40. My son has a very poor memory. He learns things at school and then a week later they're gone. Is there anything I can do to improve his memory or should he be encouraged to compensate somehow?

There is a lot you can do to improve your son's memory. Remembering is like any other skill, it requires practice and some technique. Our book How to Improve Your Child's Verbal Intelligence--Read America's Language Wise Method, contains an entire chapter on memory and fourteen distinct lessons for improving memory. Please don't teach him to compensate. Once you do that he'll no longer have to remember.

41. My wife and I are both educated professionals. Our twelve year old daughter gets a rich vocabulary at home and she attends a very good school. Yet she speaks in simple sentences. She never uses words that I'm sure she knows. What more can we do to improve her vocabulary?

Vocabulary is something that develops out of need. If your daughter isn't put in situations where she needs to know or use 'big words', she won't. Our book How to Raise Your Child's Verbal Intelligence--Read America's Language Wise Method, gives you concrete examples of how to make your child stretch her vocabulary out of need. In addition to a chapter explaining all this, there are twenty-seven different lessons you can do with your daughter to improve her vocabulary. You and your wife may even find your vocabularies stretching a bit. My favourite is Word Detective. It gives the child a strategy for figuring out what new words mean. Once a child becomes good at Word Detective, every new word she hears is a challenge... a game.

42. My ten year old uses strange sentences sometimes. For instance, today I asked him to clean up his room. An hour later I asked him again, assuming he hadn't done it yet. He answered to say, "I still cleaned it." I guess he meant he 'already' cleaned it. At ten I think he should use the right word in a simple sentence like this? Should I be worried?

You're exactly right. He did mean 'already'. We see this all the time in children presenting for Language Wise therapy at the Read America Clinic. They tend chunk sets of words that serve the same function but very different meanings, using them interchangeably. So while 'still' and 'already' both serve the function of telling when, the whens they tell about are very different indeed. You must teach your son that what he says must reflect the real world, what actually happened or is happening. The particular skill we're addressing here is logical reasoning. Our book How to Raise Your Child's Verbal Intelligence--Read America's Language Wise Method, addresses logical reasoning in detail. There are thirty-nine logical reasoning lessons in the book, and a chapter explaining how logical reasoning links up to overall verbal intelligence. You want to nail this soon while he is still young. This kind of sloppy language usage will become a habit for him if you don't stop it now. It is not developmental. I was recently watching a news reporter reporting on the approach of hurricane Floyd. The reporter said, "Only an hour ago the Kennedy Space Center was behind me. Now it's obscured by rain." It is a troubling logical inconsistency that something can be both obscured and not there.

43. My nine year old is a good reader but I'm not sure he understands what he's reading. He reads Harry Potter books and when I ask him what's happening in his story he just says, "Nothing."

The question may be too general for him. Try asking a more specific question, "Has Harry heard from Hermione yet?" This requires some knowledge of the story. You can ge this from reading the story or from reading on-line and published reviews. You do want to work up to a point where your son is able to precis or summarize the story from a general question, but this requires moving to that point from a more specific question.

44. My husband reads a lot with my seven year old. He's worried that she doesn't seem to follow the story line. Last night he was reading a sentence that said, "And the little frog and the little dog became friends for life." When we were putting her to bed I asked her how she liked the story and she said, "Ruffy (our dog) hates frogs too." She seemed to miss that fact that they became friends at the end of the story. Is this common for her age?

I'm not sure from your question if she is reading to him, he is reading to her, or they're taking turns and reading together (what I call 'Buddy Reading').

Here's my answer if she's reading to him or they're 'Buddy Reading':

New readers just learning to read (at any age) tend to focus on the process of decoding rather than listening to the story line. This is normal and natural, just like it was normal and natural for you to focus on breaking and turning when you were learning to drive, and now that you're adept at it you do these thing automatically with no conscious attention, able to focus on a conversation or a radio talk show while you're driving. You can pull your daughter along toward listening to the story line by recapping it every so often... "So, the beaver and the bear are going off to a tea party together." All this assumes she is reading successfully. If you suspect any kind of decoding problem it is best to be cautious and test her. There is a solid link between comprehension and segmenting. Test her segmenting using the segmenting test in our book Reading Reflex.

