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Summary: EXCELLENT BOOK ON CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT
Review: Anyone who has a child in the school system knows that the educational process does not allow for one-on-one assessment of a child's learning abilities. A child either keeps pace or in many cases, falls behind. The author has written an excellent book on what a child needs in order to grow, learn, and develop his or her full potential. It would be wonderful if all children learned at the same rate and possessed the same aptitude for learning; however, each child is a unique individual. The educational system today does not structure its learning process around that fundamental fact. A good many of the behavioural problems we see surfacing today stem from the fact a child becomes frustrated, bored, overwhelmingly challenged, or discouraged by the educational process, and their actions are often a result of what is lacking in the education system. Some parents, as well, do not take that fact into consideration and often expect Mary to keep up with brother John, because John seems to excel in everything, while Mary struggles to achieve. There are a variety of topics to be found in the book, including development of memory, language, and motor skills. If you are an educator or have a child who is experiencing difficulties in this area, this book provides excellent resource material. It is one parents and individuals with the authority to make changes in the system should read and take to heart. The book contains a valuable message, is well researched, and is equally as well written.
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Summary: Technically Proficient w/Solid Advice for Parents/Teachers
Review: "A Mind at a Time" dives deep into hard wiring of children and offers us an insight into their needs that we can use to adjust how we approach their education. As an elementary school teacher in a private school, we were asked to read this book for an all faculty discussion this quarter. I found it very helpful in understanding the diverse instructional needs of all of the children in my class. I was also able to use some of the suggestions in the book to develop Individual Learning Plans for my entire class that are not too cumbersome or take away from the curriculum. Last quarter we read and discussed "The Child Whisperer" by Matt Pasquinilli. These two books are profoundly different, but powerfully complimentary. Where Levine talks about the individual needs and learning styles of our children, Pasquinilli describes the basic emotional foundation and communication skills that all children need to start school with. I strongly recommend reading both books to get an enhanced understanding of what children need in order to learn.
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Summary: An Excellent Resource for Parents of School Age Children
Review: Mel Levine's A Mind at a Time is an excellent resource for any parent of a school age child. His book clearly explains his theories on the many different areas a child's mind develops as he or she grows up, and what happens if certain areas lag behind. He offers advice (although I wish there were a little more) on what to do if your child needs a little boost in any particular area. This theory behind this book reminded me very much of the Howard Gardner Multiple Intelligences theory--but I found Levine's much more practical and accessible. Levine breaks down mental development into about 6 different categories, such as memory, language, focus and social development. Each one of these categories has its own chapter and in each chapter each category is then further broken down. Levine gives you ways to recognize if and to what degree a particular child may need help in a particular subcategory and explains that in each category, particular children may be very strong in some areas and much weaker in others. (For instance, a child's memory may be strong in only in the long term, but not the short term--it's not always consistent). Levine also devotes a few chapters to an introduction to his theories and application in schools and in the home. This book is not, of course, the answer to everything--but it will direct parents to where they need to find additional answers with respect to their individual children. Levine's approach to childhood development is refreshing. He rejects labeling children (as ADD, ADHD, etc.) for the most part as overgeneralizing and negative. He reminds us that while some children may need help in certain areas, all children have their own strenghths and that we ought to focus on those in helping them develop. He provides many anecdotal evidence of how his theories have helped particular children. I recommend this book for all parents. I think it will help them to better understand, and help, their children.
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Summary: Significant, enlightening, and a good read too
Review: Other reviewers have discussed the pros and cons of Dr. Levine's theories in depth, so I won't go into those; in the field of cognitive psychology, I'm an interested (and, I think, fairly well-read) amateur rather than a professional. That said, I feel that this is an important book for both parents and educators. The child's "job" of learning how to function in the world, and mastering the many tasks set for him/her by the educational system, isn't an easy one. The human mind is complex and multifaceted, but our schools tend to think of "intelligence" as a narrowly defined set of skills, and anyone who doesn't do well in those must be either stupid or lazy. (Levine notes that the moral implications of such judgments, e.g., that a student "doesn't try hard enough" or is "unmotivated," can be devastating to a child, and are often grossly unfair.) The irony is that -- as Levine points out -- the abilities that enable a child to succeed in school aren't necessarily those that conduce to success in later life; so, by rewarding performance only in certain areas, we doom many children to a low opinion of their abilities and ignore a wide spectrum of human potential. Although the subject isn't exactly lightweight, I found the book appealing and highly readable. Dr. Levine clearly has great respect and affection for his young subjects, so his anecdotes are engaging and (often) amusing. I was especially tickled when he urged a young client not to let his teachers "catch him doing something right" because from then on they'd hold it against him. In school, I was a "divergent thinker" to the max: if a subject interested me, I'd do a brilliant job, but if not I'd blow it off. So my occasional successes turned into threats: "See how well you can do if you just TRY hard enough." Trying hard had nothing to do with it! (When I got into college and graduate school, where I could study the subjects that interested me, my GPA soared.) Although Levine's work is often compared with Howard Gardner's, in fact they're complementary. Levine deals with cognitive skills (such as learning to filter stimuli), while Gardner deals with innate abilities or faculties in various subject areas (such as affinity for music). A child's learning difficulties could result from either one -- for example, problems with math might mean that the child can't focus on details, or has little math ability -- or they could be caused by something totally unrelated to intelligence, such as eye problems. As Levine memorably points out, every child's mind is different, and "one size fits all" solutions rarely address the real problem.
