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Welcome to Brain Trek News Page

By: Dr. Yvette Hus, Literacy Specialist

The year 1966 saw the birth of the famous Star Trek series. The Star Trek madness has lasted for over 40 years and spawned a humungous industry, not to mention millions of avid Trekkies. Each episode in the original series opened with the following.

Setting: 23rd Century (2266-2269)
"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations — to boldly go where no man has gone before." (Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek creator; Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek)

The astute reader may have noticed an oddity: a "Brain Trek" title followed by Star Trek history.

Question: What has the Brain got to do with Star Trek?

Answer: The brain, like the universe, represents mainly uncharted but endlessly exciting worlds. Only recently, with the help of awesome technology, scientists are successfully exploring and unravelling brain territory and function. The brain is the Captain responsible for our body, mind, and emotions, and most importantly for us students, it determines our math, language and reading abilities as well as disabilities.

Now you can see how brain study is related to space exploration. Based on this kinship we have come up with the following mission statement.

Setting: 21st Century (2007-2008)
"The Brain: the final frontier. This site will document the voyages of Brain Trek ship. Its voyages will reveal the latest scientific discoveries in brain, language, reading, and learning matters. Its mission: to detonate brain myths, to replace half-truths with scientific evidence, to seek out and reveal new strategies for learning, to help transform mediocre students into glowing stars.

Who is this page for? The intended audience is the entire school population including parents, and other school board visitors.

How will it be set up? Information will be referenced, and where appropriate links to more or original readings will be provided.

Comments or feedback? All comments (civilized only!) can be addressed to the following e-mail address jfkbraintrek@gmail.com

Please note: Limited number of comments and responses will be selected for publication.

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How can you benefit most from the readings provided on this site?

The readings can help you expand your general knowledge, help increase your appreciation for reading, and most importantly, they can help you acquire a huge and rich vocabulary.

Why do you need to increase your vocabulary?

Using a computer model, think of your brain as the hardware, and words as the software. Without software, there is not much that goes on in the brain portions responsible for reading/learning. Knowing the full meanings of words is important for text comprehension. It is also essential for producing quality writing, and mature conversation.

What does it mean to know a word?

Scientists agree that how well you know a word can be measured in stages.

Take for example the word sesquipedalian: measure your knowledge of the word by deciding what is your stage of knowledge for this word:

• Stage 1: I never saw this word before.
• Stage 2: I saw the word but don’t know what it means.
• Stage 3: I saw the word but I have a fuzzy notion as to its meaning.
• Stage 4: I know what the word means and how to use it in a sentence.

How can you increase your vocabulary through the readings on this site?

You can learn words that are in your stage 1-3 of word knowledge by looking them up in a dictionary while you read. NO! not a paper dictionary, but rather an e-dictionary. You can look up words instantly as you encounter them, within milliseconds (OK! seconds!)

Follow these directions to download a FREE e-dictionary onto your computer.

An icon for the dictionary will always be on your tool bar. You can activate it by highlighting the word you want, and then clicking on the dictionary icon. This dictionary is good for Windows 98, or XP, or Vista.

• Step 1: Go to Google and type in WordWeb. Click to open page.
• Step 2: On the open page, choose Wordweb: Free English thesaurus dictionary download, and click on it.
• Step3: On the new open page, point to Get the Free download now, and click on it.
• Step 4: On the new open page, look at the section titled Welcome WordWeb users, point to Download Now, and click.
• Step 5: The new page will ask whether you want to Run the download or Save it. Choose save it.
• Step 6: It will be saved on your desk top as a folder with a large W on it (the WordWeb logo). Click on it to install onto your hard drive and to place the icon on the tool bar. It will make the dictionary available to you any time you highlight a word in any readings from the web.
• Step 7: For practice, use the WordWeb on your tool bar to look up the word in the box

The word sesquipedalian means:_____________