Here's my answer if she's being read to:

Oral and reading comprehension are not all that different (assuming fluent reading). The issues are the same. They are attention and memory, vocabulary, and logical reasoning. If the child can pay attention to the story, understands the words, understands how the words reflect what's happening and remember what she's heard she can comprehend. If one or more of these is not in place the system fails. Simply question her to test her on this...

1. Vocabulary: Does she know the words? If you're not sure ask her. "What does Ruffy do that shows you he 'hates frogs?

2. Logical Reasoning: The above question covers this too.

3. Memory: Do you remember what the dog said to the frog when they were walking to the pond together?... ("Will you be my best friend?")

Also keep in mind that part of the challenge for a young child is one of sequence. If the dog and the frog were sworn enemies at the opening of the story then you can't blame her for referencing it. Stories happen much faster than life itself does. A valuable question here might be, "What lesson could Ruffy learn from the dog in the story?" I predict your daughter would answer to say, "That frogs can be your friend."

45. I've been playing your connections game with my six year old. Some of her answers are pretty far fetched. For cat--dog she answered, "They both go to school."

You may be right about it being far fetched, or maybe your child is just very creative. Until you question her you won't know. Ask her when dogs and cats are at school. She may tell you last week when the teacher brought her dog and cat to class, or she may invent a scenario in which dogs and cats are at school. In either case, don't presume to limit her connection. Just question to make sure she has one.

46. I have a question about your game 'Using Opposites' in your book "How to Raise Your Child's Verbal Intelligence". For 'man' my son said 'boy'. My husband explained to him that the opposite of man is woman. I don't think he gets it though. Later he said the opposite of 'dry' is 'wash'.

In most cases there is no such thing as a pure opposite. A pure opposite of most 'things' would be 'nothing'... anti-matter. The point of this lesson is to get the child to look on the other side of a thing from some perspective. The perspective that your son seems to like is the perspective of the process of a thing... growing up - boy to man and doing the laundry - wash to dry. He'll probably be a real 'doer' in life. I wouldn't stop that up if I were you. You may want to ask him some questions to help him see that he's looking at the opposite end of a process. And you may even want to invite him to look at the opposite of other perspectives.

47. My eight year old has trouble understanding some books. Can you recommend any simple books with short sentences?

If you limit your child's exposure to simple sentences don't be surprised when all he uses and all he can understand are simple sentences. We've been on a mission to try to preserve the use of complex sentences in children's literature. Let's bring our children forward, not back. Our book How to Raise Your Child's Verbal Intelligence--Read America's Language Wise Method, will give you lots of ideas and activities for improving your child's ability to understand complex text.

48. I'm a fourth grade teacher. I'm using your book 'How to Raise Your Child's Verbal Intelligence'. How often and for how long should we do the lessons. Do you suggest full class or small group?

The Language Wise lessons can be done in so many different ways. Here are just a few ideas for the classroom.

1. A Language Wise challenge written on the board each morning gets the kids thinking right away, and makes for a nice transition to allow everyone to arrive and settle down to work.

2. Use the lessons with the stories you're reading. Lessons like Brainstorming can easily be adapted to any story.

3. Use the lessons as a correct affairs/ethics course along with newspaper and magazine articles. Also use them for solving in class behaviour problems.

4. Send home a challenge for the parents every night. This gives children an opportunity to work with the parents in a new way. They love trying to 'stump' them.

I hope this helps. I'm sure you'll think of lots more!

49. I've just finished reading your book 'How to Raise Your Child's Verbal Intelligence'. Should my child be writing down the assignments, or should we do them orally?

This depends on the situation. I do a bit of both in each lesson. If writing stops up the creativity, you can act as the scribe.

50. How long does it take to get through the Language Wise Lessons?

Ideally, Language Wise will become a way of life for your family or classroom. The lessons are the formal aspect of it, but they are really no more than what a good parent or teacher should be doing in day to day conversation with children. I would just have fun with it. Do the lessons long enough that they become a way of thinking and you start to see your child or student responding in life situations as he does in the lessons.