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Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Lifelong Benefits of Debating

Decades of academic research have proven that the benefits that accrue as a result of engaging in debate are numerous. 
Speech and debate provides students an opportunity to 
  • develop skills in research,
  • critical thinking, 
  • organization, 
  • persuasion and 
  • communication.
Students learn to accept constructive criticism from judges in each round and use it to improve their future performance. 
By Basia P, 2018

Debate provides experiences that are conducive to life-changing, cognitive, and presentational skills. In addition, through debate debaters acquire unique educational benefits as they learn and polish skills far beyond what can be learnt in any other setting. At the very least, debate helps learners to see the power of deploying rational, reasoned arguments and compelling evidence in action. It enables them to elucidate their standpoint through utilizing rhetorical eloquence. It instills in debaters a great sense of poise and confidence. It teaches them the skills of researching, organizing, and presenting information in a compelling fashion.

In general, the benefits of debate include:
  1. Gaining broad, multi-faceted knowledge cutting across several disciplines outside the learner's normal academic subjects.
  2. Increasing learners’ confidence, self-control, and self-esteem.
  3. Providing an engaging, active, learner-centered activity.
  4. Improving rigorous higher order and critical thinking skills.
  5. Enhancing the ability to structure and organize thoughts.
  6. Enhancing learners’ analytical, research and note-taking kills
  7. Improving learners’ ability to form balanced, informed arguments and to use reasoning and evidence.
  8. Developing effective speech composition and delivery.
  9. Encouraging teamwork.
Check "12 Ways Debating Will Help You for the Rest of Your Life," St. John's-Ravenscourt 

Monday, November 5, 2018

Typeface Font Designed to Ease Reading – Dyslexia Font

There are several fonts that have been designed for the dyslexic readers to ease their reading.

Lexia Readable (Keith Bates, 2004),
Dyslexie (Christian Boer, 2008),
OpenDyslexic (Abelardo Gonzalez, 2011),
Read Regular,
Sylexiad (Dr. Robert Hillier, 2006),

and more... 

Let’s have a closer look.

Lexia Readable 
Originally created by Keith Bates in 2004
 
Lexia Readable (or Lexie Readable) was designed by Keith Bates in 2004 to capture the strength and clarity of Comic Sans. 
This font can be freely downloaded from either the K-Type web site or from the Dyslexia.com site. It is free for individual use, or for use by academic or charitable organizations. For commercial licensing, there is a one-time fee.
https://www.k-type.com/lexie-readable/

Dyslexie 
Developed and designed by Christian Boer in 2008
Dyslexie is a typeface font developed and designed by Christian Boer, dyslexic himself, a Dutch graphic designer, to moderate some of the issues that people with dyslexia experience when reading. He worked on it to help fight his own dyslexia. 
Dyslexie font was a finalist for the Fast Company Innovate Through Design Award in 2012 and went on to many highlights in 2013, including a nomination for the Rabobank New Generation Pitch.
Typeface That Helps Dyslexics Read
Christian Boar designs typeface for readers with dyslexia, by Dan Hawarth, 9 November 2014
Christian Boar designs typeface - letters
OpenDyslexic is a free typeface/fond designed to mitigate some of the common reading errors caused by dyslexia. The typeface was created by Abelardo Gonzalez, who released it through an open-source license. The design is based on that of Déjà Vu Sans, also an open-source font.
Read Regular is a typeface designed specifically to help people with dyslexia read and write more effectively. Read Regular aims at preventing a neglect of dyslexia, creating a more confident feeling regarding the problems that occur with dyslexia.

Sylexiad
By Dr. Robert Hillier in 2006
Dr. Robert Hillier, a Senior Lecturer at Norwich University College of Arts designed and developed ‘Rob’s Fonts’. One of them is Sylexiad font for adult dyslexic readers, presented as part of his doctoral research (2006).

To read more
Dyslexia Font and Style Guide

Typefaces for dyslexia

Typeface writing

Dixy: A Connection Between the “Typographic Appearance” and the Brain of Children, María Fernanda del Real García, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
Journal of Literature and Art Studies, ISSN 2159-5836, January 2014, Vol. 4, No. 1, 55-61

“The third type of letter (Dixy) was specially developed for typographic research purposes, following graphic features that according to literature and previous studies on reading patterns favor the dyslexic, and could improve reading skills in these individuals. To examine the quality of reading (speed and accuracy) between fonts, a small—but significant—sample was used. Ten children in Madrid, from eight to 10 years old were examined while reading words and pseudo words with three different fonts (Arial, MeMimas, and Dixy). The result of the study shows the influence of the shapes of the letters in the legibility of texts with familiar and unfamiliar words (pseudo words) in children with dyslexia. The study showed that using the font Dixy, despite not being known by the children, reading is more accurate than using fonts known to them, such as Arial and MeMimas. As to the reading speed, the results indicate that, although the Dixy is a font never seen before by the children, reading speed is similar to a known font for them, as is the Arial, and greater than a hand writing font such as MeMimas.” Page 55

Good Fonts for Dyslexia by Luz Rello and Ricardo Baeza-Yates

Do Dyslexia-Friendly Fonts Really Work? By Guinevere Eden, Ph.D.
“Since then, however, there have been three solid, peer-reviewed research studies on these fonts. They were done in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Together they conclude that the Dyslexie or Open Dyslexic font have no measurable benefits or deliver any reading gains.
It’s important to create the most successful learning environment for your child. But the most valuable thing is to get your child the best instruction possible to build skills. That means using evidence-basedapproaches that are shown to improve reading.”

Friday, November 2, 2018

Help Diagramming Sentences


My daughter asked me to help her to diagram the sentences. Since in the past I only used parse tree (parse tree) I needed to teach myself how to diagram sentences her way. See some hints.

What is sentence diagram?
Sentence diagram is a pictorial representation of the grammatical structure of a sentence to demonstrate its structure. The model shows the relations between words and the nature of syntactic structure.


Diagraming Sentence, Basic Sentence Parts and Patterns


Diagraming Basic Sentence Parts; Explanation, examples and exercises. Page 198-199



Diagramming Sentences; Grammar Exercise Workbook, page 75-79, by Prentice-Hall, Inc


  


Thursday, November 1, 2018

Lucy ID 288478 by Basia for IKEA Soft Toy Drawing Competition 2018

Cast your daily vote for Lucy
Drawing ID 288478
By Basia, age 11
IKEA Brooklyn

“My friend Lucy is full of grace. She moves through my room effortlessly, always with a smile and ready for a new adventure, with her head up, looking for a great new day to come. "Never give up, and be confident in what you do." she says. "If you fall behind, run faster." she adds. "Have no fear. Lucy is here!” she shouts, picks me up and swirls me in the air.