Expressive language vs. hitting the target

Kelley King, Educational Consultant & Author, shares advice for parents on how boys and girls have different parts of the brain allocated to certain skills and the affects that can have
Brain Development Differences Between Boys And Girls
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Expressive language vs. hitting the target

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Some of the major male/female brain differences that are helpful for parents to understand is that there's a different layout in the brain in terms of the amount of the brain that's dedicated to visual-spatial functioning and verbal functioning. Girls more often have more of the brain dedicated to verbal functioning, which means that their receptive and expressive language tends to develop earlier. Entering kindergarten, girls are usually a year and a half ahead of boys in receptive and expressive language skills and in vocabulary. Boys on the other hand have more of their brain dedicated to visual, spatial and motoric kinds of function, and so boys are typically better able at gross motor functions, large body movements, throwing a ball and say hitting a target, visual-spatial kinds of puzzles. Now it doesn't mean that boys and girls can't learn equally well to do those things, it just means that more boys than girls are good at some things and more girls than boys are better at other things. The implications for parents are really, really important in terms of supporting their kids in learning to read and to write and being ready for school.

Kelley King, Educational Consultant & Author, shares advice for parents on how boys and girls have different parts of the brain allocated to certain skills and the affects that can have

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Kelley King

Educational Consultant & Author

Kelley King has been a K-12 public school educator for over 25 years with work in the areas of school administration, gifted education and special education. Kelley is currently the Associate Director of the Gurian Institute and provides on-site and online workshops for parents and teachers internationally. Kelley is a co-author, with Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens, of two books on education: Strategies for Teachings Boys and Girls: A Workbook for Elementary Educators and Strategies for Teaching Boys and Girls: A Workbook for Secondary Educators. Kelley finished her third book entitled Writing the Playbook, a guide for principals on creating schools that honor the unique strengths and characteristics of boys. Kelley is the mother of an 18-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter.

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