Ten Tips for Your Child's Success in School

It should come as no surprise that success — or failure — at school starts at home. Studies have linked poor academic performance to factors such as a lack of sleep, poor nutrition, obesity, and a lack of parental support.

The good news is that those same studies also show higher test scores for students who live in homes where healthy habits, regular routines, and good communication exist. How can you ensure your child heads off to school this fall with the best possible foundation? Follow these 10 tips and watch your child thrive.

Enforce Healthy Habits

You can’t perform well when you don’t feel good. To help your child have the best chance at doing well in school, make sure she follows healthy habits at home. Choose a bedtime that will give your child plenty of sleep, and provide a healthy breakfast each morning. Encourage exercise, and limit the amount of time she spends watching TV, playing video games, listening to music, or using the computer.

Stick to a Routine

Most kids thrive on structure and will respond well to routines that help them organize their days. In our house, for example, my son gets dressed, makes his bed, and eats breakfast while I make his lunch and pack his school bag with completed homework and forms. When he gets home in the afternoon, I serve him a snack and he does his homework while I prepare dinner. Your routines may differ, but the key is to make it the same every day so your child knows what to expect.

Create a “Launch Pad”

Veteran parents know it’s important to have a single place to put backpacks, jackets, shoes, lunchboxes, and school projects each day. Some call it a “launch pad,” while others call it a “staging area.” Our area is a hook by the back door.

Whatever you call it, find a place where your child can keep the items he needs for school each day and keep him organized. Then you’ll know right where to find everything during the morning rush.

Designate a Space

At school your child has a desk or table where she works. There is plenty of light, lots of supplies, and enough room to work. Why not provide her with the same type of environment for homework? A designated homework space often makes it easier and more fun for children to complete assignments at home. A desk is great, but a basket of supplies and a stretch of kitchen counter work just as well.

Read, Again and Again

It is often said that children spend the first several years learning to read, and the rest of the lives reading to learn. The written word is a gateway to all kinds of learning, and the more you read to your child, the better chance he has of becoming a proficient and eager reader.

Try to sit down with your child to read a little bit every day, give him plenty of opportunities to read out loud to you, as well, and above all have fun. While the importance of reading with your child cannot be stressed enough, it should not be the cause of stress.

Learn Always

Your child may be past the preschool years, but home education is still a critical part of his overall learning experience. “Some of the attitude recently is that it’s up to the schools and teachers to figure it all out, to make sure children are learning and healthy and safe,” says Barbara Frankowski, M.D., MPH, FAAP, and member of the AAP Council on School Health. “There’s only so much teachers can do. Parents have to fill in with good support at home.”

Look for ways to teach your child throughout the day. For example, cooking combines elements of math and science. Use the time when you make dinner as an opportunity to read and follow directions, to discuss fractions, to make hypotheses (“What will happen when I beat the egg whites?”), and to examine results.

Take the Lead

Children learn by example. Let your kids “catch” you reading. Take time to learn a new skill and discuss the experience with them. Sit down and pay bills or do other “homework” while your kids do their schoolwork.

If you display a strong work ethic and continually seek out learning opportunities for yourself, your kids will begin to model that same behavior in their own lives.

Talk Often

Do you know how your child feels about her classroom, her teacher, and her classmates? If not, ask her. Talk with her about what she likes and doesn’t like at school. Give her a chance to express her anxieties, excitements, or disappointments about each day, and continue to support and encourage her by praising her achievements and efforts.

Show Interest

Don’t limit your support to your child; extend it to her teachers as well. Meet the teachers and stay in regular contact by phone or e-mail so that you can discuss any concerns as they arise. Not only will it pave the way for you to ask questions, but it will also make the teachers more comfortable with calling you if they have concerns about your child.

Expect Success

Perhaps the most important way you can support your child’s efforts at school is to expect him to succeed. That doesn’t mean that you demand he be the best student or the best athlete or the best artist. Rather, let him know that you expect him to do “his best” so that he’ll be proud of what he can accomplish.

If you make that expectation clear and provide a home environment that promotes learning, then your child will have a greater chance of becoming the best student he can be.

This article was featured in Healthy Children Magazine. To view the full issue, click here.

