1. Start discussing the idea of attending college early in the student’s high school career.
2. Add a college campus visit to your family vacation.
3. Take your son or daughter to visit the college or university that you attended.
4. Look into sending your student to a college that offers a summer program for high school students based on their interests.
5. Attend a summer college information session offered for high school students in order for you and your student to get an overview of the college admission process. One school that offers such a program is Allegheny College at www.Allegheny.edu

For more information or to help get the college process started contact Patty @ (216) 577-3300.

Patty Saddle, the College Planning Center
www.mycpcsite.com

One solution that I’ve found valuable is to test yourself.  That means actually writing tests!  In order to make up your own test in a subject, you’ve got to get really deep into the material.  You get a sense for how your teacher thinks when he or she designs an exam, and this can guide how you answer questions on the real test.  By this point in the school year, you’ve seen a couple of tests from each teacher.  For maximum benefit, design your practice tests in the format you’ve learned to expect from that teacher.

To make studying in this way both easier and more fun, get together with a few friends and have everyone create some questions: multiple choice, short answer, and essay (if applicable).  Pose the questions to each other, and discuss the answers to refine your knowledge and ideally identify the most important material.

Right now I’m even making tests for myself.  I have been trying to squeeze in a few minutes each day for teaching myself Italian, and at the end of each chapter of the textbook I wanted to feel the accomplishment of demonstrating what I’d learned, even if no one else sees it!  So I started writing open-ended questions and checking my answers by going back through the chapter.

You’ll find that creating questions out of thin air can be difficult at first, but it is an important way to train your mind to identify the central concepts and key supporting details.

Good luck!

Tim

Upcoming Performance

The Taming of the Shrew is commonly read in high school, and Great Lakes Theater is putting on a modern adaptation this month!  You can read more about it and order tickets here.

If I’m describing your kid—take heart.  There is a growing number of really well done books and magazines out there that might help us to nudge our reluctant reading budding scientists into the reading habit.  (If I’m not describing your kid, you’ll find great stuff here for passionate readers of fiction who may not have ventured into the realm of science.)

It can be maddeningly difficult to get an active, hands-on kid to sit down and read—or sit still to be read to—for any length of time.  Here are two possible solutions:

1. Read aloud to your child while his or her hands are busy with something else.  There’s no rule that says reading time has to be conducted snuggled on the couch.   I’ve recently had a ton of fun reading science biographies to my 11-year old while he builds Legos.   If this strategy takes hold, listening to an audio book while building (or drawing or painting or doing jumping jacks) might become part of your child’s routine.
2. Another option is magazines.  Chock full of interesting color pictures and other graphics, a magazine can be more immediately engaging than a book.  Moreover, the magazine format invites a reader to skim, reading in full only those articles which are of genuine interest.  I had a great experience just the other day with a reluctant-reading student: I grabbed three kid magazines from the library based on his interests, and I let him pick one (giving young readers choices can make a big difference).  We flipped through just looking at the pictures until a story caught his eye, which we read aloud together, taking turns every couple paragraphs.  Look for two suggestions below.

The Giants of Science series by Kathleen Krull offers excellent read aloud material which balances an examination of a scientist’s life with a healthy dose of the relevant scientific concepts.  Krull’s biographies of Darwin, Curie and Da Vinci would all be excellent places to start.

In addition, picture book biographies abound, offering good read-alone or read-aloud material for slightly readers.

Happy reading!

Tim

Recommended Reads

Click on each cover for a review or more magazine information.

Charles Darwin (Giants of Science) – Kathleen Krull

KIDS DISCOVER features a different topic in the natural and social sciences each month, and is designed for children ages 7-12.  The magazine is highly engaging, and features lots of photography.

YES Mag is an award-winning science magazine for children ages 10-15.  Each issue has an activity or experiment related to the theme, and the magazine is long enough to cover each topic very thoroughly.

Helping ADHD Kids Get Organized for School

ADHD Children at School

• Do you feel organized in each of your classes?  For which class do you forget to do your homework for most frequently?
• Do you keep your homework and handouts next to relevant notes, or do you keep them in separate locations?  Is this working?
• Do you have to flip around your notes a lot to find information that should be easy to find?
• If you wrote down a plan for yourself for this school year, which parts have you followed?  Are there any parts of the plan that you haven’t implemented?
• Did you identify specific goals for the first quarter?  If so, do you remember what they were?

