Excessive Parental Pressure Can Cause Grades to Drop

The highly competitive nature of the world that children will grow into, is reflected in the pressure that even young children face in schools today. The need for good grades as a stepping stone to adult success means that parents often put pressure on their children to keep doing better, thereby adding to the stress.  The intention is, of course, good; but the desire to spare their children from the disappointment of not getting into Universities of their choice, can cause what is known as “academic anxiety”, an all-pervasive feeling that every grade must be improved on and each test result must be better than the last.

Stress and Anxiety in Kids

There is value in the old belief that parents must aim high for their children to channel their energies towards success. However, a study involving 12,000 American children and their parents has found that “Unrealistically high aspiration may hinder academic performance. Simply raising aspiration cannot be an effective solution to improve success in education.” Pushing children too hard has the opposite effect – they often do worse and their grades drop. One reason for this is that the inability to meet parents’ expectations leads children to develop a poor self-image. A research by the Journal of Child and Family Studies has found that over managing and excessive pressure to get excellent grades causes children to have “higher levels of depression, decreased satisfaction with life and lower levels of autonomy and competence.” Parents want to be supportive but often they inadvertently end up undermining their children’s sense of self-esteem and confidence.

Providing Support, Not Pressure

Parents should remember that academic success is the road to achievement in life, and not an end in itself. There are many reasons why a child may not do well in some subjects. These range from a natural disinclination to not having grasped the fundamentals correctly, to simple fear of failure after not having done well in a test, among others. These problems can be overcome, but not with pressure. Providing children with the learning support they need to improve their performance is the solution. This can be done by creating a stress-free atmosphere at home where the issue of poor grades is not constantly weighing upon a child and by working with the child to help them overcome their problems. However, care must be taken to ensure that “working with” does not become a crutch that the child cannot do without.

Tutoring Is the Solution

Using a professional tutoring academy would provide the child with the balanced academic support, as the trained teachers are aware of the type of guidance that should be provided without deflecting from the regular educational system of the educational boards.  Qualified tutors with the required domain knowledge and experience in working with young children will be able to provide the age appropriate one-on-one support that will be most effective and beneficial. Professional tutors know how to provide the knowledge that is required, support its internalization and application and do it in a manner that sparks interest in the subject and avoids placing unwanted pressure on each child.

If your child is having problems in getting good grades, contact a tutoring academy and talk to them about the problems. Enrolling your child there will give him or her the stress-free environment where curiosity is ignited and learning becomes fun. The results will be seen in the improved grades.

Don’t bother me with writing – I just want to code!

“I’m going to play games, write games, make really cool apps and make a lot of money. I can drop out of school like lots of guys do and still be rich!  Right?”

While most kids may not have quite articulated these thoughts – at least not out loud, some of this probably lingers in the minds of many students who would prefer not to learn parts of speech, where to place a comma, or how to compose a well–written letter or email. Coding camps abound and the app and game industries are exploding. The ability to text with acronyms (C U B4 10) and emoji’s may be seen as more relevant and immediate than dealing with a mis-placed modifier.  Not so fast…..

Here’s what some of the actual techies and their bosses have to say about communication skills:

From Lisa Davis, CHRS CWPC who is Director of Agency Solutions:

“If you want to secure a career--any career--it is critical that you learn how to communicate verbally as well as in writing. This skill can only enhance your technical abilities. Great communicators may have few technical skills, but will still have a solid network of influencers, colleagues, and friends. I am baffled at the number of ‘techies’ who have great technical skills but suffer because they haven't learned how to compose a professional email, or even worse, how to have a nuanced conversation about a difficult situation with the C+ Suite. At the end of the day, humans make decisions. You must play well with others in the sandbox.”

From Dan Sorin, Automation Test Analyst:

“Before I started working in the IT area I imagined that the job of a software developer/tester was to stay all day in front of a PC and write code/test the application without being bothered by others. However on my side (Automation Test Analyst) this is not enough. You need to know coding, to know how to make estimation, to be able to make reports, to be able to communicate with the developers, to be able to make some analysis, to be organized and to be able to make a presentations to others about your work and the importance of your work.