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TEACHING A CHILD TO READ

Improving Children's Reading Skills with Techniques that Work at Home Improving children's reading skills

Parents can improve the reading skills of their children who are struggling readers and help them become more fluent readers. Research has shown that using techniques like the ones below can lead to a significant increase in word accuracy and comprehension. To be effective, any of these methods needs to be used at least five times a week for several weeks. And reading sessions should last about 10 minutes. These techniques are designed primarily to improve the skills of struggling readers – not seriously disabled readers. They can also be helpful to beginning readers.

The Neurological Impress Method Background – The Neurological Impress Method (NIM) was first used by Dr. R.G. Heckelman in an experiment in the early 1960s. It is what is now called an assisted reading strategy. Thirty years of studies have shown that NIM is a very effective method of remedial reading instruction for many students, whether they are beginning readers or struggling readers at any grade level. According to Heckelman, progress can be very rapid. Some children advance as much as a grade level after just 2 hours of instruction. And many students are able to read on grade level after using the method for 8 to 12 hours.

NIM does not work with all children. You should know after 4-hours whether your child is responding well to NIM, or another method needs to be tried. Children with serious language or neurological impairments may require additional help before starting to use NIM.

What NIM Can Do Give parents an easy way to improve their children's reading. Deliver rapid progress in a limited amount of time. Offer non-stressful reading instruction. Provide a multi-sensory approach to reading. Increase the reader's attention span. Give exposure to a large number of words including difficult words in each reading session. Provide a model of correct reading, and eliminate many poor reading habits.

Using the Neurological Impress Method How to Start NIM - Before you begin the first session, explain to your child that you are more concerned with the style of his or her reading than the accuracy. Point out also that will never ask questions about what you have read. And you must never correct or criticize the child's reading during or after a NIM session.

Time - NIM reading sessions should be held on consecutive days for 10 to 15 minutes. Ten minutes is often sufficient for young children and very poor readers. NIM should be used for a total period of 8 to 12 hours. Once children are reading at the level where they are expected to read, very little improvement will take place even with additional NIM sessions.

Material - Start with material that is very easy for your child to handle. This could be first or second grade material even for a child in eighth grade. You don't want, however, to spend too much time on material that is at the lower level of the child's reading ability. For example, Heckelman advises that an eighth grader of average intelligence starting at the first or second grade reading level should be in third grade material by the end of 2 hours and in fifth or sixth grade material after 6 hours, and possibly in seventh or eighth grade material after 12 hours of instruction. If your child's reading problems are not severe, you should try to move rapidly to using material that is on his or her grade level. This will expose your child to more difficult words. Teachers and librarians can assist you in determining the reading level of different materials.

How to use the NIM method Procedure - To obtain the best results, it is extremely important that you follow the NIM procedure exactly:

1. Sit your child slightly in front of you so that your voice will be close to his or her right ear. 2. Hold the reading material jointly with your child. 3. Vary the reading material to keep your child's interest. Use newspapers, magazines, and works of fiction and nonfiction. 4. Read the material out loud with your child. At first, you should read a little louder and slightly faster. If your child complains that he or she cannot keep up with you, urge the child to continue and to forget about any mistakes. It may, however, be necessary for you to slow down to a rate that is more comfortable for your child or to repeat sentences and paragraphs several times. 5. In the first few sessions, you should reread the initial lines or paragraphs several times until your child is reading in a normal fluid fashion. Only 2 to 3 minutes of repetition should be sufficient for most students to feel comfortable with NIM. If your child reads well right away, do not reread the material. 6. Speed up your reading rate for a few minutes in each session to pull your child to a higher reading rate. 7. As you read, run your finger under a word as it is spoken. It is quite important that these actions be simultaneous and that your finger move in a smooth fashion. Good readers often look ahead of what they are reading aloud and must be especially careful that their fingers are under the words that are being read aloud. At the end of a line, you must move your finger back swiftly to the beginning of the new line just like a typewriter carriage does at the end of a line. 8. Your child can take over the finger movement or alternate this task with you after several sessions, if desired. Should your child have difficulty in moving his or her finger to accompany the words, place your hand on the child's finger and guide it until a smooth movement is achieved. 9. Read as many pages as you can in a session while using the rate and intonation of a fluent reader. As your child begins to master the material and gain confidence, you can read with a softer voice or lag slightly behind the child. Should your child falter, start immediately to read louder and faster.

