data point. My 13 year old son is taking math through an online course that has a textbook, assignments, tests, and is self-paced.
There are about 15 kids in the "class." There is a chat room and the kids were encouraged at the beginning of the year to interact, get to know each other, etc. virtually in the online chat room.
My son, who spends hours and hours online with his World of Warcraft virtual buddies around the world, would have none of this. My take on this is that the online connections have to exist first, then maybe if they all decided to take some class together, it might be a motivator.
The instructor holds a weekly supervised chat session where the kids go over homework problems or do problems together. Again, my son is totally uninterested in this (and has a conflict at that time, as well, so it works out).
Would it be better if there was a webcam involved, so they could see either other? I think so. But there's still the problem of coordinating everyone's schedule.
This system actually works for us but we are probably not using it the way it was intended. We are using it as a homeschool correspondence course. I teach the lesson to my son and see that he reads the textbook where appropriate, he does the assignments, I correct the assignments and look for trouble spots that I need to reinforce, he takes chapter tests and sends them to the teacher to grade.
The online approach that I thing would truly work for my son would be a real time tutor or instructor, giving him a lecture, using a chalk board, and allowing him to ask questions over a microphone. You need audio, visual and realtime...not much different from a classroom.
For my master's degree in Industrial Englineering, 80% of the classes were video. You could theoretically watch them all on your own, but they were scheduled "live" for everyone to watch, and everyone came except when they were on a business trip.
ReplyDeleteThe instructors came up twice, once, the lesson before the midterm, and once, the lesson before the final exam.
We had one econ professor who we would routinely pause the video for and figure out what he said. English was not his first language, and he pronounced farm, firm, and form very similarly (bad news in an econ environment!) The few people who occasionally watched some of the videos on their own came for his video class.
We also were able to fax or call the instructors with questions. (You could fax your math type work and they would help figure out where you went wrong.)
I had a few live classes where the instructors drove up from the main campus to our extension. I found that both formats I learned about the same overall, I didn't expect to like the video classes as much as I did. I'm not sure I'd have been as motivated if I had to watch them all on my own, however.
I know it's not exactly online learning in the main sense of the term, but my high school daughter is using online tutoring for chemistry. The real-life class is a disaster for her (ironic, huh?). But the one-on-one online tutoring is definitely helping.
ReplyDeleteMotivation, as Allison pointed out, is probably one of the main reasons it works. My daughter knows she will receive a straight answer to her question, she won't have to suffer through any nonsense to get to the point, and the tutor will explain things in different ways until the student masters it.
The payback for the short time she spends online to fix her knowledge gaps pays off immediately (sense of relief and a better homework/test grade).
That being said, it's not a full class -- and she'd probably hate it if it was.
Hmm, my husband and I have both had relatively positive experiences w/online learning, but a)neither of us is especially extroverted and b)in all three cases, we were deliberately using it just as a means to an end, not expecting to have an optimal learning experience.
ReplyDeleteMy suspicion is that's its not just the social thing, but also a problem of mediocre instruction and unhelpful discussion groups.
Right off the bat, I'm thinking of my teaching certification program--at the beginning of the program, there was an online community where you could ask fellow students to clarify what exactly was expected from the very poorly communicated assignments--we all used that, and it was helpful.
Then The Powers That Be decided this wasn't how online community is supposed to work, and required discussion be all about the official (very fuzzy) topics--now, few students participate (I certainly don't).
One nice thing about online learning, if you are an experienced enough learner/it's a topic that you can tackle on your own, is that you can skip or fast forward through some aspects of a traditional course that would be tiresome.
For instance, I often skip the videos that I'm supposed to watch, because they are terrible. Doesn't affect my ability to do the coursework. In a traditional class, I'd have to be paying childcare to sit through an awful, pointless lecture.
My husband got a masters in computer science online. He actually does feel he learned a reasonable amount (admittedly not as much as he might have learned if he had time to do a traditional masters), and found some of the online lectures helpful, but he was also happy that he could half-listen to the less-helpful lectures while doing other stuff on his computer.
So, from my experience, on-line learning can be successful to the extent that it is actually time-saving and provides something useful--I think it probably needs to be much more focused and efficient than traditional learning (my husband and I have been able sort of to cut the waste and make it focused ourselves, but there's no inherent reason it couldn't be designed more efficiently).
Our online experience with my 13-yr. old was also a flop. I'm not sure what it was, but what everyone has listed sounds about right.
ReplyDeleteWe also had a practically non-existent teacher who was slow in responding, and a somewhat lame text.
I could have save myself some money and taught it myself.
