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Entries in Learning Styles (5)

Monday

Jan 19 2015

Study Skills Programs: What to Do When Your Child's Grades Suddenly Drop

Monday, January 19, 2015 at 3:35PM Nicole Henderson

It can be startling to see your child's grades drop from a 90 to a 70. Many parents initially witness this when their child transitions from one grade level or school to another. Material traditionally gets more challenging as the years progress, and that can translate to problems. Even a 10 point or letter grade drop can appear out of character. So what do you do when you notice the slip in grades? Your first order of business is to figure out what's wrong.

Talk to Your Child Calmly

Sometimes parents can have the knee jerk reaction to yell or discipline their kids when grades drop. It's easy to assume that the problem is wrapped up in the distractions of the computer, social media, and the TV. And while that may be a contributing factor, it may not tell the whole story.

Talk to your son/daughter to try to figure out what is going on. Have a calm, frank discussion where you try to diagnose the problem. Ask them questions like:

Are you interested in the subject?
Are you having a hard time concentrating?
Are you taking notes?
What part of the class is most difficult for you? (homework, listening to the teacher, working in groups, etc.)
Are you having issues with the way the class is taught?
Where did things change? Did something get harder for you?

Speak to the Teacher

Whether you have a 7-year old or a 16-year old, going to the one person who can directly talk to you about the problems your child is having in school is always a good option. Be friendly but direct. Ask questions like:

Where is my child's weakest area(s)?
Can I get a copy of the distribution of grades?
Do you have any suggestions for how to get their grades up?
Did you notice a time where things started changing?

Once you start to get a handle on the kind of problem your child is having, you can take steps to help them overcome it. Whether it's sending your child for extra help with the teacher, working with them at home, and/or hiring a tutor to help, you can both find a way to give your child back their pride in their work.

Think Tutoring has Study Skills programs that can improve your child’s in-school, homework and test preparation skills and habits. For more information, call 973-593-0050.

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Saturday

Jan 21 2012

Learning Strategies: How to Motivate Your Child

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 10:13AM Kim Hermanns

How to Motivate the Un-Motivated Student

Motivating students to learn can be one of the most difficult challenges parents and teachers face. Quite simply, some kids are not intrinsically motivated to learn. Many others lose confidence when their efforts don't translate into good test scores or grades.

How can we make students want to succeed academically? Should we exhort them? Punish them? Entertain them? Perhaps; there are proponents and critics for each of those strategies.

The experts agree, however, that the most successful techniques teachers and parents can use to motivate students include engaging their interest, displaying enthusiasm for what they are teaching, and establishing challenging, but achievable expectations. At Think Tutoring, we employ various motivational stratagies -- particularly geared towards our younger (elementary school) students.

Positive Reinforcement

Most importantly, our tutors and instructors we provide positive reinforcement and encouragement to kids who put forth their best effort . We continually let them know that their hard work willl pay off, and we do so without heaping false praise. Learning takes time; on some days, kids may struggle a bit, but our instructors are there to keep them going, to make students truly believe that hard work pays off.

Tangible Benefits

On a lighter but no less important note, each student also earns Success Points for demonstrable effort and work well done. Students save their points in a pencil pouch and can exchange them for fun prizes -- toys, games and gift cards of varying value levels.

Kids Need Down-Time

Finally, we also have "Success Time", where kids can relax after each instructional hour by playing nerf basketball, jumping rope or board games such as the Think Tutoring favorite, Blokus. This "down time" gives kids a little breathing room and helps our environment remain devoid of stress. At Think Tutoring, we believe that learning environments should both serious and fun.

If your child needs the help of a math tutor or reading tutor, think about Think Tutoring --- where highly experience certified teachers can help motivate your unmotivated child. For more information, call us at 973-593-0050.

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in Learning Styles

Thursday

Nov 03 2011

Inspire Your Child to Learn: The Art of Questioning

Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 1:53PM Christy Morris

LEARNING TO LEARN

language arts tutor Your child has been learning from the moment he was delivered into this world. But there are always new things to learn. And, better ways to actually do the learning. Our ThinkTutoring teachers keep abreast of developments in the field. They are aware of the statistics: As many as 40% of college freshmen are taking at least one remedial course. And, according to recent research , the earlier you can develop a “yearning for learning,” the better your child’s chances for future scholastic success.

If your child has experienced some difficulty acquiring new knowledge, there are things you, and we, can do to facilitate the learning experience. For example, study groups have been around for a long time. If your child has not yet formed one, why not suggest that possibility to him? Find a few others in his class and make arrangements for study dates, particularly when big exams are coming up.

Each member of the study group, of course, is expected to contribute and to fulfill commitments. Those commitments might include being on time, bringing the necessary materials, having read the material assigned, et cetera. Commitment also means working to make the material meaningful—for himself and for the group. The more relevance it has, the easier it is for students to recall and retrieve that information when necessary.

GOT TEN SECONDS?