The truth is that there is no one organizational system that works for everybody.  But taking a thoughtful, even systematic, approach can be very powerful.  In any case, your strategy for staying organized should be driven by what you’re trying to accomplish.  Keeping your academic goals in mind, review the following list of suggestions that might make your organizational system work better for you:

• Daily checklists are your friend, and it can be so satisfying when you cross things off!  If a long list is stressful to you, put each task on a sticky note, prioritize the work in a stack, and work through the stack one task at a time.
• Color-code:  for each course, match binders, notebooks, and related folders with a single color.
• Rather than using tabs to separate class notes, handouts, graded work, etc., organize binders by unit (e.g., everything related to the “Ancient Greeks” unit is kept together in a single binder tab).
• If you habitually lose pages during the year, consider reinforced 3-hole paper.
• Notebook or binder?  If your teacher has a requirement but you’ve found something else works better for you, try to work it out with him or her.
• Have a single homework folder that you carry with you to every class – keep finished assignments on one side, and incomplete work on the other.
• Consider getting a copy of each of your textbooks to leave at home.

You don’t have to do everything on this list, but I invite you to try two or three that you think might help. As always, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to e-mail – I’m happy to help you troubleshoot.

Good luck!
Tim

With the purpose of note taking—to facilitate learning—clearly in mind, it becomes easier to figure out how to go about taking notes.  Too many students take the court stenographer approach, trying to record every single word the teacher utters.  The result is often frustration (and a lot of illegible notes).  On the other extreme, some students—either because they’ve given up or because they don’t realize how important good class notes can be in the learning processfor their learning, take too few or no notes.  Somewhere between these two extremes is a happy balance.

The key to getting the most out of a lecture or class discussion is to listen well.  Think about how many memorable conversations you have had in your life in which you did not take a single note.  To be sure, part of the reason a memorable conversation is memorable is that we are interested, but another significant reason is that we are really listening.  Seen in this light, making notes becomes a tool you can use to augment your listening.

Here are some keys to listening well in class:

1. Be ready to listen from the moment class begins.
2. Know what to listen for.  Keeping the big picture in mind will allow you to stay focused even when teacher strays from the main topic.
3. Remember, the goal is not to end up with a transcript of every word that has been said.  The goal is to listen carefully in order to identify main ideas and key supporting details.
4. If your teacher allows it, and if it helps you, ask questions during class.  Being an active listener encourages you to stay focused and gives you a chance to get unlost should you get lost during a lecture or class discussion.
5. Get in the habit of consistently asking follow up questions, taking time to tidy or even reorganize your notes, and sharing notes with a study partner.

Two-column Notes Revisited

One of the most significant challenges many students have shared with me over the years is how to manage listening to the teacher and writing everything down, all the while trying to do so in a somewhat organized fashion.  One of the best strategies I’ve come across is called the “Cornell method” or what is more commonly called “two-column notes.”  Even if you’ve been required to use “two-column notes” in the past and didn’t love the experience, please, read on.  The Cornell method can be an incredibly powerful note-taking system for use in high school classes that are heavy on lecture and reading.

At the heart of the Cornell method is a habit of noting key points during class without too much concern for organization, and then following up soon after class to review and impose some order on those notes.  This pattern alleviates the stress of trying to manage everything at once, and creates a built-in habit of reviewing notes regularly rather than waiting till the night before a test.  For a more thorough description of the system, with samples of printable notepaper, I strongly recommend following this link.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions.

What does engagement look like in school?

• Engaged students ask questions – before, during, and after school
• Engaged students read actively and take notes either in the text or in a notebook
• Engaged students look to connect new material to the world around them

You’ll never find a checklist that gives you everything you need to be successful student, because what’s really important is your mindset.  One of the best things you can do for your mindset is to realize that your mind is flexible and constantly developing.  Intelligence is not fixed, but rather your abilities are related to the focus and effort that you put into your work.  Research has shown that “great accomplishment… is typically the result of years of passion and dedication and not something that flows naturally from a gift.”