And from Nichole Lambert with Edupreneur, who specializes in classroom technology management and integration:

“…Many do not understand or realize that successful programmers have a broad set of skills and competencies - communication, writing, critical thinking, analysis and a bit of artistic design ability.”

So there it is, kids… no escaping! You need to develop your skills in reading, writing and arithmetic (along with your coding skills). You also need to be as prepared as possible for the myriad of jobs and opportunities of your futures that have yet to be invented or imagined. Remember, robots and drones must first be designed, developed and tested before they can take over your jobs. Be ready!

Nick’s Story

Nick is an active, funny and talented high school freshman.  He also has Asperger’s (on the high functioning end of the Autism spectrum:   www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/asperger-syndrome).

Nick came to Pinecone in his summer before second grade.  His mother wanted help with math and reading, but also his writing skills.  Pinecone had not yet developed its writing program, so Ms. Hobbs decided to create a personalized program for Nick. 

In assessing his initial writing skills, Ms. Hobbs found that his favorite thing to do was erase.  He would write a word – erase – write another – erase.  He had great focus on erasing.  And, when he would erase – he would do so with such vigor that the paper inevitably tore, sometimes disintegrated.  Taking the erasers away didn’t work – Nick would sit there upset with his mistake and not move on.  Hmmm…..

Ms. Hobbs thought about this and decided to turn it into a game.  She tore a paper into small pieces and asked Nick to write his thoughts with a separate word on each piece of paper.  When he made a mistake, he was told to crumple up the paper and toss it over his shoulder.  Nick loved this.  The fear was that he would love it too much and the floor would be covered with “mistakes”.

However, Nick started to focus on his words more carefully.  The crumpling and tossing gave him a mental break and he started to take pride in the pieces of paper with no mistakes.  At the end, it was also fun for him to arrange the words into his sentence – a great high-five moment.  This was the break-through Nick needed.

Ms. Hobbs continued to work with Nick, both in the Pinecone program and with private tutoring, for the next five years.  Nick was able to master Algebra by sixth grade, his reading skills were high and his spelling and grammar skills were excellent.  His challenge continued to be expanding his thoughts and getting them down on paper (he worked very hard to suppress the urge to erase).

Ms. Hobbs realized that Nick might always need some help with expressing details or the complexities of good writing.  However, Nick just happened to be a talented illustrator as well as a real ham of a presenter.  With this, Ms. Hobbs decided to help Nick write his stories – she freely shared how much she was helping Nick with both his teacher and his mother.  She would pull out Nick’s thoughts, help him re-phrase, then he would write.  However, the illustrations were all his.  The class loved it when Nick would present his story.  He had an amazing memory and had a lot of fun with this.

While Nick might always need help with his writing, he would have plenty to contribute to others with his illustrations and humorous presentations.  In sixth grade, Nick made honor roll.  He also created a book (with help) fully bound and illustrated.

Nick dedicated his book to Ms. Hobbs.

Handwriting Matters!

Click, type, tap, swipe -- Is the speed and efficiency of digital communication an improvement over the more laborious pencil and paper notes, worksheets, letters and reports? More and more research is demonstrating conclusively that, while typing and tapping may be faster, it is shortchanging the learning process at all levels.

Start with children learning their letters.  In a  2012 study led by Karin James, a psychologist at Indiana University, children who had not yet learned to read and write were presented with a

letter or a shape on an index card and asked to reproduce it in one of three ways: trace the image on a page with a dotted outline, draw it on a blank white sheet, or type it on a computer.

They were then placed in a brain scanner and shown the image again.

The researchers found when children had drawn a letter freehand, they exhibited increased activity in three areas of the brain that are activated in adults when they read and write: the left fusiform gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus and the posterior parietal cortex. By contrast, children who typed or traced the letter or shape showed no such effect. The activation was significantly weaker.

