Sound for Life LTD Forbrain Review

My family had the privilege of trying the Forbrain from Sound for Life LTD for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Sound for Life LTD is a Hong Kong based company that specializes in the development of effective products to support cognitive abilities and skills. They have researched cognitive science and neuropsychology research from around the world. After doing so they collaborated with Aftershokz LLC, a world leader in bone conduction technology to create Forbrain.

Forbrain is a headset device that is designed to help people with attention difficulties, speech and language issues, or poor memory. It uses bone conduction, dynamic filter, and auditory feedback loop to increase memory, concentration, attention, and focus helping correct the way the user hears their own voice to improve speech, motivation, and confidence. If used properly about 15 minutes once or twice a day for at least 6 weeks, benefits can be attained. Recommended for children at least 4 years of age to adult.

Forbrain comes with everything you see here.

What Forbrain Includes:

• Forbrain Headset
• USB to micro USB Charging Cable
• Forbrain Brochure with suggested exercises
• Users Manual
• 3 Extra Microphone Covers
• Zippered Case to place everything in

Forbrain needs to be charged for three hours before first use. It charges with a USB to micro USB charging cable. The micro USB socket can be found on the Dynamic Filter along with the on/off button and volume button. The LED light is also located on the Dynamic Filter and shows: a solid blue when on and working, no blue light when power is off or when battery is too low, solid red when headphone is being charged, and no red light when charging is complete. The battery life is more than 6 hours while in operation. Volume is set by default already for optimal use.

Forbrain fits neatly into a convenient case to take with you on-the-go.

Forbrain Features:

• High Quality Microphone
• Bone Conduction Transducers
• Dynamic Filter
• LED Light
• ON/OFF Button
• Volume +/-
• USB socket

Here I am using the Forbrain headset while I am at my computer desk.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
We received Forbrain to try out and test in our home setting. I decided to try it out myself first. I wanted to enhance my memory, focus, concentration, ability to stay on task, and brain function. I have been using it once a day for about 20 minutes. I have been pleasantly surprised by this bone conduction headset even though I have only been using it for less than the 6 weeks because our review period for this product wasn't quite long enough.

Forbrain is very comfortable to wear and portable. The headset band rests over the ears and around the back of the head above the neck. The bone conduction transducers rest on the temporal bones (bones in front of the ears) on each side of the head. This does not rest in the ear or on top of the ear at all like headphones do. The microphone is worn about 3 cm from the mouth, slightly to the right. You can walk around the house while wearing it if you like because there are no cords tethering it to anything.

When using Forbrain you need to read text, lyrics, poetry, etc. aloud for appropriate brain stimulation. I loved to use this as I was doing scripture study and reading a book or story to myself or my children. I also found that it was wonderful to use while singing aloud so that I could hear myself and auto-correct any pitch and tone issues or out of tune problems. It was like I was my own auto-tune device.

There were a lot of bonuses I found while using Forbrain. I love that it filters out background noise that causes distraction and lets you focus on what you are trying to accomplish better. I found I was getting a lot more done, remembering things better, and speaking a lot more eloquently.

We had one issue with the headset. The headset band isn't adjustable, so larger heads or heads with big hair are not able to be accommodated. My son Delbin tried it out for a bit and it didn't really fit him because he has some wild curly hair. I could see this as a big problem if my husband wanted to try it for this reason too. I know this is usually used for smaller kids, but those that do want to use it that are older I believe should be able to wear this comfortably as well.

I can not wait to use Forbrain more and see what else it can help me with. After I am done using it I want to try it with: my husband who has Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) and Tourettes, my mother who has vocal chord dysfunction, and my youngest daughter to help with her speech and auditory processing issues. I highly recommend this for anyone with speech and language difficulties, auditory processing disorder, sensory integration disorder, reading difficulties, ADD, ADHD, memory issues, and vocal cord dysfunction.

Follow Them on Social Media:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forbrainLTD 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/forbrainheadset 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/forbrain---retrain-the-way-you-process-information
• Hashtags: #hsreviews, #forbrain #ADD #ADHD #sensoryintegration

BUY IT
You can purchase Forbrain from Sound for Life LTD for $299. It comes with a 2 year warranty and 100% satisfaction guarantee.

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Institute for Excellence in Writing Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization Review

My family had the privilege of trying the Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization plus the Student Book by Institute for Excellence in Writing for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum products. This is a Schoolhouse Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Institute for Excellence in Writing is a company that helps homeschooling parents and teachers to teach language arts, mainly: reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and communication through speaking and listening effectively. They have many products to help with this. I received physical copies of their Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization to review.

Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization is a program that teaches effective communication,  English language patterns, how to understand and use complex English syntax, memorization skills, speaking skills, language, and vocabulary. These linguistic skills will be developed by internalizing the rhythmic, beautiful patterns of English language with poetry memorization through repetition and recitation. This is great for grades K-12.

We got the Student Pages Spiral as a bonus.

