Brain-Friendly Study Strategies: How Teachers Can Help Students Learn (Grades 2 - 8)

Presents creative, research-based study strategies covering all content areas and tailored to elementary and middle school students' individual learning styles, including auditory, visual, and kinesthetic modalities.

Amy Schwed is an adjunct professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz. During the past eleven years she has developed courses in how to teach reading/language arts at both primary and intermediate levels, as well as children’s literature and differentiated instruction classes, plus supervised student teachers. In addition, she created and taught a graduate course, “Integrating Study Skills and Multiple Intelligences”. That course, combined with a shortened version developed for in-service teacher training, was the genesis of Brain Friendly Study Strategies and has undergone continual growth and change.

Her professional background includes 31 years as a public school educator in kindergarten through eighth grade; reading teacher and consultant in elementary, middle school and junior highs; teacher of middle school gifted and talented students; New York State “Newspapers in Education” turn-key trainer; staff development and in-service teacher trainer for many school districts; and workshop presenter for parent education training. In addition to being a teacher trainer, she has been a repeat presenter at many professional conferences, including the International Reading Association, the New York State Reading Association, local reading councils, and other state conferences. She developed and conducted a district-wide Young Author’s Conference for several years. She has been a returning guest lecturer at Vassar College and Manhattanville College.

Since beginning research to design the integrated study skills graduate course, she has become actively involved in discovering as much about how the brain learns as possible. This has become an on-going, fascinating educational process, exciting and informing her current teaching. That research broadened the scope of Brain Friendly Study Strategies well beyond Multiple Intelligences. She loves being a teacher of current and future teachers! She may be reached at: (845) 462-2269 or amyschwed@optonline.net .

Janice Melichar-Utter has worked with students at all levels from preschool to college during her thirty-four years in education. She was an adjunct professor at Mount Saint Mary College teaching Foundations of Literacy. Presently, Jan tutors women recovering from substance abuse.

Working as a reading specialist for eighteen years, primarily at the middle school level, Jan learned to adapt strategies to meet the challenges of learning disabled and gifted readers. In the Social Studies classroom, she was passionate about developing brain friendly study strategies and memory techniques to bring success to all students. Guiding students to understand how they learned became paramount to covering curriculum.

Jan presents teacher workshops on a variety of topics throughout the Hudson Valley, including the New York State Reaching Association Conferences, Mid-Hudson Reading Council Fall Conferences, the IRA Convention in Toronto, and was a guest lecturer at Vassar College for over 20 years. As readability editor and consultant for Scholastic-Grolier, she involved her middle school students in focus groups to evaluate books. She is a member of professional organization such as ASCD, MHRC, Delta Kappa Gamma, and APCE.

Currently Jan is using her educational background for work in Christian ministry. She and her husband Jim, an ecology professor, live in the Hudson Valley of New York and share five children and four grandchildren in their combined family.

You can reach her at 7 William Way, Stormville, NY, 12582. E-mail: mrsjmutter98@aol.com