Dr. James attributes the differences to the messiness inherent in free-form handwriting:

Not only must we first plan and execute the action in a way that is not required when we have a traceable outline, but we are also likely to produce a result that is highly variable. That variability may itself be a learning tool. “When a kid produces a messy letter,” Dr. James said, “that might help him learn it.”

Our brain must understand that each possible iteration of, say, an “a” is the same, no matter how we see it written. Being able to decipher the messiness of each “a” may be more helpful in establishing that eventual representation than seeing the same result repeatedly. This is one of the first demonstrations of the brain being changed because of that practice,” Dr. James said.

 

Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it’s not just what we write, but how we write.

Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it’s not just what we write, but how we write.

The effect goes well beyond letter recognition. In a study that followed children in grades two through five, Virginia Berninger, a psychologist at the University of Washington, demonstrated that printing, cursive writing, and typing on a keyboard are all associated with distinct and separate brain patterns — and each results in a distinct end product.

When the children composed text by hand, they not only consistently produced more words more quickly than they did on a keyboard, but expressed more ideas.

And  brain imaging in the oldest subjects suggested that the connection between writing and idea generation went even further. When these children were asked to come up with ideas for a composition, the ones with better handwriting exhibited greater neural activation in areas associated with working memory — and increased overall activation in the reading and writing networks.

The benefits of writing by hand extend beyond childhood. For adults, typing may be a fast and efficient alternative to longhand, but that very efficiency may diminish our ability to process new information. Not only do we learn letters better when we commit them to memory through writing, memory and learning ability in general may benefit.

Pinecone Learning and  Pinecone Academy recognize the importance of pencil-to-paper writing in learning. The math, reading and, of course, the writing programs all require students to work problems out on paper, write answers on paper (or in books) and make all written corrections on these papers. The results are overwhelmingly positive. While the students may be learning fast and efficient ways to get things done at school, they are stimulating the learning centers in their brains a little differently at Pinecone!

Tuition - An Investment in Your Child’s Future

The future is going to be one of increased globalization where excelling in a competitive environment is the key to success. As a parent, you desire the best for your child and want them to do well in school. Getting good grades is fine, but is it enough? The problem with the school system is that even in the best schools, a teacher has to cater to the learning needs of a large number of students. That means finding a middle path that is suitable for all the students, including those who are strong in a particular subject and those who are weak. There are two problems here. “an average median path” is not good enough in an increasingly competitive world. And the system does not offer the best learning opportunities to choose who are strong or weak.

Good Is No Longer Good Enough

Students of Asian ethnicities have created a paradigm shift in the education system. Their drive and motivation to excel has propelled them to the top of their classes. This has placed additional pressure on other students who must now compete at another level to get to the front. While healthy competition has a positive impact, often the school system is unable to provide students with the academic support they need. The “middle path” mentioned above does not provide the required degree of challenge to those students who are already ahead of their peers and also cannot give those students who need extra support the focused attention they require to catch up with their peers.

The Role of the Parents

It is an accepted fact that parents have a major role in helping their children learn and succeed in life. The problem is that parents are human and the subjects in which their children need help may be those in which they are not too proficient. Additionally, figures released by the U.S. Bureau of the Census show that two-thirds of the parents of school-aged children have work hours that make them unavailable for after school academic help.This often results in patchy help from the over stressed parents at odd hours and in varying durations, all depending on availability. While this is not the right way to learn, there is little parents can do as the demands on them are usually inflexible.

The Solution

Extra after school specialized learning programs, with the focused and personalized attention they provide, have proven to offer the best solution to this problem. Those who need greater challenges to stimulate their interest are given what they require. Those who need additional learning support are provided with it. Sandra Feldman, President of the American Federation of Teachers wrote that there should be “more learning time for children who need it.” Research shows that students who receive after school specialized learning care:

• Have improved reading abilities
• Are eager to develop additional skills
• Are more engaged in school
• Show improvement in the quality of homework they submit
• Are less likely to be placed in special education classes or to be held back
• Typically have higher aspirations for their futures

Give your child the educational edge to stay ahead. Help lay that foundation to their future success by enrolling them in a reputable After School Learning Academy that offers specialized coaching, where the staff are well trained and have the ability to provide your child with the skills and learning abilities. Remember your investment today will help your child to develop and stay ahead in this competitive world.

