Old news is re-surfacing about reading comprehension and retention in reading online vs. reading on the printed page. In 2007 a research study reported a 50% drop in comprehension and retention in reading when on screen vs. on the printed page. That study disappeared for seventeen yers and now a new study proves the point once more. Read about it here!
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.08.30.553693v1.full

Are young people becoming addicted to social media and the internet? Here’s what the research has found

MA Wireless Schools Forum video

Parents in some Waldorf schools have asked their schools to allow electromagnetic evaluations of school buildings and grounds to determine the level of these invisible forces in the schools environment. Results have convinced some schools to remove wireless from the offices to be handled instead through hard wires. Teachers noticed, after the switch, behavioral improvement in some children.

See more information here.

Waldorf students draw pictures every day of their school life in Waldorf Schools! Read how neuroscience demonstrates the power of this practice.

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Research demonstrates that children (adults, too!) comprehend and retain more when reading a printed page than when reading online. Yet the incessant urge continues to push to make both the means for teaching children. In this article, this is demonstrated emphatically. God bless the teachers, like those interviewed for this article, who work to follow the government mandates on the purchase and use of technology as they work to bring to children what they truly need to learn and to learn to read!

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Another example of the “new discovery of writing as an aid to learning how to read — not new to Waldorf Teachers, rather 100 years of deliberate practice of this effective approach to reading. Good to see others catching up!

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At long last, someone in leadership has stated out loud that Social Media is not fitting for youngsters under the age of 14.

The pandemic pushed many children onto social media and gaming sites as the only social outlet available to them. Many parents have expressed dismay over “losing their child,” because the addictive nature of screens has made it impossible to return to “ordinary life” without their children chained to their phones for social media and video games.

Consistent fighting over turning a device off, completing homework and household chores, coming to the dinner table, and sleeping, are part of the profile of symptoms that have intensified since the closing of schools and isolation during he pandemic.

Often connected to humiliation and bullying on Social Media, suicide rates in the young have increased. Read here about the decision of the Surgeon General. We might disagree with his decision about the age as still too young, there is at least some cautionary boundary being set about the darker side of using social media.

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At last! In EdWeek’s newsletter, a celebration of a private Friends school’s gold award for wellness of students through their building design. Watch the video here:

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/video-this-school-is-a-model-for-wellness-and-student-learning-see-why/2023/01

This kind of study on screen watching shows up the treacherous nature of trying to tease out cause from effect: Does media watching inhibit the development of executive functioning — or does a lifestyle of diminished executive functioning lead to greater media watching: Who’s the chicken, who the egg?

“Your child’s academic success may start with their screen time as infants, study says”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/30/health/screen-time-infants-executive-function-wellness/index.html