Merry Christmas

The tutors at Swan Learning Center would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas this holiday season!

Ways To Improve Your Kids Reading Comprehension

Books are Special Time
Turn books and reading into something special by taking your kids to the library, helping them get their own library card, reading with them, and buying them books as gifts. Have a favorite place for books in your home, or even better, put books everywhere.

Use the Dictionary
Let your child see you using a dictionary and encourage them to use it also. If they want to know what a word means, tell them to look it up in the dictionary.


Mind Tricks
You can give your child tips for figuring out the meaning of what he or she reads. Show your child how to summarize a story in a few sentences, for example, or how to make predictions about what might happen next. Both strategies help a child comprehend and remember. After reading a story together, think out loud so your child can see how you summarize and predict. Say something like, "I bet D.W. would have eaten some more if she hadn't known that it was spinach."

According to the American Library Association (ALA), "A child's early experiences with language contribute to healthy brain development and lay the foundation for learning to read when a child enters school." As a result, parents and caretakers are the child?s most important teachers before that child reaches school age. Basically, children learn better when they enjoy reading.

Tips For Teaching Your Kids Math

Teach Counting at a Young Age

Counting it is the foundation for math, and learning to count is the first math skill that any child learns. You can start teaching your child as early as 2-years old when counting is largely a game. Count with blocks, toys or any other objects and focus on repetition. Songs and nursery rhymes about numbers may also be helpful. Additionally, there are numerous children's books dedicated to counting and numbers as well as television programs and DVDs you can use.

Use Math for Problem-Solving

While multiplication tables and other math drills still have their place, the "new math" that is taught in schools today focuses primarily on problem-solving. By inserting mathematics into real-life practical situations, children can connect more with the material. Teach your child math as a problem-solving skill. Present problems that require math to be solved. For example, you could ask your child, "If I have five cookies and each of the three of you gets one, how many will I have left?" Pose only age-appropriate problems. You can gauge your child's level of comprehension by what she is learning at preschool, kindergarten or grade school.

Use Money to Teach Math

Most kids are fascinated with money, so it makes a good teaching tool when it comes to learning math skills. Money can be used to teach basic addition and subtraction. Play"store" at home with your children and use real money or play money to purchase different items. For example, you could ask questions like, "This item is $5 and this item is $3. How much will it cost to buy them both?" Later, take these games into the real world when shopping with your child. Put two items in your basket and give their price, then ask how much they cost together. Remove an item to teach subtraction. Offer positive reinforcement when your child gets the right answer. Even if he doesn't get the right answer, help him work out the problem instead of revealing the answer.

Helping Your Kids Improve Their Grades

Helping your child do well in school is one of the best investments that a parent can make. With the future of employment growing ever so competitive, our children will need every advantage they can just to compete in our global economy. The following are 5 ways to help them improve their grades.

1. Create an environment in your home that encourages learning.
This will be a major influence on how well your children do in school. Provide them with many different opportunities to become excited about learning. Make sure that appropriate materials from puzzles to paints to computers are available to stimulate their curiosity.

2. Provide your children with a well-balanced life.
A stable home, filled with love, serves as a solid foundation for getting straight A's. Establish routines so your children get enough sleep, eat regular nourishing meals, and receive sufficient exercise. Limit excessive TV-viewing and the playing of video and computer games.

3. Read to your children every day.
Most of the learning your children do in school involves reading. Read to your kids to teach them about reading, expand and enrich their vocabularies, and broaden their experiences. Reading aloud exposes them to materials that would be difficult for them to read on their own.

4. Encourage them to read extensively.
As your children progress through school, as much as 75 percent of what they learn will come from the printed page. The more children read, the better their reading skills become. Make sure there is a wide variety of interesting reading materials in your home to encourage the reading habit.

5. Show your children how to be organized.
Children who are organized find it much easier to succeed in school. One of the best ways to teach organizational skills is through example. Show your children how to use such organizational tools as assignment pads, calendars, notebooks, binders, and backpacks.

Academic Coaching

Academic coaching services play a vital role when it comes to shaping a student's career. They help students analyze their short comings and motivate them to get better. Academic coaching is all about ensuring that students fair well in the examination and show improved results. It is also the responsibility of an academic coach to ensure that students develop interest and passion in a subject and begin to enjoy studies a lot more than before.

Academic Coaching | What to Look for in a Learning Center
(taken from "Ending the Homework Hassle" by John Rosemand)

• Look for a Learning Center that:
• Comes highly recommended by other parents and professional
• Has been in business more than two years
• Employs teachers who are state-certified and have classroom experience
• Uses a variety of learning materials, thus enabling adaptation to a broad range of learning styles
• Uses computer-assisted instruction as a supplement to teacher-based instruction, rather that as a primary instructional technique
• Retests your child periodically to check his/her progress
• Guarantees they will contact and continue to communicate with you child's regular classroom teacher
• Promises to keep you regularly posted concerning your child's progress in their program

What services will Academic Coaching provide?