SusanS
A couple of thoughts:
ReplyDeleteData shows that online and computer based school isn't effective. I buy that for the reasons given and many more.
But online education/learning happens all the time and is highly effective. Wikipedia and google have become common words associated with learning. My wife teaches classes in Second Life several times a week. I frequent forums and blogs to learn things all the time. So online learning is absolutely effective, useful, and real.
The problem schools face is that the system doesn't work for what they are trying to do: Force kids to learn something. If the child isn't motivated (as has been pointed out) they need something to push them. ...but this is a fundamental problem that classrooms deal with as well: If a kid doesn't want to learn, they won't.
Better, by far, to inspire a love for learning, and then we will learn no matter the medium.
~Luke
"There are about 15 kids in the "class." There is a chat room and the kids were encouraged at the beginning of the year to interact, get to know each other, etc. virtually in the online chat room."
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like Virtual High School (www.govhs.org) which was offered to my son in math because he was ahead one year and we didn't want to screw up his schedule. I was wary about how the interaction and group work would happen, but I mostly didn't like the course content and materials. It turned out to be easier to get a good textbook and teach him myself. All I can say is that it's hard to beat a good textbook and a teacher who actually responds to (looks at) and adapts to the needs of the class. Then again, how often does this happen in regular schools?
I'm still sitting on the fence. Kids might be motivated if the the course is good, they get quick turn-around on their questions, and they know that they are not wasting their time. You get to pick the teacher instead of playing teacher roulette. Imagine if kids could opt-out of regular classes and select an online course on a class-by-class basis. It would be interesting to see where that cut-over point was located.
--If the child isn't motivated (as has been pointed out) they need something to push them. ...but this is a fundamental problem that classrooms deal with as well: If a kid doesn't want to learn, they won't.
ReplyDeleteThis is a misunderstanding of what I said. "motivated" is not an adjective describing a person. Adults and children both are motivated BY SOMETHING. This is an important distinction. Schools don't need to "push", they need to provide motivation. That's not the same thing.
The majority of people who are "motivated" as an adjective are taking amphetamines--whether to cure their ADHD or for fun. They are willing to read classified ads for hours at a time. They are willing to do the most mind numbing tasks because suddenly it's interesting. This is not a good state--to be indisciminant about what you learn and what motivates you.
Few people "Want to learn" as a general state. They want to learn THINGS for REASONS. and a "love of learning" is really not descriptive. Does everyone want to learn how a carburetor works just because? or how to oil paint? how about the details of default credit swaps? No. why not? Would a love of learning change that?
You want to help build reward mechanisms into people, yes, you want to give them motivations that they can internalize. But don't be foolish enough to think most adults aren't motivated to learn by little bits of paper, be they paychecks or sheepskin they hang on their wall, not some general love of learning
"Better, by far, to inspire a love for learning, and then we will learn no matter the medium."
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that I don't see how this works. Learning is very difficult at times. It's not a natural process no matter how much you love to learn. Many kids will not love or like math whatever you do. You have to force the issue. You have to test kids on a grade-by-grade basis and hold them back if necessary. You have to teach them that they can learn even if they don't love the material. You have to provide good curricula and teachers.
My son loves to learn all sorts of things, but that love slips away when he has to meet a tight schedule or high expectations. My son loves to start new pieces on the piano, but he doesn't love the fact that I tell him he needs more practice to prepare for his Mozart piano quartet recital Thursday night. (obviously a current issue) My wife and I set the standards. We don't leave it up to inspiration.
Inspiration is easy, but it doesn't finish the job. It's too easy to give up and go for the Twinkies.
>>If you or your kids have had experience with online learning, I'd love to hear about it.
ReplyDeleteWe've checked out two on-line providers for pre-algebra and one DVD in the past year. The kids turned them down because the lecture was too much like public school - an emphasis on showing how rather than developing the whys. They continued with Singapore NEM - a textbook approach - which does include why, uses mathematical language, and keeps them hooked because they enjoy developing insights from the problem sets.
They said it doesn't matter if they read the lecture or they watch the lecture live or on video, but reading and dissecting the problem examples on their own is faster than watching someone else. They have had only one teacher so far who teaches, assigns problems, then has the class discuss the solutions and develop insights before assigning hw sets. This is their preferred learning format (and thankfully the school math club uses it too). Everyone else just shows several examples of how to do an algorithm and sends them home with repetitive problem sets. Occasionally they get someone who wants them to copy notes off the board too.
The net is that they want meat, not pap and don't care how it's delivered. Having an expert to answer questions and discuss implications is preferred, as is like-minded classmates.