Handling Problems - Some children need special help before they can effectively begin to use NIM. They may need to repeat phrases within a sentence many times before reading the entire sentence. Then each sentence should be reread several times.

Recorded books Background - Talking books have been used for decades by the visually impaired. Now you can purchase tapes of popular literature for both children and adults as well as find them in libraries. Such books can create an interest in reading for young children and struggling readers. Furthermore, many schools have programs that use taped materials, and these programs have been shown to increase the success of beginning and poor readers. You may be able to borrow these tapes from the school.

The recorded books method described here gives parents another way to improve their children's reading skills. Comprehension will improve because the children will not have to spend so much time figuring out each word, causing them to forget what they have read. Hearing material read correctly will help the children learn to read at the correct pace and with good phrasing and expression. Plus, this method develops the children's sight vocabulary. Since children decide how many times they need to listen to a recording before they attempt to read it aloud, they are in charge of their own learning. The primary task of the parent is simply to prepare the recording and to listen to their children read the recorded material to show off the progress they have made.

Using recorded books Choosing the Material - Parents need to choose materials that are at a slightly higher level of difficulty than what the child can read fluently. The material can be stories that the new or struggling readers would like to read or material from current classroom reading assignments. The higher the interest the child has in the material, the more likely he or she will learn and retain new words. Material is too difficult if your child cannot read it back to you and make less than four errors after the child has listened to the tape two or three times.

Recording the Material - You will want to record stories and books in very small segments. For some children, the appropriate amount of material might only be a few paragraphs. For most, it is appropriate to record from one to five minutes of material. To make it easier for children to listen to a recording several times, record each segment on only one side of a tape. Record at a slow rate using short phrases – but not so slow the material is boring. Be sure to read with enthusiasm. When you come to a word that is probably unfamiliar to your child, you can pause both before and after the word – giving your child more time to study it. Begin each recording by telling the name of the story and the page which is being read. Then pause so the child has ample time to find the correct page, and look at any pictures. Always end each recording by saying, "This is the end of the recording, please rewind the tape." Be sure to label each segment that you record.

Using the Recorded Material - Set aside about 10 minutes a day for your child to listen to recorded material. The child should use earphones, if possible, because it will focus his or her attention more closely on what is being read. If your child easily loses his or her place on a page, the child should use an index card or place a finger under each word as it is read. The child should listen to a segment until he or she is able read it smoothly making no more than two or three errors. Then the child should make a recording of the material or read it to you. While it is not necessary to listen to your child read each recorded segment, most children will want to demonstrate the progress they are making. For this method to work best, it needs to be used four or five times a week and in a structured manner under your supervision.

Variation - You may want your child to listen to the recordings you make or commercial tapes and read along with them as in the NIM method.

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HELPING YOUR CHILD DEVELOP HIS WRITING SKILLS

How can I help my toddler develop his writing skills?

As with any of your child's new skills, your job is to provide encouragement and support —and, in this case, supplies. As early as his first birthday, be sure to have crayons and paper or coloring books on hand for when he starts showing an interest in scribbling. (Skip pens and pencils until he's older — they're much sharper than crayons and could hurt your toddler if he fell on them or accidentally poked himself in the face.) Let him practice scribbling as often as he likes, but take breaks if he gets frustrated.

Teach your child to limit his artistic endeavors to the piece of paper in front of him, although no matter how many times you tell him not to, he's bound to find the wallpaper (or the floor, or your brand-new paperback) irresistible. So be prepared to clean up after him a few times; to that end, invest in washable crayons. Try not to let him eat his supplies, although getting a little burnt sienna in his system at some point is practically inevitable — and won't do any lasting harm.

When it comes to writing actual letters, the most important thing you can do is let your child learn at his own pace. "It's all too easy to overdo teaching letters and numbers," says T. Berry Brazelton in his book Touchpoints. "To me, the timing is not as important as the child's own desire to learn. Be sure the idea of learning these things is coming from him. It's so easy to push early learning on a child who is compliant at this age. But it does more harm than good." Preschoolers who are forced to read and write before they're ready can do it and will often seem to have an edge over their kindergarten classmates. But studies have found that they lose that advantage as they get older and realize they can't apply the same memorizing techniques they used for reading and writing to more complex learning.

