The Learning Tree: Overcoming Learning Disabilities from the Ground Up

by Stanley I. Greenspan, Nancy Thorndike Greenspan

The Learning Tree offers a new understanding of learning problems. Rather than looking just at symptoms, this new approach describes how to find the missing developmental steps that cause these symptoms. The best solution to the problem comes from knowing what essential skills to strengthen.Using the metaphor of a tree, Dr. Stanley Greenspan explains that the roots represent how children take in the world through what they hear, see, smell, and touch. The trunk represents thinking skills through which children grow both academically and socially. From these, the branches—children’s basic abilities to read, write, do math, and organize their work—develop.

Both parents and early learning professionals will especially welcome the sections on finding and solving learning problems early. With Dr. Greenspan’s characteristic wise optimism, this book “raises the ceiling” for all children who learn differently or with difficulty.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction

296 pages, Hardcover

First published September 21, 2009

About the author

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stanley Greenspan (June 1, 1941 – April 27, 2010)[1] was an American child psychiatrist and clinical professor of Psychiatry, Behavioral Science, and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School. He was best known for developing the floortime approach for attempting to treat children with autistic spectrum disorders and developmental disabilities.[2]

He was Chairman of the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders and also a Supervising Child Psychoanalyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. A graduate of Harvard College and Yale Medical School,[2] Greenspan was the founding president of Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health's Clinical Infant Developmental Program and Mental Health Study Center.[3]

Reviews

[Christine Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Learning Tree offers a new understanding of learning problems. Rather than looking just at symptoms, this new approach describes how to find the missing developmental steps that cause these symptoms. The best solution to the problem comes from knowing what essential skills to strengthen. Using the metaphor of a tree, Dr. Stanley Greenspan explains that the roots represent how children take in the world through what they hear, see, smell, and touch. The trunk represents thinking skills through which children grow both academically and socially. From these, the branches-children's basic abilities to read, write, do math, and organize their work-develop. Both parents and early learning professionals will especially welcome the sections on finding and solving learning problems early. With Dr. Greenspan's characteristic wise optimism, this book "raises the ceiling" for all children who learn differently or with difficulty


Contents: Sally's story -- IQ testing: uses and misuses -- Play and learning: floortime -- Building basic thinking -- Building advanced thinking -- Using all the thinking levels: the Sidwell Friends buddy project -- Getting to the roots: avoiding labels -- Deciphering sounds -- Making sense of what we hear -- Organizing actions: motor planning and sequencing -- Organizing thoughts -- Regulating sensation -- Making sense of what we see -- Integrating all the roots: the Sidwell Friends nutrition project -- Helping Sally: strengthening the trunk and the roots -- The learning tree in action: the Sidwell Friends dinosaur project -- Reading comprehension -- Expressing ideas in writing and speaking -- Mathematical thinking and reasoning -- Organizational skills -- The learning tree in conclusion: the Sidwell Friends Native Americans and colonist project.

Summary: Discusses how to identify and analyze missing developmental steps that can lead to learning problems, utilizing the metaphor of a tree to examine how children perceive the world; grow socially and academically; and develop the ability to read, write, organize their work, perform mathematics, and more.

[Carmela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for parents and teachers who want to understand learning in broader more complete context. Emotion drives learning and the roots of learning are sensory! Good stuff.