I’m not going to ramble on here about organization, studying, paying attention, etc… Rather, I will discuss what I believe to be the 2 most important factors that help students improve grades.

1) Know the Basic Skills

 The biggest problem students have with math, reading, and writing, is that students don’t have the basic skills that are needed.  Math and writing in particular, require the cumulative understanding of skills.

For example, in order for a student to understand how to multiply fractions in grade 5, he must have several skills under his belt.  He must first understand the concept of a fraction (this is usually covered in grade 3).  Also, he must know his multiplication and division tables.  If a student has these skills, multiplying fractions shouldn’t be to difficult.

Another example is writing.  In order for a student to write a narrative essay, for example, she must be able to write a proper paragraph.  In order for her to write a proper paragraph, she must be able to write a topic and supporting sentence.  In order for her to write a topic sentence, she must know how to properly write a sentence.

So, this is the first secret to improve math and writing skills.

2) Make Everything Relevant

This is especially true for boys.  It is common for students to reject learning when they realize that it has no practical application.  I’ve heard students say, and ask, “Why do I need this?”.  Okay, they may not need all of the lessons, but they do need most of them.  The key here is to show students how they can use that which they learn.  For example, in math, fractions and decimals can be applied to buying video games on sale.  Geometry can be applied to angles with regards to passing and shooting in hockey and soccer.  Number skills are used every day in the collection of sports statistics and standings.

Applying writing skills to real life is more obvious.  For example, business reports, letters of request, job applications, love letters, advertisements, etc…

I believe that these two factors are paramount with regards to improving math grades and writing skills.  Students can be organized, study, and try to pay attention, but, it’s not enough.

admin Education fractions, improve, Math, paragraph, sentences, Writing

    If this past June’s report card didn’t look as good as you had wished, you can help your child maintain math and language skills over the summer.

     You can help your child learn by involving him/her is real-life hands on learning at home.

     The first way you can help your child is to have the two of you do some cooking or baking.  Cookbooks and measuring cups provide a good opportunity for learning fractions.  Cookbooks have the measurements and the measuring cups are good hands on tools, often labeled with the fractions.  Your child will be able to see that 1 cup is greater than 1/2, which is greater than 1/3 and so on.  You can teach your child how to add fractions by adding the contents in the measuring cups.

     Food shopping is another great way to learn math skills.  When you take your child to the supermarket, you can look at food prices and compare them.  This strategy of comparing decimals and whole numbers is an important math skill.  After you have paid for your groceries, you can have your younger child categorize the foods on the bill.  Your older child can round the decimal prices to whole numbers (e.g. %7.89 could be rounded to $8.00) to see if the food bill was correct.  This can also be done after dinner at the restaurant.

     Instead of throwing away all those flyers (and perhaps sometimes coupons), you can use them to show your child how to compare prices and determine which flyer has a better sale.  Again, this skill requires estimating, rounding, and adding.

     Board games are great educational tools.  Boggle and Scrabble are two great choices.  Scrabble is an obvious winner with regards to learning spelling and vocabulary.  Allow your child to use a dictionary.  This will help him/her improve vocabulary, learn correct spelling, learn how to use a dictionary, and boost his/her confidence.  I let my kids use a thesaurus and if they can come up with a synonym I give them extra points.

     You can also take out a deck of cards to teach math.  War is a great game to play with young children.  Take out the face cards and have your child determine who wins each round.  This will force your child to look at the two cards and compare the numbers.

  Finally, are you planning on doing any renovations around the house?  If so, measuring tapes are excellent tools for learning math skills.  Your child can measure length using fractions (e.g. 5 ⅜) and whole numbers.  You can also teach your child how to find the perimeter or area of a specific space.

  There are many more ways that you can prevent your child from losing math skills over the summer if you are creative.  It is well known that the best learning is done when it applies to real life.

admin Homeschooling decimals, fractions, learning, spelling, summer

     What a day!  I woke up this morning and headed downtown to Breakfast Television.  They were all unbelievably kind and supportive down there. 

    Dina Pugliese, the host of the show, was terrific!  She kept the conversation fluid and informative.  She is excellent at what she does.  During commercials, she asked me questions, gave me her personal experiences, and prepared me for the upcoming conversation.

    I went on the show to talk about the 3^rd term report cards and give some tips for parents to help their children learn at home.  Dina had a good understanding of the report card process and more than that, she was empathetic to students who have difficulties come September.  I think I gave some good information this morning.  I remember saying that, “The June report card is important because it is an indication of problem areas that should be addressed immediately when school starts,” (We’ll maybe I didn’t say it in exactly those words but I think that’s the message I conveyed).

     I also gave parents practical tips to help their children learn math and language over the summer without spending much money.  I discussed how parents can use shopping bills to teach their children categorizing, addition with decimals, and estimating.  I also mentioned how children can learn vocabulary and spelling by playing scrabble.  I think the producer liked my idea of having children use a tape measure to learn fractions, perimeter, and area.  There was also mention about cookbooks (for procedure writing and following directions), measuring cups (for fractions), and travel brochures for reading and research.

     It was a good experience.  I plan to have the video of my segment up on my media page sometime in July.

    I’m heading uptown this afternoon to give a similar talk on CFRB 1010.

admin In the Media breakfast television, decimals, fractions, measurement, Reading, vocabulary

    I have found that tutoring is quite different from teaching in the classroom. When I’m in the classroom, I have to consider teaching to a multitude of learning styles and differences. When tutoring one on one, I find myself in a different place. For example, I was tutoring a grade 8 student in math. He was having a lot of difficulty with fractions, finding volume, and algebra. I knew that I had to connect with him somehow (his confidence was definitely shot). I looked at his report card and realized that he was strong in language and history but weaker in math and science. Okay, so I understood that his dominant learning style was verbal/linguistic. So I had to come up with a way to help him with his math (especially with multiplying, dividing, and converting fractions to decimals and percents).
     I started off with fractions, specifically with dividing fractions using equivalent fractions and common denominators (that was the concept his teacher was teaching that week). Instead of starting off by showing him how to find a common denominator and divide the numerators, I wrote it down in words. Then, I had him do the same but in a procedural format. When he was done writing, I had him read it over a few times. After he was done reading, I asked him to read the steps that he wrote and do the math by following his steps.
     It took him a little while but he caught on. I used the same technique with him for his algebra and measurement. His math improved over the term and I made sure that he wrote down notes for himself in math class so that he could better understand his work.
Sometimes we have to show kids how to let the curriculum adapt to their own style of learning.

admin Math algebra, fractions, Math, tutoring, volume