Finally, be sure to talk to and read to your child as much as possible. The more language he hears, the more his brain will grow and develop, which will benefit all of his communication skills — including writing — in the long run.

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Have you register? FREE SEMINAR FOR SCHOOLS

In a bid to improve teachers effectiveness and productivity in the use of the English Language for effective communication in the classroom, we present this free seminar for schools nation wide. Theme: USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION. Register your school now. It's totally free. Call 2348157360974 or use the registration on this site. You can also email truelighteduconsult@gmail.com or leave a comment in our comment box below

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FREE SEMINAR FOR YOUR SCHOOL. IT'S TOTALLY FREE!!!

2 Free seminars for your School

(1)Critical Thinking and

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WHAT ARE YOU STILL WAITING FOR? Why do you hesitate to take this big leap in taking your school to the next level of academic excellence? Click on the register tab and register your school for the fee seminar tagged: CRITICAL THINKING AND LEARNERS CENTERED LEARNING! It's totally Free!!! or email
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Why Critical Thinking IN LEARNERS CENTERED LEARNING?

Simply put, Critical Thinking is thinking while thinking to make thinking better. Critical thinking is that mode of thinking — about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully, analyzing,                                                                                                            assessing, and reconstructing it. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem-solving abilities, as well as a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.

Critical thinking is an eminently practical goal and value. It is focused on an ancient Greek ideal of "living an examined life". It is based on the skills, the insights, and the values essential to that end. It is a way of going about living and learning that empowers us and our students in quite practical ways. When taken seriously, it can transform every dimension of school life: how we formulate and promulgate rules; how we relate to our students; how we encourage them to relate to each other; how we cultivate their reading, writing, speaking, and listening; what we model for them in and outside the classroom, and how we do each of these things.

Of course, we are likely to make critical thinking a basic value in school only insofar as we make it a basic value in our own lives. Therefore, to become adept at teaching so as to foster critical thinking, we must become committed to thinking critically and reflectively about our own lives and the lives of those around us. We must become active, daily, practitioners of critical thought. We must regularly model for our students what it is to reflectively examine, critically assess, and effectively improve the way we live.

Critical thinking is that mode of thinking — about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it. 

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CRITICAL THINKING, what exactly does it mean?

As much as we hear about bringing creativity to classroom and business, we hear even more about teaching and using critical thinking skills. Since we’re prone to throwing terminology, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page about critical thinking and what it entails.

First, let’s parse out the difference between thinking and critical thinking.

Here’s what I’ve come up with:

“I’m thinking about the beach,” or “I’m thinking about my mom’s peach pie,” is plain vanilla thinking. Thinking is giving mental attention to something that doesn’t require assessment or response from the thinker.

Alternatively, critical thinking guides our assessment of and our reactions to information being considered— frankly, the act of thinking critically demands a reaction, any reaction or decision (including everything from “nope, that’s utterly incorrect,” to “oh, ok, that fits in my web of preexisting knowledge this way” to “well now that I know that, I have to change my whole life”).

Either way, critical thinking demands objective examination of a topic and then a conscious response to that examination. In other words, you should be doing a lot of it every day.

Critical thinking is happening when you’re asking questions like Is that true? How do I know? How did you arrive at your conclusion? Did you consider _____? Would it be better if we ______? Does doing ______ have any affect on that? What factors went in to that decision? Is it likely that the person making this argument knows about ______?  Why does that idea matter anyway?

I’ll stop there before I accidentally create Earth’s worst Mad Lib.

The ability to think critically is arguably the most important skill for the 21st century person. It’s the equipment anyone can use to navigate a world of ideas that are increasingly unmitigated and available—everyone is tweeting, blogging, and broadcasting into the ether, so sorting through all the static is that much more important.

Since this is a blog post and not a PhD course, I’d like to briefly take a look at using critical thinking specifically for reading blogs and tweets (although this method could apply to just about anything). While there isn’t an official formula for doing this, I’d like to suggest using “The Five W’s” that we learn in elementary school as guidelines for inquiry; they include; Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?, and (sometimes) How?.