They are both intrinsically motivated and couldn't care less about their peers progress except that it limits their ability to access the teacher and have friends/instructor to discuss interesting points with during their school classes.
Fascinating that you both disagree with me! I didn't expect any disagreement on my "love to learn" statement, so this has taken me by surprise (which doesn't surprise me since I'm rather clueless at times [smile]).
ReplyDelete"Schools don't need to 'push', they need to provide motivation. That's not the same thing."
Perhaps I'm still misunderstanding you, but I'm thinking about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. I believe that all children have a natural curiosity, and a built-in desire to learn. That's how they learn so much so fast in the early years: They're just soaking it up. They learn because they want to. Granted, there are times when we do just need a little kick to get us going, but that has more to do with learning discipline and good work habits than acquiring knowledge.
"Does everyone want to learn how a carburetor works just because? ...Would a love of learning change that?"
No, there are few things in life that interest "everyone" [smile]. But I completely disagree that "few people" want to learn. If that is true, we have killed a lot of natural curiosity, and that is terrible. The goal of a good education is to teach the basics so that we can teach ourselves and absorb the other things we need to learn in life (be it for a few pieces of paper, or because it's one of our passions). We are extrinsically motivated in certain areas of our lives, but a love of learning reduces the number of those areas. And in most cases, we learn what we have to for our jobs not because it wouldn't be interesting, but because we are finite and limited in how much we can pursue. Eventually we do have to specialize--be it carburetors or CSS.
"Learning is very difficult at times. It's not a natural process no matter how much you love to learn."
Learning is difficult... but it is 100% natural. The systems we've created to try to help us memorize facts and figures are not natural, and that creates a less than natural approach to learning... but even in these we can find something that sparks our interest and draws out a natural desire to learn.
"You have to test kids on a grade-by-grade basis and hold them back if necessary."
Humbug, I say! [smile] I agree that we must go at the pace of the child. Why? Because it is a natural process that can not be synthetically forced or created.
"...that love slips away when he has to meet a tight schedule or high expectations."
That's why I think grades are rather a poor motivator, especially in the early years. I said in high school, "I will learn until my grade starts to slip; then I will stop learning and just work on getting a good grade." And that's exactly what happened--I graduated Valedictorian. What good did it do me on the learning side of things? Not much at all. I learned to work a system, which appears to be the majority of information you need to know to succeed in school.
"My son loves to start new pieces on the piano, but he doesn't love the fact that I tell him he needs more practice to prepare for his Mozart piano quartet recital Thursday night. ...We don't leave it up to inspiration."
I'm not pushing for an unschooling/student directed approach here. As I said above: There is much need to develop discipline and to work through the hard times and confusion when stuff isn't clicking. But that doesn't mean there isn't a love to learn there... it just means that the desire for Twinkies and an easy way out from our lazy side is currently overriding our desire to learn.
But you are right: We must teach students in a way that helps them learn, even if they don't like the material. And when they see the joy of learning and making connections: That job is a lot easier.
Hope that's a little clearer. Thanks for forcing me to work some of this out [smile].
~Luke
From my experience teaching remedial community college math, it is clear that one of two things happens with students. 1. They think they understand when they don't. 2. They know they don't understand but they don't want to ask questions.
ReplyDeleteA good teacher can tell from student's faces and body language if they understand something or not. In my class, I intersperse lecture with concrete problem solving. While they are solving problems, I go to each student to see what difficulties they are having. That way, I can correct a little problem before it becomes a big problem.
You can't get this from our current online format.
As for working in groups, I do put students in groups sometimes. None of my students can listen to me lecture for the entire class. Putting them in groups gets them to get up and move around and changes the energy of the class. Additionally, students get to know each other and can contact each other to form study groups.
Anne Dwyer
"And when they see the joy of learning and making connections: That job is a lot easier."
ReplyDeleteThe devil is in the details. Who would ever argue against developing the joy of learning? But how do you get there? Low expectations? No pushing? Kids might love to learn, but they don't know what standards are appropriate. The process of learning is NOT 100% natural unless you lower expectations. Even my son, who is a sponge for knowledge, needs my wife and I to set the expectations.
"Granted, there are times when we do just need a little kick to get us going, but that has more to do with learning discipline and good work habits than acquiring knowledge."
It's not just about "a little kick to get us going". Educational discipline is developed by "acquiring knowledge"; by doing things that require a lot more motivation than a little kick. Fractions, decimals, and percents are not natural or fun for many kids. It takes a lot of unnatural, hard work to master the basics. This is a bottom-up process that is based on mastery of basic knowledge and skills. Of the top three things I want for my son, number 2 is for him to know the value of hard work. It's not to develop a joy of learning.
