Newsletter June 2008
June 16, 2008

Welcome to the June, 2008 edition of "How to Succeed in School," the A+ Home Tutors Newsletter.

Below are links this month's headlines.
Do You Know Your Child's Learning Style?

Summertime and the Learning's Easy

Digging in the Dirt: a Green Education

New Tools for Literacy: Comic Books

Children are as diverse as their adult counterparts. Just like every adult seeks out and thrives within different social and working conditions, each child has different methods of effectively processing, absorbing and analyzing information. Because of this, some children find certain ways of delivering information more successful than others.

Understanding your Child’s Learning Style
It is important to understand how your child successfully learns and grows. When we understand what children need in order to grasp certain concepts and ideas, we can better help them get what they need from school curriculums. Often kids are misunderstood for being lazy, having attention deficit disorder or even being less advanced than their peers, when really, they just need information delivered to them in different ways to fully engage their attention.

The Basic Learning Types
Generally, there believed to be three basic ways in which people absorb information and therefore three different “learning types.” These types are usually referred to as: kinesthetic, auditory, visual.

Kinesthetic
Kinesthetic learners understand life best through movement. They prefer to feel things out emotionally and intuitively, and learn best by being active. Students who are kinesthetic learners may have trouble sitting still in class, but they process information just as well as their more stationary peers.

Auditory
Auditory learners understand best by listening and absorbing information. They have a good connection to words and sounds. Often auditory learners seem to be daydreaming when really they are listening to every word the teacher is saying. They often repeat ideas in order to fully process them, which can be misunderstood as a lack of understanding.

Visual
Visual learners understand best through pictures and images. Often they enjoy and excel in reading. Many prefer to sit in front with a good view for the blackboard. Visual learners often take impeccable notes but can miss valuable pieces of oral lectures.

Working with Learning Styles
Of course not everyone fits nicely into just one of those categories. But when you begin to understand your child’s learning style you can help them find more efficient ways to learn. Kinesthetic learners often need to use physical objects and movement in lesson plans. They want to try something firsthand before having it explained to them. Auditory learners can try to read their notes and class material out loud for better understanding. It also helps to have a parent or teacher explain things verbally to them. Visual learners do best when reading or seeing something before trying it themselves. Colors, graphics and charts help them break down and understand ideas.

And while you can’t change how your child’s teachers form their lesson plans, you can understand your child and help them maintain their strong points and work on weaker ones. As they get older, they can take a more active role in learning that is best catered to their needs. Tutoring can be an effective way to customize learning experiences and help deliver information in a different, more successful way.

Source: Discovering a Child’s Learning Style Can Make All the Difference, from www.education.com.

Summertime and the Learning's Easy

In our recent newsletters we mentioned how summer can be a vital time to build upon the information and skills your child learned in the past school year. With the freedom and flexibility of the summer days it is even easier to schedule tutoring sessions to keep them on track for the fall.
Tutoring for Preparation
Summer learning refreshes and reinforces knowledge, giving your child a great head start in the fall. A+ Tutoring has seen success with students of all grade levels.

For example, in summer sessions, elementary school students have improved writing, reading and math skills. Improving upon these main areas can be especially important for those students who will be entering middle school.

Middle school students have used summer tutoring to brush up on difficult subjects, helping them perform better next year. One sixth grader with dyslexia used the summer break to prepare and build better foundation skills for seventh grade math. Many eighth graders have found summer tutoring effective in improving reading comprehension, developing strategies and study skills, and generally getting organized for high school.

As students enter high school they often face more intensive curriculums with essay writing and advanced mathematics. They are also usually introduced to new subjects like foreign languages that summer tutoring can help with. A+ Tutoring sessions have helped one ninth grader prepare for and pass geometry exit exams. Our tutors have worked with an eleventh grader to review curriculum materials for a demanding AP classes, and a student with ADD who needed to pass an intensive summer school course.
Tutoring can help on the college level too. We have helped many college students and adult students succeed in Calculus, Chemistry and other classes they found challenging.

These are just a few of our success stories. Sign your child up for summer tutoring today and become one of them!

