5 Parent Tips to Increase Students’ Math Success

And Overcome Math Challenges Mathematics Awareness Month is held each year in April and a perfect opportunity to encourage the love of math in your children. In helping children learn, one goal is to assist them in figuring out as much as they can do for themselves. Here are top five math tips that you as a parent can start using right now, to help your child become an independent math learner.

1. Strengthen Core Skills – Effort in Math matters because math skills build in time. Miss one component and you will continue to have difficulties with math. As a parent challenge your child to become better problem solvers.

2. Leverage Technology – Technology should support math instruction, and today’s ‘Net Gen’ students find technology-infused instruction especially engaging, helping them gain an understanding of the underlying reasoning and computations used in problem-solving.

3. Instill Math Confidence in Your Child. – Praise your children’s academic progress. Tell them that you are proud of their math efforts even when they struggle. When students are confident in their abilities, they enjoy learning.

4. Make Real-world Connections – There are many opportunities for parents to make math connections to everyday life – and help students to see the value of math. Think of tasks that you do every day that can be ‘teachable math moments.’

5. Encourage Your Child to Take Math – Early and Often – Many students don’t take math classes beyond their school’s minimum requirements. But math offers critical learning skills that are needed throughout life. Children should take algebra early in their educational careers if they are academically ready. Students who do not take courses covering algebraic concepts early, risk missing important opportunities for growth.

Algebra is Fundamental It is now clearly understood that algebra is the foundation for not only higher-level math and science skills, but it helps lay a solid foundation for the technological world we all now live in. Looking for resources to check your student’s algebra health? Sylvan Learning is offering a FREE, online Algebra Readiness Check-up to help determine if your child is ready for the math challenges that lie ahead. After taking the screener, you will receive a personalized Algebra Fitness Breakdown, which highlights your child’s strengths, as well as areas that require more training. You will also gain access to free online resources to help your child get in tip-top shape for algebra!
To take the screener visit - http://letsgolearn.com/fit4algebra/

Are you College Bound?

Top 5 Tips to Help You Prepare For College Life

Obtaining a college education requires a lot of time, effort and careful planning by parents and students working together. But, preparing for college is much more than the flurry of activity during those last few months of a student's senior year. In many cases, college preparation actually begins before high school, and it is never too early to start thinking about what kind of college experience you or your parent is looking for and how the college preparation process works.

Sylvan Learning, the leading provider of tutoring to students of all ages, grades and skill levels, offers simple tips to help students prepare for their college entrance exams and develop the skills needed for lifelong success.

1. Start Early – Consider taking summer enrichment classes for key subjects like math, reading and creative writing. Nothing shows that you're serious about academic work like dedicating the last few weeks of your summer to intellectual and academic pursuits.

2. Prepare for Tests - April and May, throughout the summer provide the perfect opportunity to take a prep course or obtain academic assistance to prepare for the SAT and ACT autumn exams. If you have not already taken the SAT or ACT, it is important to spend the remainder of summer preparing for these standardized tests. Spend at least a few minutes each day reviewing vocabulary or practicing math problems.

At Sylvan, our college prep experts will tailor a personalized plan that builds the skills, habits and attitudes to your needs in order to score higher on test day and apply to college with confidence. Our highly personalized and targeted approach focuses on the exact skills needed to successfully answer test questions. For many students, skills can be mastered to raise test scores in as little as five to twelve weeks.


3. Don't Miss Opportunities - It's important that students take charge of their education. Seek out opportunities proactively rather than reactively. As you prepare for college and admission tests, look for classes and other resources like free, SAT/ACT practice tests provided by Sylvan Learning.

Such resources are excellent opportunities to practice and assess your skills while preparing for college. There are many great resources that you can utilize for your benefit. Fully engage in the resources of the library, guidance counseling center, teachers' office hours, tutors, after-school programs and fellow students. Make sure to get the best education possible by using all of your school and personal resources.

4. Seek Support and Help from Your Family - The college preparation process can be stressful for you – and for your parents. Your parents want to help you reach your goals and act as a resource during this critical time.

5. Enjoy the Journey – Have fun and enjoy the rest of your summer, but make sure that you keep yourself active. Take a summer school class, get a job or consider volunteering at a variety of community-based organizations or charities. Now is the perfect time to get involved in those endeavors while you have additional time in the summer. These initiatives can allow you to learn more about potential careers and areas of interest. The last weeks of the summer months can be an excellent time to help you prepare for college while providing compelling experiences to use on your college applications.

Make the most of the remainder of this summer. Take the challenge. Use these simple tips to prepare for the next phase in your academic life and enjoy the years of discovery ahead!


For more information and back-to-school resources, visit www.SylvanLearning.com.