Testing Dilemma Part II

Acronyms:
 
SAT – Scholastic Aptitude Test
ACT – American College Test
PARCC – Partnership for Assessment of Readiness in College and Careers

Remember when the SAT upgraded its 1600 point Math and ELA test to include a new 800 point essay portion?  This was in 2005.  The College Board felt that the bubble-answers did not sufficiently reflect a student’s “aptitude” for college success.  The other two sections were also modified, but it was the essay section that proved to be very expensive to conduct.  This, of course, is because humans had to read and score all these essays.

The SAT will now relaunch next March with the essay component being “optional”.  The new test will be three hours with three parts:  reading, writing and language, and math.  The math portion will include open-ended short answers, but the essay portion (50 min) will be optional and not included in the overall score.  Basically, the SAT will more closely resemble the ACT (developed in 1950 as a rival to SAT).

Both the SAT and ACT are now competing for state-funded contracts to offer these tests to public high school students.  In fact, the College Board has begun offering tests to 8th graders to help them “address weaknesses early”.   A third competitor is PARCC, designed as a for-profit organization to provide K-12 testing in alignment with Common Core.  All three companies are strategizing to offer tests that will help students along the way rather than being simply a college admissions test.

So, the test mania thrives because it is lucrative business, and in some cases appropriate and helpful.  But, I do not believe any of these test methods do justice to measuring how well a student will perform in college or in the work world.  The tests are missing the elements that portray the student as a whole person with creative ideas, possible solutions to world problems, passions and opinions.  Measuring these attributes requires a lot of human effort and resources.

Time Magazine (Oct. 12, 2015) described what Singapore does for its assessments.  “The government-run test for college-bound students requires them to complete a group project over several weeks that is meant to measure their ability to collaborate, apply knowledge, and communicate – all skills both educators and employers say are critical for the future economy.”Max McGee, who runs the Palo Alto school system, suggests that a better assessment would “… look like a portfolio students generate over time that reflects their passion, purpose in life, their sense of wonder, and that demonstrates their resilience and persistence and some intellectual rigor.”

In the meantime, it is important to note that top-ranked colleges are beginning to either eliminate or diminish the focus on SAT or ACT scores.  Harvard, for example, has found that the very high test scorers only do a little better than the lowest scorers.  College officials feel, in general, that it is high school transcripts that can reveal what a student will do.  A major test of 33 colleges found that high school GPA – even at poor schools with easy curriculums – was better at predicting success in college than any standardized test.  What does impress school officials is “rigor” and “curriculum”.  Getting good grades in tough courses in the field of your interest in high school will stand out as much as or more than a high entrance exam score in most colleges.

So, it may be worthwhile to start planning your portfolio and what you would like it to include that best represents who you are, what your interests are and some of the things you can envision for yourself in the future.  It can contain all sorts of things:  pictures, videos, reports, journal entries, volunteer activities, projects (for school or just for fun), ideas, perhaps graded papers or projects that show improvement, awards, honor role, and on and on.  I would also suggest starting this as soon as you want to.  Your parents can help in the beginning.   I will also be glad to offer help or ideas.  It can be fun and a good habit to start now.  You will always benefit from having a solid portfolio in this highly competitive world.

The Testing Dilemma

Obama has made a statement that is rattling the test-makers, but undoubtedlygettingsighs of relief from teachers, students and parents who believe that the current testing mania in most schools, is not helping the learning process.  In fact, it may be a hindrance to good teachers who fail to deliver the scores and students who may be learning to take tests rather than important concepts.

Having worked extensively with test development including reliability and validity analysis – first for students at San Jose State, then later with employees at an insurance company – I can state with confidence that all these tests for students have not been validated.  This means that there are no studies that indicate a relationship between higher test scores and whatever criteria they are meant to predict.  Would it be better jobs?  More money?  Better quality of life?  How about college or even high school graduation?