One of the ways your child can intensify the learning experience—whether she is working alone or as part of a study group—is to ask questions. Some questions, of course, can be answered immediately. Others--especially those dependent on internalizing and then analyzing deep knowledge—make take much longer. As a “questioner,” your child should be aware of the nature of questions…and the kinds of answers they elicit. There’s a caution author Norman Mailer issues: “There’s this faculty in the human mind that hates any question that take more than ten seconds to answer.”

The automatic-response question will probably yield an answer that does not dig deeply into the material. Quick questions usually yield quick answers, which have some value. The more complex questions, of course, elicit more sophisticated replies.

Help your child understand the art, as well as the science, of questioning. There are questions that logical people answer directly. For example, ask a fact-prone individual, “How do you get to heaven?” and you are likely to get an answer that basically says, “Do good deeds.”

But, ask someone with a more creative bent and you are likely to get answers like these to that very same question:

“You have to take the God elevator.”

“You need God magic for that.”

“You go to hell and take a left.”

Know, as we do at Think Tutoring, that well-posed questions are integral to the learning process. Have your child start asking questions and learning to learn at Think Tutoring by calling 973-593-0050.

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in College Readiness , Learning Styles

Monday

Sep 26 2011

The Learning Process: Tips for Parents and Tutors

Monday, September 26, 2011 at 9:46PM Marlene Caroselli, Ed.D

Use Bloom to Make Your Child Bloom

The University of Chicago’s Benjamin Bloom contributed many theories about learning to the body of work known as cognitive development. At Think Tutoring, we employ these concepts in many of our tutoring programs including reading, math, and language arts for grade school students all the way up to ACT and SAT Prep for high school students. But parents can use these concepts as eagerly as our tutors do. All it takes is knowledge and a desire to turn a student into a “blooming scholar.”

Master Learning

Bloom believed that children should not move on to a second learning objective until they have demonstrated mastery of a first objective. When children fall behind in expectations that have been set for certain grade levels, our tutors step in to ensure they will be able to catch up. Whether your child has fallen behind in math/reading or whether he needs help preparing for standardized tests, we take a step-by-step approach to helping him achieve mastery through sequentially organized activities. Ask your tutor how you can help reinforce each learning objective at home, so your child can confidently move on to the next one.

Bloom was also a fierce advocate of individualized tutoring, which he felt produced remarkable results for average students. At Think Tutoring, we create the conditions for success so that when the learner returns to the classroom, he is ready for the larger group-instruction situation he has at school.

BLOOM’S TAXONOMY

Bloom developed a system or categorization of the types of questions teachers should be asking to ensure learning is really taking place. The most basic question is the Knowledge question, which simply asks the learner to quote something from memory. If your child can recall the capitals of the states, he is demonstrating knowledge.

Comprehension is the next highest level. It calls for understanding of terms and asks the student to interpret or paraphrase. If you ask your child to tell you what she learned in school today, you will be asking her to demonstrate comprehension.

The next level involves Application . Here, your child is asked to show that she can take previously acquired knowledge and use it in a new set of circumstances. To illustrate, if your child is given a paper with ten grammar errors and asked to find and correct them, he is being asked to apply his knowledge.

With Analysis , the learner is asked to show he understands how the parts of a structure create the whole. He may be asked, for example, to compare and contrast, or to identify, or to show the difference between facts and inferences.

If the learner is asked to assemble those parts into a new structure, he is demonstrating competence with Synthesis . So, if our SAT Prep tutor asks your child to show he has comprehended a passage by distinguishing between fact and inference, he is asking your child to synthesize.

Finally, Evaluation calls for judgment or opinion. You can do what our tutors do—ask your child to explain or interpret or justify his ideas, based on something he has read or experienced.

No matter what grade your child is in, we can work together to optimize his learning experiences and help him or her bloom as a student.

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in Learning Styles , Reading Comprehension , Tutoring

Tuesday

Oct 05 2010

Reading and Math Help: "The Think Aloud" Approach

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 11:38AM Art Meisler

Parents can employ a variety of techniques to help their child learn at home. One such strategy is to "Think Aloud."

The Think Aloud technique is used, for the most part, when problem solving. When you hear the term problem solving, you automatically assume math problems. That is not necessarily the case.

The think-aloud strategy asks students to say out loud what they are thinking in terms of reading, solving math problems, or simply responding to questions posed by teachers and classmates. Effective teachers think out loud on a regular basis to model this process for students. For example, during story time, a teacher will ask questions about characters, predict what is to come, relate the story to her prior knowledge, and create images in her mind. This process helps students to comprehend the story more easily. However, the think-aloud strategy can also be used by parents at home, particular when their children are struggling with homework, math problems, or any subject that requires solid reading comprehension skills. Parents can easily adopt this strategy.

Parents can use think-alouds just like effective teachers. The think-aloud is an excellent way to teach how to estimate the number of people in a crowd, revise a thesis paper, predict the outcome of a scientific experiment, use a key to decipher a map, access prior knowledge before reading a new passage, monitor comprehension while reading a difficult textbook, and so on.

Thinking aloud helps the learning process. To learn more about this technique or the reading tutoring programs at Think Tutoring, visit us at www.ThinkTutoring.com .

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in Learning Styles