Many children have trouble paying attention in class at some point in their academic career. When this happens, especially with young students, it leaves parents wondering why their child can’t focus—and whether he or she could have a learning difficulty. It’s important to know that not every student who has a hard time focusing in school has a learning difficulty such as ADD or ADHD. In some cases, the concentration issues children have in school…
Dyslexia presents itself in various ways, but a student’s age strongly factors into the symptoms teachers may observe. Students with dyslexia in grades K-5 struggle to remember letter names and sounds. Recognizing sight words also poses a problem. When reading aloud, these students may substitute words and confuse letters with similar appearances or sounds. For example, students commonly mix up the letters b and d. Students in grades 6-12 may have a hard time recalling…
When your child is younger, you as a parent have a lot of control over his social life, selecting whom he should interact with, the length of the interaction and where the interaction takes place. That changes when your child reaches school age. Suddenly, these decisions about friendships— with whom to be friends, how much time to spend with a friend and how to spend that time together — are made largely on his own…
It is never too early to start practicing good money habits–in fact, the earlier teenagers are exposed to financial education, the better the chance they will become financially savvy. This is an important life lesson in general, but especially if college is on the horizon for your teenager. Becoming a college student is probably one of the most exciting and immediate milestones for high school students; teenagers feel a sense of freedom, and it’s often…
At its core, active learning relies on a collaborative, student-centered approach. As Vanderbilt University professor Cynthia J. Brame explains, “active learning approaches also often embrace the use of cooperative learning groups, a constructivist-based practice that places particular emphasis on the contribution that social interaction can make.” One would think that students embrace such a model, but an unexpected complication of creating a learning environment around active methods is sometimes a show of student resistance. After…
What is economics? An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations? The task of managing a household? The study of man in the ordinary business of life? When theorists and philosophers through the ages have offered very different definitions, how are parents meant to define economics for kids when they ask? Your children might well be wondering about the economy, right now. The current cost of living crisis means the state…
Today’s education system resembles much of what you’d see in the early 1900s: rote memorization, a teacher speaking to dozens of pupils who must remain silent unless called upon, curriculum at scale. Coronavirus-related distance learning pushed that same operation online, and because of the severity of the crisis, educators and parents understandably yearn for getting back to normal. But for educator Gholdy Muhammad, normal hasn’t served all students well, especially in literacy education, and no…
You may have never thought specifically about teaching your child about forgiveness, but it’s an essential social-emotional lesson we all must learn. Maybe you’ve apologized to your child only to have them stare back at you blankly, or maybe your child had a misunderstanding with their friend on the playground, and even after it had been resolved they refused to play with that friend. Maybe their brother accidentally pushed them and they still lashed out…
There’s a lot to like about digital books–they’re lighter in the backpack, and often cheaper than paper books. But a new international report suggests that paper books may be important to raising children who become strong readers. An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study across approximately 30 countries found that teens who said they most often read paper books scored considerably higher on a 2018 reading test taken by 15-year-olds compared to teens…
Tutoring research points to intensive daily tutoring as one of the most effective ways to help academically struggling children catch up. There have been a hundred randomized control trials, but one of the most cited is of a tutoring program in Chicago high schools, where ninth and 10th graders learned an extra year or two of math from a daily dose of tutoring. That’s the kind of result that could offset pandemic learning losses, which…
