by Nancy Weinstein No doubt Carly Fiorina was supremely disappointed those first days of August when she didn’t make the cut for the primetime Republican debate on August 6th. She was effectively relegated to the “B Team” or, as most Americans perceived it, the candidates who were out before the race really began. And yet, she clearly didn’t give up. Instead, she swung for the fences. And the consensus from the pundits is that she knocked it out of the park in Cleveland. Not only is she considered the clear winner of the “Happy Hour” debate, but, according to some, she won the primetime hour as well. While polls of Republicans before the debate showed only 40% even knew who… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff We’ve had an exciting week on this blog, with a team of bloggers joining me in our drive to “learn something new everyday.” Can you imagine if the energy and money that went into sports commentary were put towards educational programs, or if we had a 24-hour cable network with the pizzazz of ESPN devoted to the issues parents cope with in raising kids? In case you missed it, here’s a recap of what we’ve featured this week.   1. Benefits of Music for Children with Attention Issues This well-received post was written by Nicole Davies with follow-up commentary by a Mindprint Learning educator with years of experience teaching special education.       2. All… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff Today we examine some specific issues related to Attention and the increasingly common diagnosis of ADHD. To do this, Nancy and I are opening up our filing cabinet of great articles, digitally speaking, and sharing the ones we think you’ll find helpful. These articles are primarily from non-profit sources such as the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) and The Child Mind Institute. We also have several from The New York Times. You can find more academic literature, but we think these cover some broad and important ground. To put this “red flag” in perspective, our first suggested article discusses the fact that while ADHD is not considered a learning disability, it frequently goes hand-in-hand with various LDs…. Read More

In the process of raising our kids, when we come up against an obvious “miss” in the things we depend on, whether it’s a highchair that could be better designed or a book that could have been better written, we have two choices: settle with the way it is, or take matters into our own hands. It’s the later choice that often drives us to obsession, as it’s done with a few parents I’ve profiled who’ve seen a need for something and then set off on a process of educating themselves and making their concepts a reality. I’ve interviewed moms who’ve figured out how to manufacture better lunch boxes; foster parents who have started charities for kids in the system;… Read More

You might not know that Mindprint founder Nancy Weinstein is really into games, but I’m here to tell you that she is. Quite. I’m talking about board games, the kind you played as a kid, and the kind many parents forego as they search the app store for electronic equivalents. And while Nancy and the Mindprint reviewers are creating a database of educational product reviews tailored to cognitive strengths and weaknesses that includes many apps, board games hold a special status. Consider, as Nancy says, the game Monopoly you find in a box. “There’s probably no better way to teach a child addition and subtraction than having them play Monopoly and be the banker. Compare that to the Monopoly app… Read More