Congratulations to Summer Russell, LearningRx Student of the Year, and to our two finalists, Camille Simmons and Adam Hill. To watch their inspiring stories, please click on the videos below!
Summer Russell, LearningRx Student of the Year 2010, was trained at our Little Rock, AR LearningRx Center.
Camille Simmons, LearningRx Student of the Year 2010 “Runner-up”, was trained at our Bossier City, LA LearningRx Center.
Adam was trained at our Virginia Beach Town Center, VA LearningRx Center.
Jul 27
For years, moms have been making their kids take summertime piano lessons. Not surprisingly, moms know best: it turns out those piano lessons may have helped you more than you realize. Over the summer, students typically lose over 22% of what they learned the previous year. They call it “summer slide” and Kim Bellini, director of the LearningRx center in The Woodlands, Texas, has seen it firsthand.
In a recent article, Bellini says “Speaking from my experience as a teacher, we typically spend the first six to eight weeks of the school year helping students relearn what they forgot over the summer. It’s just like working out muscles – you have to keep your brain trained.”
So, how can we keep kids’ brains in shape and avoid summer slide? Here’s one way that might surprise you.
Summer Slide – A Smart (and Musical) Idea
I once heard a lecture by a man named Andrew Pudewa, called The Profound Effects of Music on Life. It was a generally fascinating lecture about music and how it’s really good for your brain. He said that, for developing a child’s brain, playing the piano is one of the best things possible because it integrates four key elements: Read the rest of this entry »
Jun 14
June 15th is National Brain Training Day! On June 1st, LearningRx, the country’s leading personal brain training company declared June 15th National Brain Training Day. The day was declared with two purposes in mind. First, to dispel myths around cognitive skills training. Secondly, to raise awareness of the phenomenal gains the right type of brain training can bring.
“LearningRx brain training can dramatically improve learning and reading skills for almost anyone,” says LearningRx Vice President of Research and Development Tanya Mitchell. “Every day we see our brain training bring measurable, dramatic gains that result in faster, more efficient thinking. Our graduates consistently enjoy better reading skills, improved grades and increased confidence and self-esteem.” Read the rest of this entry »
Does your child need brain training or tutoring? What’s the difference? Do you know? Take this short quiz, and see if you can tell the difference. Get a piece of paper, read through the two scenarios in each question, and write down which story is like brain training and which story is like tutoring.
Brain training or tutoring? Question #1
a.) An 9-year old boy is going out for soccer. He gets on to the team, but he starts to have trouble aiming the ball in the direction he wants it to go when he kicks. His coach pulls him aside and shows him how to control the angle of his kick, and tells him to go home and practice it. The boy practices his kick, and improves.
b.) Another young boy wants to play soccer, and tries out for the team. He cannot run as fast as the other boys, and is badly uncoordinated, so he doesn’t make the team. The coach suggests some weight training and balance exercises, and tells the boy that if he does those things faithfully, and runs every day, he will have a better chance to make the team next time. The next year, the boy comes back stronger and faster, and makes the team. Read the rest of this entry »
May 27
Chances are, now that summer’s here, you aren’t thinking much about brain fitness (if you think about it at all). No, you’re thinking about playing tag, eating watermelon, or lying on the beach in the sun doing absolutely nothing, and I don’t blame you. But activities that boost physical and brain fitness during the summer can help you (and your family) enjoy the long summer days even more, and be ready for next fall – when cooler weather and challenging classes will require more of both the brain and the body.
Brain Fitness: It’s About Your Health
Silly as it sounds, it’s easy to forget that the brain is a part of the body. We can’t see it, so we don’t think about its health – until it starts to malfunction… Read the rest of this entry »
May 24
Oliver W. Hill1 and Zewelanji Serpell1
The recent study by Owen, et al. (2010) and the subsequent news article by Katsnelson (2010), both published in Nature, have caused a firestorm of attention in the popular media. Katsnelson’s provocative headline, “No gain from brain training,” has led to a number of hasty conclusions about the ineffectiveness of cognitive training that need to be addressed. We are members of a team of investigators on a three-year study funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to test the efficacy of cognitive training on the mathematics performance of inner-city students. While we are just beginning the second year of this study and only have preliminary data, these data coupled with several other (as yet) unpublished studies have produced effects that are robust enough to warrant mention, given the recent attention to this topic. Read the rest of this entry »
May 13
Seems like everybody these days wants to increase their brain power. Take a trip around the web, and you’ll see what I mean. Some people say the best way to increase your brain power is to eat protein in the morning. Others say it has to do with exercise. For others, meditation is the answer to making the brain function at its best. All of these techniques are useful if we are talking about a qualitative increase, that is, getting the brain you have today to work at its best. But what about quantitative increase? Can you make the brain you have today a bigger, better brain tomorrow? That would be an entirely different kind of increase in brain power! There are many ideas out there for improving your brain’s health and function – but LearningRx goes a step further: our mission is to increase your brain power by growing the brain itself, and encouraging it to making new connections. Instead of just a healthy brain, you’ll have more brains! It’s the difference between having one healthy child, and having twins. Read the rest of this entry »
Apr 27
Ah… the unruly right brain. We all know right-brained people – those out-of-the-box thinkers that confuse lefties with their random rhetoric, frustrate secretaries with their messy desks, and astonish everyone with their creative prowess. But what do all those right brain vs. left brain theories really mean? Are artists doomed to never be good at math? Are creative writers simply unable to think logically? Experience would tell us that perhaps it’s more complicated than just being one or the other. In fact, I’ll bet if you think about it, you can come up with a few things that you like to do, and even do very well, that don’t fit in with your generally “right-brained” or “left-brained” tendencies. Read the rest of this entry »
LearningRx warns headlines could lead to setbacks in understanding the brain
Colorado Springs, CO – National brain-training company LearningRx is taking a stand against a study that implies that the brain can’t be improved with training. The just-published study by the journal Nature tracked more than 11,000 participants in a six-week online study and found that healthy adults using computer-based brain training do not improve their mental fitness in any significant way.
“This is a giant leap,” says Dr. Ken Gibson, founder and president of nationally franchised brain-training leader LearningRx. “From what I can determine about this study, people played games or did research for ten minutes a day, three times a week for six weeks. That alone is certainly and obviously not nearly enough time to get any type of improvement. Read the rest of this entry »
Apr 1
Ever wondered what a brain trainer actually does? One of the best ways to understand the role of a brain trainer is to think of a person that we are all familiar with: the personal trainer at the gym. (You know – that cool and cheerful person who can lift multiple garbage cans without breaking a sweat, and expects you to do the same?) A brain trainer won’t ask you to lift garbage cans with your mind, but they are always cool and cheerful, and they’ll make you work hard. Here are some of the many similarities between a brain trainer and a personal trainer at the gym:
Brain trainer: Your personal brain fitness instructor…
1. Is Trained to Train – One of the most important parts of becoming a brain trainer is getting the proper training. Just like personal trainers have to earn their certificates, brain trainers are “trained how to train” by professionals in the brain science field. The best brain trainers, and personal trainers too, are always learning and perfecting their skills by continuing to educate themselves on the latest scientific discoveries, training techniques, & exercises. Read the rest of this entry »
