Newsletter September 2009
September 18, 2009
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We strive to bring you the most helpful and up to date information every month, and this month's newsletter is no exception.
You can scroll down through the articles below, or you can click on a headline you like to go directly to that article.

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This Month's Headlines:

Back Into the Swing of Things
Math Scores Improve With a Little Perseverance and Support
Help With Handwriting

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Back Into the Swing of Things

Many students are resistant to the back-to-school days of September. Summer starts to fade away, and the excitement of the first weeks of school dissipates as students realize it’s time to get back down to business. Here are a few tips for helping your child get back into a weekly school schedule, homework and all.

A Change of Voice
Experts recommend ditching the dreaded “homework” word in favor of the more general term “study.” This way when you tell your child it’s time to hit the books, they can’t answer with “But I don’t have any homework!” Study time is about brushing up on the current lessons and reading material, whether there’s assigned homework or not.

Keep it Fun
Back to school can be fun with just a little creativity. Instead of making the back-to-school transition seem serious and all about textbooks and stocking up on supplies, try to gently ease their schedule away from summer and into the school year. It’s hard for students to immediately switch over to study mode. Allow your student to still have some playtime, just not as much as he or she did in summer.

Study Corner
Not everyone feels inspired sitting at a desk. There are other ways to create a quiet and comfortable study area, whether it’s in a big comfy chair or a cozy corner with a laptop tray doubling as a desk. It’s important for students to be comfortable and relaxed when they is working, so homework seems like less of a chore.

Setting an Example
Got your own work to take care of? Find a spot near your child to work on your own things, whether it’s catching up on reading or balancing your checkbook. Showing your child that you too have a project to finish with a deadline makes it harder for them to find excuses. And you’re right there if they need some extra help.

Teaching Time
Have your child pretend to be your teacher and give you a weekly lesson on the topics he or she is covering in class. You can use props to make this fun and exciting. Often, teaching someone else what they are learning helps students improve their own memory retention and helps them better understand concepts or recognize areas where they are still unclear.

These are just a few ideas to help your child transition into a successful school year. Give your child time to ease back into schoolwork, and if you find that they need additional help with certain subjects, it’s never to early to work tutoring sessions into their new schedules.

Source: Lucas, Cheri. “Back to School Homework: Getting Kids into the Swing of Studying,” education.com.

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Math Scores Improve With a Little Perseverance and Support

A new study conducted by researchers at Rutgers University has found surprising results regarding struggling students and mathematics. The study focused on minority and low-income students at low performing schools for seven years, and found that those students who struggled their way through difficult math problems eventually had improved test scores and achievements.

According to associate professor Roberta Schorr, researchers found “there is a healthy amount of frustration that’s productive,” and that students gain satisfaction after struggling with a difficult problem. She further explained that many student’s talents go unnoticed without them being effectively challenged. The important piece is that this challenge takes place in a nurturing environment.

Schorr points to the common misconception that a student’s motivation has to do with his or her general preference toward or against math. But what her group found was that students who worked on tough problems with support felt satisfaction in addition to their frustrations, and were driven to work harder in the future—whether they reported “liking” math or not.

Debra Joseph-Charles, a former Newark middle school math teacher who is now a math coach in the district, put these findings to work. She gave her students complex word problems and then allowed them time to work at them in ways that pulled from each student’s individual strengths. In other words, visual learners could draw out the problem on paper and so on, integrating the theory of multiple learning types into the way she instructed the math class.

Using the Rutgers group learning method, the students in Joseph-Charles’s class then split into groups and explained how they arrived at their answer. Others in the group could give feedback about their methods, and then each group presented the best method to the class. Joseph-Charles saw a vast improvement in the students who were formerly failing or struggling. This improvement lead to better confidence, and these same students began showing more interest in math and, in turn, test scores began to rise.

This interesting study points back to motivation and its direct relation to success in math. When students are presented with difficult mathematical problems, but are supported as they work through them, they come away with a positive feeling, recognizing that frustration can be an opportunity for success, rather than a precursor to failure. It’s an important lesson that can be employed in other subjects, and in life goals in general.

Source: Yeung, Bernice. “Arithmetic Underachievers Overcome Frustration to Succeed,” edutopia.org.

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Help With Handwriting

There’s a lot of focus on specific subjects that younger students struggle with, from math, to grammar and reading, but one topic that doesn’t receive much attention is handwriting. In the course of an average school day, students can spend a great deal of their time, in almost all classes, engaged in handwriting. If your child struggles with this, it can make their whole day seem difficult and overwhelming, and can lead to him or her disliking school or any kind of writing activities in general.

Some of the problems students who have difficulties with handwriting face have to do with what occupational therapist Chris Hipsher calls “visual perception problems.” This can include difficulty with spacing between letters and words, having a hard time copying text from blackboards or textbooks, trouble staying within the lines of the paper and writing too hard or too lightly.

Part of the problem may lie in a particular student being forced to learn handwriting before they are ready, which can leave them discouraged and picking up bad habits that are hard to correct down the road. So how can you tell if your child has a problem that needs attention, rather than just the usual resistance to homework?

A few signs of handwriting troubles include:

• Your child reverses some letters, such as “b” and “d” or makes backwards “s” letters.
• Your child has no sense of direction—left to right, across the page—when writing.
• Your child’s writing is messy and illegible.
• The teacher reports that your child has difficulty completing his or her work within the given time frame.

The majority of the time these problems are not serious; they just need a little bit of extra attention and they resolve themselves. Students who particularly struggle with handwriting can benefit from some extra time spent practicing their letters and developing better motor control, whether with the support of a tutor or under the guidance of their parents.

Source: Joseph, Angela. “Handwriting Helpers: When Your Child Struggles with Penmanship,” education.com.