Instead of using the Five W’s for developing content (they’re the basics for writing a successful news piece), use the Five W’s to analyze any post/piece of writing. Here’s how to get started: 

Who?

Consider who wrote the piece.

§  What do you know about this individual’s background?

§  What is his or her age and socio-economic standing?

§  How about level of education [which you may not want to assess simply using degree level but also the person’s body of work]?

§  In what part of the world or country does she live?

§  Is she regarded as an expert on this particular topic?

§  Is she a widely regarded BS-artist (seriously)?

What?

Figure out what the writer is saying—and what she isn’t saying.

§  Does she want someone to change something?

§  Start something?

§  Does she argue for the status quo?

§  How far-reaching are her suggestions: do they apply to every situation or is she flexible in the application of her ideas?

§  Does she address counter arguments in her own work?

§  Is she writing from personal experience or synthesizing ideas from other people?

§  [While this isn’t applicable to blogs, usually, you may also want to consider who the intended audience is… is this a letter? Was it published post-mortem? Etc.

When you’re considering the “what” of a piece of writing, you’ll have to consider what you know about the topic as well, which colors your ability to assess it. You’ll need to ask yourself:

§  What is my own level of expertise in this subject?

§  Is this something that hits close to home for me?

§  Is my own personal experience/research affecting the way that I am hearing/reading this argument?

§  …and the zinger: Am I hearing only what I expect this person to be saying, or am I being objective enough to see the true argument. 

Where?

Context is so important; you’ll need to consider it.

§  Where is this work published? WSJ? NY Times? Homemade newspaper from the Midwest/Southern California/Salt Lake City/Miami?

§  Who is sponsoring the site? Might the sponsors of the site be influencing the apparent viewpoint of the author?

§  Is this the author’s personal website or a site used to promote a business?

When?

Addressing the “when” of the post goes beyond “oh, that was written in 1997.” Looking intowhen means looking at the political and economic time frame of the argument, both on a national level and in the writer’s personal life. This can cover everything from “well, the stock market had just crashed so everyone was extremely worried and fiscally conservative at this time” to “he wrote this three months before/after he became a father for the first time/ lost his job/ got a new job/ killed that guy/ saved that whale/ got his legislation passed.” The when for the author can color the argument.

§  Does the political climate affect the writer’s intentions?

§  Does he or she have something to gain or lose because of the timing of this post?

§  Would she be saying the same thing at a different time?

Why?

What prompted the whole thing, anyway?

§  Is what you’re reading for artistic purposes?

§  Is it to entertain or educate?

§  Does it seem that the author wants you to change your viewpoint?

§  What is her call to action?

§  Is she hurt or outraged by something or, alternately, elated and supporting something she believes in?

§  What does she have to gain from sharing these ideas?

§  What does she have to lose?

§  Why might that be “worth it” to her?

How?

How did this piece of work get into your hands anyway? Was it intended for you?

Is the author married to editor of the paper? Did she make a considerable donation to some charity who now feels obligated to let her say her piece? Does she “know someone” or was this vetted by objective third parties? Is she writing in her own space where she has clearance to say whatever she likes without consequences [as if that were possible!]? Did she likely write this for free or is she making a large chunk of change for it?

Keep in mind that critical thinking is not critical feeling.

You’re going to have to leave your emotions out of it, or at least be aware of them and separate them from the task of critical thinking. There’s not a lot of room for “But that’s not fair! But that makes me jealous! I could have said that! This offends me! She’s a jerk!” in critical thinking because it clouds our ability to see an argument for what it really is and to refine our own thinking in light of it.

Even the most distasteful arguments can be used to strengthen our own ability to think. Exposing ourselves only to those ideas that are already in keeping with what we understand or believe is the fastest way to disarm ourselves and end up in the complacency zone. Thinking critically demands energy and effort, and yet, if you’re not thinking critically, are you really getting anywhere?

1.     This isn’t meant to be the definitive be-all end-all list for thinking critically; it’s just a nice place to start exercising these skills. Feel free to add other ideas in the comments section. 

2.     The ability to parse out your expectations of another person’s argument is the key to being able to have a sensible, effective, and relatively calm conversation about tough topics like politics and religion. It’s imperative, the key listening skill

Remember to register your school for the free critical Thinking seminar.

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