A validity study requires first the definition of criteria.  Let’s say we want a test that will predict high school graduation – simple enough.  We then set up a hypothesis that says something like:  “Students scoring above a certain point on this test will have a significantly higher rate of high school graduation.”  Significant means higher probability than random, and how much higher is pre-established.

When we design such a study, we have to include our method of tracking these students for at least 4 or more years and then identifying them by their previous test scores, once we know if they did or did not graduate.  We may find a very significant relationship, or we may find little or no correlation, meaning the tests did not work for our purposes.  But, this is the ONLY way to validate the tests.

Since students are now taking new tests, there has not been a chance to track them and compare with future data.  With this, I feel it is important to consider these tests as data-gathering instruments and definitely not used as the basis for decision-making regarding student, teacher, school or district performance.  If researchers can have access to these scores and track the students, we may have good validity studies in a few years – and THEN decide how to use them (or discard them).

In the meantime, I feel testing is critical and useful for measuring learning for each student as long as the results are used for feedback to improve the learning program for that student.  We want to see growth and progress.  And, we want the opportunity to step in when it does not occur.  We may also want to compare aggregate scores between classes, schools, districts or countries to see if we can learn better ways of doing things, but the focus should be on improvements in scores, not whether they meet some external benchmark.

At Pinecone, we rely on results of the weekly tests in our booklets, along with homework and class performance.  Does the student need more practice?  An explanation of a particular concept? Or has the student mastered this concept and can comfortably move on.

While we do not have rigorous studies (because we do not have access to future grades and scores), we have plenty of anecdotal data that indicate the effectiveness of our programs in terms of several indicators of success:  higher grades, honor rolls, graduations, post-grad work, and even great careers.  You can check the testimonials on our website.

I would agree with Obama that we need to address the fanatic testing and misapplication of results.  Hopefully, the Smarter Balanced Testing will yield good information to help each teacher provide, and each student receive an enhanced education.

Handwriting Matters!

The Common Core standards call for teaching legible writing, but only in kindergarten and first grade. After that, the emphasis quickly shifts to proficiency on the keyboard.

But psychologists and neuroscientists are finding, with the help of advanced technologies such as MRI’s, that the act of writing (rather than typing) stimulates learning centers in the brain that are not affected with typing.

Specifically, MRI’s in children show that when a child draws a letter freehand, they exhibit increased activity in three areas of the brain (that are also activated in adults when they read and write):  the left fusiform gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus and the posterior parietal cortex.

By contrast, children who type or trace letters or shapes show no such effect. The activation is significantly weaker.  (A 2012 study led by Karin James, a psychologist at Indiana University)

Findings of recent studies indicate that children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it’s not just what we write that matters — but how.

“When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,” said StanislasDehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris. “There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain.

“And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn’t realize,” he continued. “Learning is made easier.”

Dr. James states “When a kid produces a messy letter,that might help him learn it.”

The effect goes well beyond letter recognition. In a study that followed children in grades two through five, Virginia Berninger, a psychologist at the University of Washington, demonstrated that printing, cursive writing, and typing on a keyboard are all associated with distinct and separate brain patterns — and each results in a distinct end product. When the children composed text by hand, they not only consistently produced more words more quickly than they did on a keyboard, but expressed more ideas.

And brain imaging in the oldest subjects suggested that the connection between writing and idea generation went even further. When these children were asked to come up with ideas for a composition, the ones with better handwriting exhibited greater neural activation in areas associated with working memory — and increased overall activation in the reading and writing networks.

Digital is here to stay and typing skills will be an integral part of communication.  But, pencil and paper have an important place in the education arena whether for children or adults.

Importance of Vocabulary Development

Research shows that reading and writing are interconnected and interdependent, and that a child’s literacy development is dependent upon the integration of both. The Common Core State Standards further emphasize vocabulary knowledge, close reading, and text-based writing as ways to improve students’ reading comprehension and academic achievement.

Vocabulary – an essential component of reading success

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) emphasize the importance of vocabulary by making it one of the key components of the English Language Arts standards. A strong correlation exists between vocabulary development and one’s ability to read and write, and the National Reading Panel considers vocabulary one of the five essential skills in teaching children to read.