What is Included:

• Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization: A Mastery Learning Approach Teacher's Manual (spiral bound)
• Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization: A Mastery Learning Approach Student Pages eBook (spiral bound also available at additional charge)
• 7 Audio MP3s you can download from a website
• 5 CDs of Poems and Speeches, one disk for each of the 5 levels
• DVD: Nurturing Competent Communicators, featuring Andrew Pudewa, the director of IEW and author of the program

The Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization: A Mastery Learning Approach Teacher's Manual is a great guide for teaching this curriculum. With this you can download the eBook Student Pages and 7 MP3s with the included instructions. The Introduction has topics covered like: Prerequisites for Effective Communication, Why Memorization?, Why Poetry?, Mastery Learning - What is it?, How This Program is Set Up, and How to Teach the Program. After the Introduction, it follows the same layout of the Student Pages with the same levels, poems, and speeches with added annotations along the side. The Appendix 1 and 2 are exact copies of the ones in the Student Pages, but an additional appendix, Appendix 3 has optional lesson enhancements. This has suggested activities to study the elements of poetry as well as include other subjects in the learning.

The 7 Audio MP3 Lectures Include:

• Nurturing Competent Communicators
• Mastery Learning, Ability Development, and Individualized Education
• Ten Thousand Times and Then Begins Understanding
• On Listening
• On Speaking
• On Reading
• On Writing

These lectures are quite long, but provide the listener with a great amount of information.

The Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization: A Mastery Learning Approach Student Pages eBook is available through a link given in the teachers manual (this link also supplies the 7 MP3s to download). This eBook is 170 pages and is the same as the preprinted spiral bound book that we also received. The spiral version can be ordered at additional cost. The student pages have 5 levels in this curriculum which introduce students to 76 classic poems and 20 speeches. Each of these poems are featured in large easily readable font with a black and white lined illustration accompanying it that your student can color. The speeches have annotations along the side of the speech to give more information or an explanation about it. This book ends in short biographies of the poetry/speech writers, going in alphabetical by last name, in Appendix 1 and a bibliography of works in Appendix 2.

Each level in the Student Pages begins with a "Getting Started" page in which instructions are given on how to proceed and ends with a certificate of completion award. Level One has 19 poems plus a poem you can personally select. It tells the student to begin with the first poem, highlight it in the list, practice until you can recite it (using the audio recordings to help), work down the list, recite all highlighted poems daily, record progress on the chart in the book. Level Two has 19 poems more plus a poem you can personally select. Instead of reciting all the Level One poems everyday along with the new ones in Level Two it says to recite odd numbered poems for Level One odd days and even numbered poems for Level One even days still going through the Level Two poetry list in order until mastered. Level Three has another 19 poems plus a different poem you can personally select. The lists for maintaining earlier levels gets a little more complicated for Level Three, but you follow their list and use one half for the first ten poems and the last half for the last ten poems. Level Four has has another 19 poems plus a different poem you can personally select. Maintaining the poems from earlier levels in this level will have to use the handy lists provided because of complexity. Level Five has 20 speeches. The student goes through memorizing and reciting the speeches like the poetry, one by one in order, highlighting and charting as they have mastered them. On the last day of each month the student is to recite their favorite poems and speeches that they have memorized.

In the box along with the Teacher's Manual is a case that holds 5 CDs of Poems and Speeches, a DVD, and a link to download zip files of all 5 CDs' MP3s.The CD/DVD case is very nice. It looks like leather that is stitched all around the edges and has the IEW logo on it. Their are 4 CDs of Poems and the 5th one for Speeches. They go along with the 5 levels and are the audio versions of each poem or speech. The case also includes a bonus DVD of Andrew Pudewa's conference talk Nurturing Competent Communicators.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

I was very excited to get this in the mail because I love poetry and wanted my children to be able to partake in this curriculum. Being from IEW, I knew that it would be top notch. Teela, my second grader, accepted the challenge of the program.

When I looked all of the components over I noticed that this curriculum can be used with many types of learners and grades. My youngest, who is 5 and in preschool can listen to the audio of the poetry and memorize the poetry this way since she doesn't read much yet. This will help her also with reading readiness as she can also follow along in the book. My daughter Teela used both the audio and read the words from the pages. I would think that my older sons who are 14 and 15 would just use the book and read them to memorize because they wouldn't need the feedback from the audio.

Teela did exactly what the Student Pages said and I was thankful that I received a physical book because my printer was almost out of ink. Thank you IEW for being so generous! We used this program for 3 days a week for the review period. With this program Teela has been able to work at her own pace and is getting so much better at poetry memorization and recitation. I am amazed at the simplicity of this program and the advances Teela has made just by memorizing poetry. Her vocabulary has expanded and she has gotten better at public speaking, just for starters.

I love how versatile this program is. It can be done just about anywhere, including: at home, in the car, while doing chores, or out on a walk. We have brought this with us on a number of occasions.

I loved the DVD as well. Andrew Pudewa's conference talk Nurturing Competent Communicators was very inspiring. Pudewa talks about how poetry memorization makes you smarter and why we should all be doing it. It was very informative.

Institute for Excellence in Writing Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization is a wonderful curriculum for poetry memorization and recitation. We love this mastery learning study! We recommend it to everyone that would like to add poetry memorization to their curriculum to enhance and benefit the learning experience.


BUY IT

You can purchase Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization for $65 on the IEW website. You can purchase the preprinted spiral bound book of Student Pages for $19.

Follow Them on Social Media:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/excellenceinwriting
Twitter - @IEW https://twitter.com/iew
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/iewriting
Vimeo - http://vimeo.com/iewtv
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/iewtv
Blog - http://iew.com/help-support/blog
Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+Iewriting/
Instagram - https://instagram.com/iew/
Suggested Hashtags: #hsreviews #readingreadiness #poetrymemorization

Read other reviews for IEW Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization...