Lecture notes sure come in handy—and we teachers always remind students to take them, store them, and study them. If they want to keep up, participate, and shine on tests, that is. No problem or complaints from some. Others groan, though, when it’s get-it-all-down time. What about your child? Any of these sound familiar?

_____ “Note-taking’s boring.”
_____ “I can’t keep up.”
_____ “It makes my hand hurt.”
_____ “I lose track of what s/he’s saying.”
_____ “I can’t read my own writing.”
_____ “I’m always losing them.”
_____ “I don’t bother taking any.”

Any checkmarks? I’m not surprised. Good listening and note-taking (more…)

Nothing pure about it–English I mean. After all, the British Isles were invaded several times, as when, during the 5th century, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes arrived, pushing out Celtic in favor of their Germanic tongue. Centuries later, Irish missionaries brought along the Latin alphabet—the one still in use today. Then, in 1066, William the Conqueror took over, and Latin-based French was woven into the mix. And, then, with the revival of classical study during the Renaissance, even more Latin and many Greek words joined in—making an impressive impact on our language, one that can help your child expand his vocabulary with minimal effort.

Let’s start with a multiple choice question: When coming across an unfamiliar word, your child: a) skips right over it; b) looks it up in a dictionary; c) asks someone; d) seeks out context clues; e) looks for known word (more…)

While mom’s favorite line was, “You are what you eat,” she should have added, “Eat well; what’s good for your heart is good for your brain.” After all, the two go hand in hand and both require good habits. It takes a lot to think, learn, and remember.

Now, if your child has ever said, “I can’t do that; it’s too hard!” here are a few brainy facts to stop her in her tracks. Remind her that her brain uses 20-25% of her body’s energy, so it’s no wonder that thinking is as tiring as physical labor. She must feed it well. Then wow her with the fact that a computer built with her brain’s capacity would cover the state of Texas and be 100 stories tall! Couple that with experts’ suggestions that we use only between one and ten percent of our brain’s capacity and out the window goes that “It’s too hard” (more…)

Have a more hate-than-love relationship with test-taking? How about your kid? Go ahead, ask—and don’t be surprised if negatives like forgetting and failure outweigh such positives as easy and success. For most, tests are akin to tooth drilling without Novocain, but you can improve the odds.

Before resorting to bribery or grounding—neither of which holds much promise—go on a fact-finding mission to uncover what test-taking strategies, if any, are already in place. For instance, is test preparation last minute? Are objective and essay tests studied for identically? And, during tests, does your child sometimes ignore the directions and plunge in without first also scanning the whole exam? Meanwhile, (more…)

Your child’s been invited to a get-together within walking distance of home—but in unfamiliar territory. Here are your choices: Tell him how to get there; jot down the all the lefts and rights to be taken, noting a landmark or two; draw a map to accompany him along the way. What works offers clues as to how he best takes in information, responds to it, and learns–by listening, seeing, or feeling his way. Now for a closer look.

Is your child rather chatty, distractible, and outgoing? Is she often heard humming away, talking, maybe even debating? Do names make a deeper impression than faces, and are oral instructions more helpful than written directions? If so, she may well be an auditory learner where hearing is more effective than looking, (more…)

You’ve become a master at it. Had to. No choice. According to a recently released Salary.com survey, stay-at-home moms put in about 91 hours of work a week. And if you’re also employed outside the home . . . Well, you get the picture. Now think about kids. Most spend at least 35 hours a week in school, plus travel time. Next, add in extracurricular activities, homework and studying, not to mention all the time spent with family and friends, plus chores, eating and sleeping. Life is a juggling act for them, too—but for many, the balls aren’t staying in the air. For such children, which of these would you suggest?

_____ 1. Start in on your studies as soon as you come home from school.

_____ 2. Take a good, long break first and start your schoolwork after dinner

_____ 3. No TV for you until the weekend; we’ll tape your shows.

_____ 4. No, you can’t watch your favorite show tonight; now do your homework.

_____ 5, It’s fine if you want to work and listen to music. Might help you focus.

_____ 6. I don’t care what order you do your homework in—just do it!

_____ 7. No sense working on anything right now; you only have 10 minutes or so.

_____ 8. You can’t do well in school if you sign up for these extracurricular activities. (more…)

In my carefree kid days, homework was often left behind—sometimes on my desk, in my unmade bed, or even under it, falling victim to the morning rush. And, yes, I usually left assignments for the last minute—when I remembered them at all. Made my grades suffer and my mother gnash her teeth. In fact, it got so bad she finally declared, “Young lady, this is my house, and I’ve had enough.” There was no turning back. She had me in her sights—no wiggle room. And so she single-handedly remade my seventh grade self. By organizing my life, her house looked better—and so did my grades and attitude. Now I’m passing along the favor. (more…)

Ageless, limitless, and always a pleasure, read alouds are a hit with everybody, so gather your child about you and give this ending from Roald Dahl’s “Three Little Pigs” a try:

“Ah, Piglet, you must never trust
Young ladies from the upper crust.
For now, Miss Riding Hood, one notes,
Not only has two wolfskin coats,
But when she goes from place to place,
She has a PIGSKIN TRAVELING CASE.

You want to know what happened, don’t you? You’re wondering how Riding Hood got hooked up with the three little pigs and not one but two wolves in the first place. And what’s with that traveling case? Pure magic, read-alouds, so start right away spinning tales. Then, when the time is right, consider book clubbing it for your son or daughter, too. (more…)

In 1941, Dr. Francis Robinson made a name for himself with his now classic study method, SQ3R–Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review–a systematic and very effective approach to learning. Instead of your child jumping right in and reading an assigned chapter, Robinson’s method suggests SURVEYING it first, checking out main ideas, summaries, end-of-chapter questions, graphics, and so on. The next step is the all-important “Q.”

QUESTIONING keeps the reader actively and thoughtfully engaged in the material. Instead of (more…)

So many lectures, discussions, textbook pages . . . How can your child be expected to remember it all? Dante said, “He listens well who takes notes.” And that’s the key– listening with the intent to learn, getting it all down, and then studying out loud to insure recall over the long haul. To find out how your child manages it all, read at a good pace this excerpt from Geography: The World and Its History and have her take notes:

“Italy’s Heritage: For hundreds of years, Italy was the heart of Western civilization. The Roman Empire, based in Italy, influenced the government, arts, and architecture of Europe. After the fall of the Roman Empire in A.D. 400s, Italy was divided into many small territories and city-states. Each city-state included an independent city and its surrounding countryside. The Renaissance developed in Italy’s city-states during the 1300s and spread throughout Europe. It was a period of great achievement in the arts . . .”

Now figure out how she did by asking . . . (more…)

About his three D’s and two F’s, Joey said, “We went to Canada to visit relatives. Then I was sick for a couple of days.” Now, what do a trip to Canada and a nasty cold have to do with grades? Everything! As educator Richard White put it, “It may seem obvious that children with the best school attendance are the best performers, but that link is proving even stronger than educators suspected.”

Remember S. Silversteins, “Sick,” about the kid who comes up with every ailment under the sun until his mother tells him it’s Saturday? We all have days when getting out of bed seems out of the question. But haul ourselves out we do—something about being responsible, dependable. Why would we expect anything less from our children? It seems we do, however.
(more…)

Books: knowledge, choice, power—a refuge that exercises the imagination, an invention that changed the world and put it in our hands. Actor Michael Caine said that the greatest thing he’d ever done was learn to read. Would your child agree? Does he curl up with a book every chance he gets—and always at bedtime? Does he ask you to buy books when out shopping, regularly visit the library, and sprinkle conversations with newly discovered words? If so, he’d say, like Stephen King, that books are portable magic.

If, however, your child’s a reluctant reader, don’t force the issue but definitely continue to share stories, along with interesting news and magazine articles–and be seen reading often. (more…)

Kids don’t usually love them. Some actually hate them. There’s seldom anything in between about essay tests. Where objective tests are tests of recognition—all a student has to do is identify the correct answer or whether a statement is true or false–essay tests, require complete recall. A child must remember all of the information, write about it coherently, and proofread carefully. And, while grading them can be a time-consuming task, essays offer a truer measure of learning than, say, multiple choice, and kids should welcome them. Here’s why:
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Says Avi, “Read your first draft, and, if you think it’s good, you’re in trouble . . . The more you rewrite, the better your writing will be.” For many kids, though, the top writing priority is getting the thing done—often measured in length rather than quality. Hit the required number of words or pages, redo it in ink or on a word processor—and the story ends unhappily with poor grades and lots of “I hate writing.” That’s the time to step in.

First piece of advice to share: (more…)

I bet you can read this definition of a joule: “Tihs is a uint of wrok euaql to one nwteon-mteer.” Your child probably can, too, because, as Cambridge University researchers suggest, the oredr of the ltteers in a wrod deosn’t mttaer as lnog as the frist and lsat ltteer is in the rghit pclae. But recognizing words is only half of the reading story; the rest is all about understanding those clusters of letters. Otherwise, they remain empty symbols.

To get a handle on an assignment, a survey, or overview, of the chapter is a must. This entails glancing at graphics and their captions, and noting the first sentence–occasionally the last–of each paragraph for main ideas, as well as bold or italicized terms. Along the way, summaries, end-of-chapter questions, and review sections should also be jotted down.  (more…)