"The systems we've created to try to help us memorize facts and figures are not natural, and that creates a less than natural approach to learning... "
I take it your not a fan of Core Knowledge. If so, that's a tough position to defend. Besides, learning facts and figures is very natural for my son. It's not a rote or boring process. He uses that basic knowledge to form all sorts of nontrivial connections. You can't claim that you've cornered the pedagogical market on the joy of learning.
"I learned to work a system, which appears to be the majority of information you need to know to succeed in school."
If you're not talking about unschooling and you don't like grades, then what, exactly, are you talking about? Nobody forced you to play the Valedictorian game. I didn't play the grade game in high school, but I never thought that there was little connection between what I learned and my grades.
"But that doesn't mean there isn't a love to learn there..."
I'm sorry, but I never said this. I'm saying that you can't rely on a love of learning to get the job done. It might be a nice goal, but it's not a sufficient condition.
"And when they see the joy of learning and making connections: That job is a lot easier."
"A lot"? For all subjects? My son's school tries very hard to encourage the joy of learning. Everyday Math is used to allow kids to achieve mastery at their own speed. It doesn't happen. There is no joy.
My experience of online learning for kids has been limited to Headsprout Early Reading, which we used in first and second grade with outstanding results.
ReplyDeleteThe online component is exceptionally well-done, not only in terms of sophisticated instructional design (which customizes itself for the learner -- each child goes through the same curricular sequence, but differentially, depending on his or her specific responses, errors etc), but also in its artistic and creative presentation. The music, graphics and voice components are exceptional.
However, the program is not *merely* online learning -- an important component is interaction with others about the program -- sharing excitement, success etc. I found I could monitor about 6 children doing Headsprout at their computers, giving them high-fives or encouragement as needed, and at other times, providing supplementary practice as needed and reading the accompanying stories that provide transfer of the skills taught to a regular print environment.
Besides the gains in measureable reading skills, we noticed a huge affective benefit: the children were truly excited about reading, felt themselves to be successful and competent, and eagerly participated in classroom reading activities (we selected only the most at-risk kids for Headsprout, so this was a surprising finding).
One teacher remarked that this was the first time EVERY student in her class was enthusiastic and engaged in reading. Almost all met grade level aims, as well.
Using the onliine component alone would not yield the same benefit -- but neither would working with the student without the program for the same length of time. It was a synergistic effect -- the program could provide more reinforcement and opportunities for the child to respond (up to 20 times per minute) than a tutorial session could do.
One student, a second grader, astounded us all by developing from a complete non-reader to a proficient, fluent fourth grade level in ten weeks. I have never seen progress that rapid even with DI. Most students showed less spectacular, but very impressive, growth in both decoding and comprehension skills, and most of all in attitude and affect.
So I see a bright future for online learning within certain parameters.
I know I'm about a year late commenting here, but I just found you guys talking about Headsprout and wanted to chime in. I have twin 4-year-old girls who were both diagnosed with autism at age 2.5. After reading a hefty stack of books, we launched an ABA program and have made tremendous progress. Our consultants started Language for Learning with the kids early on, which got me researching DI. What an incredible bunch of curricula. We are at a point now where the kids are doing so well that my main concern is "schoolproofing" reading and math. Math I have been working informally with Englemann's "Give Your Child a Superior Mind"... we're at a point now where we could probably just start CMC, though handwriting skills are probably not quite ready.
ReplyDeleteI bought Funnix (still sitting unopened) but in the course of my reading, found out about Headsprout and largely based on palisadesk's recommendation, started the free trial with one of the two girls. BOTH of them were instantly fascinated with the program and I had to relent and start the other girl too, after her heartbreakingly tearful request after lesson 5, the first paper-reader lesson, that she wanted a "special reading book" too. We are currently on lessons 12 and 5 respectively and they have mastered everything taught so far. And tomorrow A will get her very own "special reading book." I am sitting with them the entire time and providing extra reaction/reinforcement, also they are pretty much both watching each lesson while the other kid does it. Don't know how long it will last, but the Headsprout folks are onto something. This is an extremely engaging and reinforcing, fun, and EFFECTIVE program.
Even after everything I have read, I am still leaving the LFL to the therapists, I am too nervous to take it on myself, as I am just not that confident in my reinforcement skills, but the Headsprout guys have it handled for me, so we can wade into the reading waters all by ourselves. So I say, yes, the right online program can definitely motivate a kid. HOORAY for Headsprout! I just really, really, really want them to do math now.