The problem is, the body cannot readily distinguish between a gorilla and a looming deadline or an upcoming test.  The Firehouse Effect is activated every time for every stress.  All defense measures are a go.

Reading – gaining deeper understanding of the text

The Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts require deep understanding of text, such as referring explicitly to text when answering questions. Rereading is an essential strategy and should be part of every student’s literacy practice. For example, when students begin to think about, learn, and apply the different genres of text and discipline-specific language, they are addressing the English Language Arts standards.

Writing – improves comprehension

Across all content areas, comprehension improves when students write about a text they are reading. Writing support such as graphic organizers, answering questions, and teaching specific text structures help to improve comprehension.

How do you integrate vocabulary, reading, and writing?

Pinecone Active Learning offers integrated reading comprehension, vocabulary development, English grammar, and writing for grades 1-8.

Pinecone Reading Comprehension

The Pinecone Reading program includes an extensive early comprehension series (READY READERS & ROCKET READERS) which are designed to promote reading for meaning. These beginning comprehension booklets provide a variety of exercises while developing new vocabulary.

The program continues with the nonfiction series (DISCOVERY READERS and STORY DETECTIVES) that contain great variety in subject matter and excellent thinking questions. Following the selections are questions that require students to find the main idea, identify sequence, and match vocabulary words to meanings.

Pinecone Vocabulary Development

The vocabulary section for first through fourth graders in our WORD WHIZ Series creates challenging activities to advance and strengthen basic language skills. Working with a list of twelve words and their definitions, the student engages in a variety of exercises, such as crossword puzzles, scrambled sentences, multiple choices, and matching. Sentence writing using these vocabulary words is also included. The WORD WHIZ booklets are interspersed with DISCOVERY READERS, STORY DETECTIVES and the TEST TAKERS Series (see below).

Our more advanced vocabulary series consists of carefully selected words taken from literature, textbooks, and SAT prep books. Each word list gives parts of speech and concise definitions as well as using the word in a sentence. The exercises allow the student to apply understanding of the meaning of the word and test comprehension. Research has shown that a strong vocabulary is essential for strong comprehension.

Pinecone Grammar

Pinecone believes in a direct approach to grammar beginning with first grade work. This early start will help to build a strong grammar foundation. Our program simplifies learning grammar concepts, such as punctuation, capitalization, subject-verb agreement, and verb tenses. Good sentence construction and sentence diagramming are also addressed.

Our Reading students are assigned brief daily grammar work in addition to the daily reading assignments. Each GRAMMAR series is roughly equivalent to its corresponding grade level and is comprised of 20 to 30 sequential booklets.

Pinecone Writing

The PINECONE WRITING PROGRAM I presents the basic elements and strategies of writing in a step-by-step sequential manner. Like the Pinecone Math and Reading Programs, the material is presented in manageable pieces, with lots of practice for the student to fully understand each concept. For example, basic sentence structure (subject/predicate) is covered first. Later, Choosing a Topic is preceded by first learning how to identify topics in various paragraphs. Students also learn to identify statements that do not fit in a paragraph.

In addition to topic, the concepts of sequence, characters, feelings, settings, problems, and conclusions are systematically presented and practiced. The refinement stage teaches students how to organize a paragraph, how to use details and how to avoid over-used words. They are asked to think about the five senses in their writing. More tools are presented including the Five W's of who, what, where, when, and why. They are given lots of examples of boring versus interesting sentences and paragraphs. The Synonyms Chart can be helpful here. Also, the Content Checklist will provide a review of concepts learned and serve as a guide for checking what has been written at this point.

3 Interesting Essay & Story Writing Tips

1. It is important to highlight the first two or three words of every sentence. See if your sentences all begin the same way or varied.
2. Pick out the verbs in your writing. Choose five of them to change so it can be more interesting. You can find verbs that are action, linking or state of being.
3. Find and write out all the adjectives in your writing. Pick five of them to improve the copy. Make it more creative and precise too!