The Learning Tree

Book excerpt: 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.