• Professional staff and teachers who understand the learning process
• Diagnostic assessment of your child
• On going conferences with the parents and teachers
• Progress testing
• Personalized program to help your child
• Prevents students from falling through the cracks

Improving Your Child’s Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is a crucial learning skill for children to master. One proven technique to teach reading is to have them make connections with the text. At home, there is a fun and informal way to increase your child's learning of what they read. All that's needed to teach reading is your child's favorite book and some open ears.

Nothing is more important to academic achievement than being a good reader. Parents know their children best and can provide the one-on-one time and attention that will lead them to success in reading. Here is a list of 5 ways to help your children become more effective readers.

STEP 1:
(Set aside a regular time to read to your children every day)
Studies show that regularly reading out loud to children will produce significant gains in reading comprehension, vocabulary, and the decoding of words. Whether your children are preschoolers or preteens, it will increase their desire to read independently.

STEP 2:
(Surround your children with reading material.)
Children with a large array of reading materials in their homes score higher on standardized tests. Tempt your kids to read by having a large supply of appealing books and magazines at their reading level. Put the reading materials in cars, bathrooms, bedrooms, family rooms, and even by the TV.

STEP 3:
(Have a family reading time.)
Establish a daily 15 to 30 minute time when everyone in the family reads together silently. Seeing you read will inspire your children to read. Just 15 minutes of daily practice is sufficient to increase their reading fluency.

STEP 4:
(Encourage a wide variety of reading activities.)
Make reading an integral part of your children's lives. Have them read menus, roadside signs, game directions, weather reports, movie time listings, and other practical everyday information. Also, make sure they always have something to read in their spare time when they could be waiting for appointments or riding in a car.

STEP 5:
(Develop the library habit.)
Entice your children to read more by taking them to the library every few weeks to get new reading materials. The library also offers reading programs for children of all ages that may appeal to your children and further increase their interest in reading.

5 Math Tutoring Tips for Parents

1. Counting
The most basic skills in mathematics are counting and grouping (“seeing” numbers in groups). To develop counting skills, help children learn to count from any number, to any number, by any number. Do all counting forward and backward.

2. Fractions
As counting skills begin to develop, fractions can be introduced. Long before introducing words like numerator and denominator, teach children that half means “2 parts the same,” and have them use this knowledge to figure out things like:
• “How much is half of 6? …10? …20? …26? …30? …50? …100? …248? …4,628?”
• “How much is half of 3? …11? …15? …21? …49? …99? …175? …999? …2,001?

3. Problem Solving
Children become good problem solvers when they are asked to solve a broad range of problems early on, at home and at school. Start with easy questions; let the level of difficulty increase as the child’s ability grows.

4. Money
Preschool and kindergarten are appropriate times to begin this training. It is best that parents take care of these things at home, rather than have teachers spend valuable classroom time on them.
By the end of third grade, children should have learned the basic equivalents:
• 20 nickels = 10 dimes = 4 quarters = 2 half–dollars = 1 dollar
• 1 dime = 2 nickels
• 1 quarter = 5 nickels
• 1 half–dollar = 5 dimes = 10 nickels

5. Grouping
To expand children’s thinking processes and help them “see” groups, ask questions like:
• “7 and how much more make 10?” “70 and how much more make100?” “700 and how much more make 1,000?”
• “10 and how much more make 15?” “10 and how much more make 18?” “10 and how much more make 25?”
• “17 and how much more make 20?” “87 and how much more make 100?” “667 and how much more make 1,000?”

Special thanks to Joe Restivo for his contribution on this article.

Summer Camp in Charlotte, NC - Accelerated Academic Program

At Swan Learning Center we know that children can excel. Our accelerated summer program is designed to teach students the basics needed to excel in school. The half day and full day programs are three weeks long. Additional weeks may be added especially when parents want children to work on more than one subject area. Before and after camp care is provided along with a full day program.

Registration Details

Times: Half Day Academic Camp

Monday- Thursday 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM or

Monday-Thursday 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Dates:

Choose three weeks between June 7 and September 2. Consecutive weeks are preferred for optimal learning retention. Parents choose in which 3 weeks to participate. Additional weeks may be added.

Morning Academic Camp 9 AM -12 PM

Includes Registration, Diagnostic Testing, Morning Snacks, Motivational Program and Progress Assessment when one subject has been the focus of instruction.

Tuition for 3 week camp $795

Additional Week $265

We Offer

• Place where all students achieve

• Diagnostic Testing

• Individualized programs

• Highly motivational Instruction

• Professional certified Teachers

• Unique Reward System

• Summer Camp where students have fun learning

Academic Assessment

Our battery of academic tests and screens identifies your student’s strengths and areas of need. Following the diagnostic testing we will confer with you to determine the specific programs to meet your student’s needs and goals.

