Happy Chinese New Year! “How many languages do you speak?” When I met Charles Novacek he spoke seven languages fluently and was working on number eight – Chinese. He said China was becoming a major economy and over a billion people spoke the language. Learning Mandarin would give him intellectual stimulation and would be advantageous …
Charles’ love of the High Tatra Mountains of Slovakia deepened when at the age of nine in 1937, he was sent there to a special sanitarium for children to recover from tuberculosis. “I was told that the mountain air cured me,” Charles said. There “I became acquainted with the territory where years later I would …
Reading books aloud to each other isn’t just for kids! It has benefits for all ages. Listening to books read aloud sharpens focus, improves reading and listening skills, increases vocabulary, and activates imagination. In fact, studies show reading aloud to adults stimulates brain activity, provides socialization and may help to lessen symptoms of dementia, Alzheimer’s, …