Be a D.E.A.R. Day: Encourager For Your Kids on April 12th

12 tips for April 12th show it’s never too early to start reading

April 12th marks the celebration of the National Drop Everything and Read Day (D.E.A.R), a special reading celebration to remind and encourage families to make reading together on a daily basis a family priority. Sylvan Learning is celebrating National D.E.A.R. Day by providing parents with simple tips to encourage a love of reading year-round.

Strong reading skills are incredibly important for all subjects in school, therefore it’s critical that parents help their children develop these skills early on. The more children read, the more they’ll enjoy reading, and the better readers they’re likely to become.

Sylvan recommends that parents set aside at least one hour per week – 10 to 15 minutes a day – to do some form of reading activity with their child.

Since it’s never too early to start reading with your child, here are 12 tips in honor of National D.E.A.R. Day to help parents nurture their children’s reading behaviors:

1. Begin at birth by sharing picture books with your babies. Talking, reading, singing, and listening to newborns and toddlers helps build the knowledge required for success in reading.
2. Recite nursery rhymes and lullabies to newborn babies.
3. When talking with an infant or toddler ask questions and allow pauses to help them develop an understanding of conversation.
4. Narrate your activities to young children to connect the words and their meaning. For example, “I’m putting on your coat.” To connect a word with its meaning, point to an object and repeat the word several times.
5. When reading aloud to young children, point to the words as you speak them. You can also follow the sentence with your finger so that children begin to recognize how words appear in a book.
6. Re-read the same book often because children enjoy hearing the same stories again and again. Hearing and seeing familiar words and pictures may help them have an easier time learning to read.
7. Encourage talk and discussion, as this contributes to the development of language skills and can help with reading. Ask everyone around the dinner table to talk about his or her day or current book that he or she is reading.
8. Model the reading behavior. Set aside time every day to read.
9. Check with teachers and librarians to confirm the appropriate reading level for you child’s age. Get recommendations from them on good age-appropriate books.
10. Research and select books about your children’s interests, such as a sport or hobby.
11. Read newspapers and magazines with your children. Reading and telling stories together sparks the imagination and helps stimulate good reading and writing skills.
12. Lastly, set up or designate shelves in a child’s room for his or her own library.

The Internet can also provide many opportunities for children looking for new and exciting things to read. A free interactive, reading motivation program created by Sylvan Learning - Book Adventure (www.BookAdventure.com) - allows students to choose their own books from more than 7,500 titles, take short comprehension quizzes and redeem their accumulated points for small prizes. Book Adventure also offers teachers and parents resources and tips to help children develop a lifelong love of reading.

Help Your Children Hone Study Skills

Try to remember. When you were a student, did you ever ask, “How will grammar (or geometry or social studies) benefit me later in life?” Be honest.

Now, return to today. When was the last time you took notes at a meeting? Or prioritized your “todo” list? Or organized a project from start to finish? The skills you use to do these tasks at work and at home are the same skills you learned and honed in English class (and geometry and social studies).

Now, your children are developing those skills that will enable them to read analytically, write and speak expressively and think strategically. And when they ask, “What good is this going to do me?” - you know that it all starts with taking notes in history class, studying for that bio exam and juggling time to accommodate school, sports and social calendars!

Organization, time management, note taking, test taking and strategic reading are all essential study skills that are first introduced to young people in the classroom, but ultimately transfer far beyond school.

To help your child develop these skills in a way that is meaningful to them – mainly applying them to their “job” which is school – here are tips that parents can follow:

Organization and Time Management
* Have students use a planning calendar to track daily, weekly and monthly assignments and responsibilities.
* Encourage children to break down large, complex tasks into manageable pieces.
* Have children prioritize homework and other tasks when they get home from school, then complete the tasks in that order.

Note Taking
* Don’t panic if a child’s notes look sloppy and disorganized. It’s often just a sign of a student with an active mind who is organizing things in ways that work best for him or her.
* Encourage students to review their notes and even rewrite them, if necessary, to be sure they make sense.
* As they review their notes, have children identify the most important points and highlight them.

Test Taking
* Urge a student to study over a period of days or weeks instead of cramming the night before.
* Be sure students go into the test with the right equipment, whether that means a calculator, class notes, textbooks or simply a pencil.
* Encourage them to answer test questions they know first and then go on to the more challenging questions.

Reading
* Encourage young readers to use all the clues available to them while reading, such as headlines, pictures, captions, charts, tables and graphs.
* Urge them to read different types of writing, such as books of fiction and nonfiction, newspaper and magazine articles, letters and Web sites.
* Talk with kids after they read a book or article. Have them tell you what the story was about, why it did or didn’t interest them and how it related to their life.