Personalized Instruction

Work with teachers who get results. Learn in a positive and open environment where success is everyone’s goal.

Progress Testing

Student’s progress is assessed throughout the program. Progress testing after 30 hours of instruction provides a tangible measure of academic growth.

Tips for Test Taking

In a perfect world there would be no standardized tests, report cards or astronomical college tuition. There would also be no calories in chocolate, no such thing as wrinkles, and exercise would make you fat. Okay, maybe that’s my perfect world. Unfortunately, these are not realities. Most of us will have to slice off an arm and matching leg to pay college tuition, I will continue to look more and more like a Shar-pei every year and kids will be required to take standardized tests as long as they can sit upright and hold a No. 2 pencil.

Last week I focused on the sometimes crippling anxiety induced by the multitudes of standardized tests our kids are required to take. As promised, this week I focused my efforts on some practical methods of alleviating stress associated with test taking. To this end, I consulted with Psychotherapist, Licensed Social Worker and Parent Coach, Barbara Chamberlain. After putting our heads together we came up with the following suggestions:

One week prior to the test:

- Practice Deep Breathing: Once a day for 15 minutes, six counts in and six counts out.

- Positive Self-Talk: Adopt a mantra and repeat it whenever you think about the test, such as, “I am a really good test taker,” or, “I’m calm and focused during tests.”

- Visualization: Do a daily “dry run” in your mind. Picture yourself calmly sitting at your desk, reading the questions and filling in the bubbles.

- Get cardiovascular exercise to alleviate stress.

The night before the test:

- Don’t watch anything disturbing on TV, like "Friday the 13th" or the Kardashians.

- Before bed turn off all electronics — computers, cell phones, etc.

- Go to bed at a decent time so you get around eight hours of sleep (crucial!).

The morning of the test:

- Get up early enough to avoid rushing around, which is very stressful.

- Eat a healthy breakfast, but if you really don’t have time, grab something with protein.

- Drink lots of water for optimal brain function.

Some other ideas:

- Have a ritual to take the edge off: Brush your teeth while singing "Happy Birthday," touch your nose three times before picking up your pencil, etc.

- Have a lucky charm: Aside from being magically delicious, they help externalize the stress, so wear your socks with the rainbow toes, put your Batman action figure in your backpack, have the first valentine you ever got in your pocket and believe in luck!

Thanks to Susan Schaefer for providing some great tips! For more tips from Charlotte Math Tutors, contact Swan Learning Center today!

Tips for Tutoring Your Child

Here's some Great Tips on home tutoring we picked up from HelpingWithMath.com.

- Set up a program with your child - ensure he or she is part of this process. Agree a regular time and consider prominently displaying a calendar with days, times, and activities marked. Your child will have times that are best suited to their learning. If you can tutor your child at a time that is best suited to their learning then results will improve. For some children this will be before supper, for others it might be later in the evening and for others it might even be before breakfast!

- Have a quiet, comfortable, distraction free environment in which to tutor your child. This can be a challenge in some households but it is essential. Ensure the desk or table you are tutoring at is in easy reach of your math supplies - pencils, erasers, paper, protractors, rulers, calculators.

- Sometimes there can be frustration when talking with our children. We might think that they are not listening or that they are "tuning us out." This may or may not be the case, regardless here a some tips that will help encourage better listening when you are tutoring your child:

--- Have your child repeat what you have told them in their own words to ensure they understand the message.

--- Use body language. e.g. arm movements to illustrate your message.

--- Get close to and make eye contact with your child before speaking

--- Speak in short simple sentences.

--- Break longer messages into a series of shorter ones.

--- Stress important words.

- Work on your own math tutoring skills. Ask your local Librarian for a good book or use the Internet. Adopt an attitude that if your child is struggling with algebra, or geometry, or whatever you are tutoring them on, then it is your teaching as opposed to their learning that is at fault.

- Work as closely as possible with your child's teacher at school. Your teacher can provide guidance, suggestions, and resources that will greatly help your tutoring. Supplementing and complementing what is being taught in class will be more effective than following an alternative curriculum.

- Do not reinforce the belief that a person can simply not be good at math. Saying things like "I was never any good at math" just supports the misconception that a person is either born with, or without an aptitude for math and nothing can be done to change that.

- Younger children are more likely to not be sufficiently physiologically developed to handle certain arithmetic operations. This has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. It is simply a normal part of a child's development that you should be aware of. Some 7 or 8 year olds will struggle greatly with certain concepts.

- Always praise and encourage your child. Work on your parent praise phrases and don't forget to give yourself a big pat back on the back for all your math tutoring help.

For more tips on math & reading tutoring, contact Swan Learning Center at (704) 442.1718