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Summary: Insight and Ideology
Review: *A Mind at a Time* is an important book in spite of its unevenness. All professionals who specialize in children's learning should be familiar with the work of Dr. Mel Levine. This book is lucid enough that parents should find it extremely useful as well. Nevertheless, readers should also be aware of its weaknesses. Mel Levine's work offers a complex mixture of insight and ideology. On the one hand, he offers valuable insights into why children have school problems and humane proposal about how to remedy them. On the other hand, he continually promotes his own pet theory that a child's "neurodevelopmental profile" explains the problems. What does "neurodevelopmental" mean? Others professionals do not use this term and Levine does not define it. It does suggest however that Levine sees the source of learning problems as being the child's inherited brain structure. Neither existing research nor expert consensus supports what Levine suggests. Levine's ideology in no way compromises the value of his clinical observations. Readers may want to skim over the theory but study the observations and practical recommendations carefully. It should certainly deepen your understanding of why certain children find school so difficult.
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Summary: My Best Advice
Review: This book is a must read for educators and students alike. And I mean ALL educators and students. You will be grateful for the information and advice. I am. And, I must say, I am also grateful for the advice of a previous reviewer who recommended that, after I read Mel Levine's great "A Mind at a Time", I also read Norman Thomas Remick's "West Point: Thomas Jefferson: Character Leadership Education". It WAS an education. This is my best advice.
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Summary: A Mind at a Time
Review: This should be mandatory reading for everybody in the field of education and all parents of newly diagnosed chidlren with ADHD.
Includes very profound statement to the effect of "We expect our children to master Reading Writing and Math & etc. but we do not expect the samething from adult. Think about that statement.
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Summary: Finally...a common sense approach to education.
Review: Dr. Levine's landmark book does more than "celebrate differences," it offers a fresh, clear-eyed, common sense view of how this country needs to educate her children. For too long public education has clung to the Ford-assembly line model, one-size-fits-all paradigm of education, and this is not going to provide a productive, cutting-edge workforce for the 21st century. This book will challenge the reader to re-think some of their long held assumptions about how children are to be education. You cannot read this book and think the same about your child's education. I know that this has been the case with me. Dr. Levine has provided a valuable resource to educators and parents alike.
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Summary: Celebrating Differences!
Review: As a therapist working with adolescents in a psychiatric assessment and treatment center, and as a Fetal Alcohol Consultant in private practice working with families whose children have brain differences, I found this book to be a significant resource in offering another form of "help and hope" to families. I believe a key to working with children whose brains work differently is to understand that very thing. These children, and all children for that matter, have ways of learning and applying what they've learned that are specific to them only. Dr. Mel Levine has shared his knowledge in the book, A Mind At A Time, which describes the "tool box" that children use in their learning. There are 8 neurodevelopmental systems that function as tools, and children may have strengths in particular systems. These include: Attention Control System, Memory System, Language System, Spatial Ordering System, Sequential Ordering System, Motor System, Higher Thinking System, and Social Thinking System. The trick is to know which system works best for these children! This book was brought to my attention by a concerned and desperate parent who discovered it on his quest to help his son...a son struggling to survive in a traditional academic setting with an untraditional style of learning...who was sinking into the trap of being labeled "bad" and a "behavioral problem." This loving father is now working to put Levine's recommendations into action in order to help his son succeed. Adult understanding, environmental modifications, and developing foundations that build on strengths are keys to working with these special needs children. Dr. Levine's book is a great resource for parents and teachers as they put these keys into place. Connie Sirnio, MSW http://www.members.aol.com/csirnio/celebrate
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Summary: Rich with Personal Case Studies to Demonstrate His Points
Review: I didn't get what I wanted out of this book because I am not the intended audience--My daughter is only four years old and is ahead of the curve in every subject I test her on. Dr. Levine writes for an audience whose children are mostly in high school even though he will review their histories all the way back to pre-school in many of his case histories. That being said, I found this book rich with real-life case studies of children with learning difficulties. He has examples from the boys and girls that he has personally worked with to illustrate several points that he makes. I find those specific case studies to be the best part of his book. They support some of his theories and assertions. His arguments become weaker when he refers to other people's research--like when he said that research has shown that high school children can learn a second language better than pre-school children and therefore he recommends that children with verbal deficiencies should postpone studying a second language until the 11th grade. This skirts over the differences between pre-school language learning vs. high school language learning and ignores that there is a different kind of language learning going on at age 4 and at age 16. At age four you can't memorize as much information or learn as quickly as can a 16 year old, but the four year old can easily learn native syntax and pronunciation which the 16 year old may never learn. Anyway, this book offers a lot to parents and teachers of high school children who have learning difficulties but perhaps is less relevant for those outside of that audience.
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