Spooked Writer

Was at the Carrefour Supermarket at Marina Mall (Abu Dhabi). Was going through the book section. I usually don't end up buying books, and I didn't buy one this time either, but I certainly do like to skim through them, mostly novels, and see what's new. I always read the Comics section first...need to know what my Marvel and DC heroes are upto.

This one caught my eye though:
Train Your Brain: 60 Days to a Better Brain by Kumon

I thought it would contain something different,unique, or some new approach and technique. Nope. The advice was, Practice Maths Calculations, Do word lists and play the colour game (I don't recall what it's called) where you call the colour of the word,instead of the word itself which depicts the colour. Confused?

Ex: RED. You have to name the colour, not the word. In this case Green.

It had a simple introduction that said research proved 3 things with real CT Scan pictures taken of the brain for each example:
1)Practicing quick calculations helped improve brain activity.
2)Reading Out Loud improved memory and activity
3)Writing Improved Memory and brain activity

Of course Diet and Sleep were important and are a given to keep our brain fresh and the mornings were best to do the exercises named in the book.

So it had practice tests and a Data sheet to record your scores. You had to complete each page within minutes, where under a minute would be the optimum. The test on each page were simple. Addition, multiplication, subtraction and division of at most 3 digit numbers (which were few). Simple word lists of everyday items and easy vocabulary. And finally the colour game.

That was all to the book. It cost around 70 Dirhams, that would make it about 20USD. Not worth it. You could practice all this by urself and the book mentioned nothing new or different, however it was true to what it preached.

So recap:
- Have a proper diet and sleep for better mental strength
- Read out loud, Do quick math calculations and word lists to stay sharp and write often (the book didn't say whether on paper or online, however a cartoon depicted a man writing on paper, so I would presume that was it).

Today I made a difference. Unfortunately for Mr.Kumon, the author, I made it worse. Apologies.