So over the next week or two, spend some time envisioning how you will engage with your classes and put in the necessary hard work.  Think about what helps you to focus, and start to picture what your afternoons and evenings will look like so that you get all of your work done on time.  When you can teach yourself focus and engagement, you’re well on your way to school success!

Checklists for the New School Year

While there isn’t a checklist of everything you need to be a successful student, consider these possible steps:

• Take Time to Get Organized
• Stay Organized
• Make Homework Time Count

In his discussion of the achievement gap between high performing readers and low performing readers in his most recent book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell points out that summer vacation seems to play a crucial role:  Even though measurable gains made during the school year are fairly even for the high achievers and the struggling readers, by the end of 5^th grade, what started as a modest gap when students entered school has more than doubled.  For me, this is a powerful argument for giving our kids incentives and motivation to read this summer.

With just a few weeks left before school starts, I’m more concerned that our kids are reading that I am about what they’re reading. Do your part to make sure that your child is reading or getting read to every day:

• Don’t forget the benefit of reading aloud to your kids (or with your kids by taking turns)—even for 12-year olds;
• As my anecdote points out, getting started is often the hardest part.  The most powerful strategy I use for getting my family reading is sitting down together and reading the first few pages aloud.  Especially if the opening of a book is intriguing, a little bit of momentum can be all that’s needed;
• Consider audio books as a hook into reading:  during car trips, before bedtime, or during hot, muggy Cleveland days when no one wants to move.

Happy Reading,

Tim
Recommended Reads
Click on each book cover for a review

The Egypt Game – Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Ranger’s Apprentice series – John Flanagan
Regarding the Fountain – Kate Klise

As you read:

• Make a list of major characters and summarize any changes that they go through over the course of the book.
• Make notes as you read.  Some readers find it helpful to jot a few words at the top of each page after finishing it, others find it helpful to write down a few bullet points at the end of each chapter.
• Split the book into two or three sections (if it isn’t already divided by the author into bigger chunks) and at the end of each section reflect in a journal on your opinions of the book.

After you read:

• Write down two or three themes from the book, and pick out 5 or 6 pages/passages that demonstrate each theme.
• Does this book remind you of any other stories that you’ve read or heard recently?  Write a page in your journal or create a concept map connecting these various stories.

Just before school starts:

• Find a review – it will remind you of major plot points and give you the opportunity to compare your observations with someone else’s.
• Find information about the author and see how this book fits into his or her other writing.

In addition to finishing your summer reading, now is a great time to watch a movie or two related to what you will study this fall.  Having prior knowledge of a topic dramatically increases your comprehension when you see it again, and watching some great movies like the ones recommended below is a fun way to prime the pump for learning this fall.

Happy reading & watching,

Tim

Movies to Watch – Click on the poster or title to watch a trailer.

             
US History

Amistad – a powerful movie about a slave-ship rebellion
Gettysburg – an epic film about the famous battle

World History

Mongol:  The Rise of Kenghis Khan – the early life of the conqueror.
The King’s Speech – a recent award-winning WWII-era film

A popular bumper sticker at the time urged “Teach Peace.” “Screw that!” Joe said. “If you want to end war, you’d better teach war. Show these kids what it’s really like.”

A recent teen series that is appropriate for anyone 7th grade and older—and perhaps especially important for adults who have become immune to the news about U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan—does a better job of penetrating the horrors of a government sending its kids off to die than anything I’ve read in a while.

The Hunger Games, the first book in Suzanne Collins’ trilogy, depicts a dystopian future America in which, in order to keep rebellion at bay, an overfed and pampered Capital requires each of the twelve outlying districts to send two “tributes” to the annual Hunger Games, a nationally televised fight to the death from which only one winner may emerge.

Pretty grim premise for a novel, right? True enough. But the result is a very powerfully rendered story, which (as Arthur Miller did with the The Crucible) demands that we take a closer look at our own troubled times.

Not for the faint of heart, The Hunger Games is nonetheless guaranteed to lead to some powerful, meaningful conversations about matters that affect us all.