Join us for a virtual program with the authors of Your Child Learns Differently, Now What? The Truth for Parents, by Roger Stark and Betsy Hill.

The pandemic has set students back two years and exacerbated learning challenges

Every parent of a school-aged child knows students are struggling. Seventy percent of students aren’t performing sufficiently at grade level. The National Center for Educational Statistics reports that reading and math scores for fourth graders in 2022, following the pandemic, dropped to levels not seen in two decades, with the greatest decline in students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) — students who were already struggling and were even further behind than the average.

 It doesn’t have to be this way.

Roger Stark, who was the first person to deliver a briefing to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Neuroscience in the Classroom, and multiple award-winning educator Betsy Hill are committed to helping children achieve their fullest learning potential by using tested and proven neuroscience with their groundbreaking book for parents and educators, Your Child Learns Differently, Now What? The Truth for Parents (Seabiscuit Press; February 2023).

Stark says, “We believe that the most underutilized asset in the learning and teaching process is the student. As human beings, we are naturally born to learn, but our individual capacity for learning is different. Our capacity for learning is shaped by our genetics, environment, and our life experiences. While your genetics, environment, and life experiences shape who you are, it does not have to define you.”

The book is filled with revelatory insight including:

• What you don’t know could be holding your child back.
• Despite what we were led to believe, intelligence isn’t fixed and can improve.
• At the core of learning are mental processes called cognitive skills, which are how our brains learn. It’s the “how” of learning, not the “what” of teaching that matters.
• By understanding this, you can help your child turn on their learning superpowers.

Improving your child’s cognitive skills is the key to improving learning ability—brains can change. Scientists call this neuroplasticity, which means that whatever a child’s learning strengths and weaknesses, they can be improved. And building their cognitive skills is the number one factor in improving academic performance. Stark and Hill, as CEO and president of BrainWare Learning Company, know this through decades of education and research. They write:

“Cognitive skills account for 50 percent of the variance in students’ academic performance. That means that half of the difference between one child’s academic performance and the child sitting next to them can be predicted by their cognitive skills. Not teachers, not class size, not curriculum or technology.”

YOUR CHILD LEARNS DIFFERENTLY, NOW WHAT? is the guide to helping parents understand how brains learn and how their child’s brain learns best. This knowledge will empower parents like never before. Not only will they understand why their child reacts the way they do to school—they will be able to help them. Struggles with remembering instructions or decoding word problems start to diminish when you know what is happening and what to do about it.

All of this can be achieved by helping children “turn on” their most underutilized asset—their ability to learn. That’s when you’ll see the transformation—when your child overcomes their struggle to succeed not just in school, but in life. It’s a lesson that will last long into adulthood.

BETSY HILL is the mother of three boys and an award-winning educator. She studied the neuroscience of learning with Dr. Patricia Wolfe and other pioneers in the field, coining the term neuroeducator. She is former chair of the board of trustees at Chicago State University and teaches strategic thinking at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management where she received a Contribution to Learning Excellence Award. She received a Nepris Trailblazer Award for sharing her knowledge, skills and passion for the neuroscience of learning in classrooms around the U.S. She holds a Master of Arts in Teaching and an MBA from Northwestern University.

ROGER STARK is CEO of BrainWare Learning Company. It started with a simple question: What do you know about the brain? His vision was to combine multidisciplinary clinical cognitive training with videogame technology. It had never been done before. Over the past fifteen years, he has championed efforts to bring comprehensive cognitive skills training and cognitive assessment within reach of everyone. He led the team that developed BrainWare SAFARI, now the most researched comprehensive, integrated cognitive training tool delivered online in the world. He was the first person ever invited to deliver a joint Congressional briefing on Neuroscience in the classroom.

Please register; Zoom links will be sent out before the event.