As citizens become increasingly aware of global warming and the necessity to adopt more ‘green’ ways of living, many activists have also turned to our schools to apply more environmentally conscious reform. And it couldn’t come at a better time, according to many who believe that children are losing valuable connections with nature and the environment.

The Nature Deficit
In 2005, journalist Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder argued that within the last thirty years digital advances have caused children to become more and more alienated from the natural world. In the book, Louv cited a growing body of scientific research that suggests that children who have repeated positive exposure to nature thrive on a physical, mental as well as on an emotional level.

Cultivating Change
It is with this general philosophy in mind that schools across the country have begun to implement various school gardening programs, both small and large. In turn, organizations like the California School Garden Network (www.csgn.org) have been created to provide assistance and resources on programs, obtaining grants and fundraising and other aspects of school gardening.

Growing Appreciation
School gardening programs allow children to reestablish direct connections to nature. In urban areas, this is perhaps even more important, as children have even fewer opportunities to experience and enjoy the outdoors. Students who attend schools with gardening programs learn interesting facts about how and when food grows. Because most foods are stocked year round in grocery stores, many children do not connect to the natural rhythms and seasonality of fruits and vegetables. Direct contact with food through school gardening programs helps them foster a better appreciation for food, often with a very positive side effect—they become more interested in eating healthy, organically grown produce. By involving the children in the development and upkeep of the garden, it also helps teach them valuable lessons about hard work, community, and ecological responsibility.

Other Ways to Foster Natural Connections
As there are logistical, budgetary and space concerns to consider, not every school is adopting the garden solution. Some are simply making their playgrounds more environmentally friendly and better designed to encourage real physical activity. This includes forgoing the traditional asphalt for more sustainable materials that better mimic the natural world. In this way, the courtyard becomes an extension of the classroom. Learning is extended to play time and kids get hands-on experience with earth and life sciences, biology and other subjects. Planning special field trips and lesson plans that involve outdoor activities can also be successful in raising environmental interest and awareness in children. The more they learn about the wonder of our natural world, the more they will feel connected to it and responsible for preserving it.

Environmental Responsibility Begins at Home
Remember also that environmental activism begins at home. If recycling, reducing waste and being conscious about our environmental impact is important to parents, children are more likely to adopt and value these ways of living. These are all important lessons, especially for our children who will one day be adults leading our efforts in combating global warming and protecting our beautiful Earth.

Source: Rapaport, Richard. “How Does Your Schoolyard Grow?: A Green Playground Extends the Classroom Outdoors,” from www.edutopia.org.

New Tools for Literacy: Comic Books

In an ever-increasing digital age, it can be hard to get children to pick up a book. Teachers across the country are looking at alternative approaches to get students interested in reading again. Some believe that comic books and graphic novels can provide an innovative answer that excites students. Recent interest in graphic novels has further solidified their place in the literary world. Their rich themes and pictures make reading fun again for many students.

Comic Relief
Project based learning using comic books and graphic novels can appeal to students who otherwise have a lack of interest in reading. This is not a new concept, but certainly a growing one, according to Michael Bitz, founder of the Comic Book Project. Bitz says the programs "engage children on another level to create something that comes from them, reflects on literature, and reflects on characters and story lines."

A Pathway to Basic Skills
In many of these programs children not only learn from reading comics, they also work on group projects creating their own storylines and characters. The project-based structure of this idea brings benefits—improved collaboration skills and a deeper interest and understanding in subject material. Because it is a fresh approach, it encourages students to think differently about topics and become more engaged. Comics and graphic novels provide teachers with a more interesting way to introduce literary concepts and lessons. "Along the way, the teachers have been able to engage children in spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary,” Bitz notes. “Because the kids are creating the comic books themselves, they're really invested in making them right. They want to spell words correctly. Creative projects can be a pathway to basic skills." These types of projects also nurture creativity in kids, and allow them to pair fun activities—drawing and coloring, with more intellectual pursuits of developing language and grammar skills.

Source: Finkel, Ed. “A New Literary Hero: Comics Make for Colorful l Learning, www.edutopia.org.