Blog-Post Archives

Lateness: What Kind Of Late Are You?

February 27, 2019 Brad Hoffman

What Kind of Late Are You?

Some people are chronically late. Scientist Tim Urban proposed in a very humorous blog post that lateness is a form of insanity; however, most people agree that it is just a problematic habit. Like any habit, it is hard to change, but possible if you try. Sometimes, your lateness might not be a problem for you or anyone else. But, when it is a problem, lateness tends to be a big problem. Learning to recognize how and why lateness occurs is the first step towards managing it. Managing it really will help at school, in life, and eventually your career.

Five Common Lateness Personalities

Adrenaline Addicts. Many people love the adrenaline rush of anxiety that fuels them to complete tasks. They feel like superheroes overcoming insurmountable hurdles. Most people are not capable of meeting a deadline under that stress and require extensions. They are often very angry with themselves for the repeated cycle of procrastination and anxious effort. Learning to space work out over a longer time takes the acceptance that you are simply human and, like most, need to sleep and eat in order to get things done. A very small group of people do manage to remain in superhero land for much of their careers; they are lucky that situations allow them to take extensions. I always worry about the day they don’t get one and lose a major opportunity.

Dreamy and Distracted. This person would be on time, except that all sorts of distractions occur along the way. These people miss the bus stop because they are staring out the window, listening to their music, and forget what they were doing, where they were going, and when they needed to be there. The real question is why they are spacing out even when important things are happening or need to happen.

Self-focused. Their precious time would be lost if they arrived before others. Being late ensures that things have started. They don’t consider what effect this has on other people’s schedules. Here, the issue is recognizing the impact you have on others, because what you do and how you do it matters for yourself and those around you.

Busy-Bees. These people agree to do too much and can’t do it within the time frame they imagine. They try to fit errands and tasks into every time slot. They always have more to do and so are always fitting one more thing into their day. Assessing the time for activities can help them become more realistic planners.

Victim—Things always happen to this person on the way somewhere. The bus was late. There was an accident. The rain slowed traffic. The list is endless. It’s never their fault and so they don’t understand why anyone is irritated. Being a victim has never led to success. It suggests that you are not in control of yourself or your own life so how on earth could you be made responsible for others?

Steps to Overcome Lateness

Recognize yourself in any of the above descriptions? That’s okay. You aren’t alone. The following tips can help you manage time better:

Time your routines. Time your morning routine for a week to get an accurate sense of what you actually use each day. Look up your commute online to learn how long it usually takes, including typical delays.

Be generous. Don’t give yourself 13 minutes to get somewhere. Round up. Take 20.

Stay active. Have something to do when you get where you are going so you don’t feel like you are wasting time if you are early. Use that time to ask the teacher or boss a question, check in with your peers, review your notes or the reading for class, prepare notes for an assignment, or write a thank you note to your grandmother who sent you cookies and a really ugly sweater.

Schedule! Use Your Phone. A huge part of time management is about remembering what you need to do and when. The easiest way to deal with that is a schedule, a calendar, as well as many reminders, and we all have those at our fingertips with our smart phone.

Despite many claims otherwise, lateness is a choice. Chronic lateness is a habit and though hard to change, you can do it with slow, steady, consistent attention to shifting the patterns.

By Charlotte Kent, PhD | Private Tutor and Executive Functions Coach

What Does College Writing Readiness Look Like?

January 31, 2019 Brad Hoffman

When people talk about college writing readiness, they usually characterize the main difference between high school and college writing by saying that college writing is heavily based in analysis. But too often, the conversation proceeds without defining a key term. What does “analysis” mean in this context? And how can parents and tutors help high school writers build analytical skills for college writing readiness?

When I consider the sort of analytical writing that happens in college classrooms, I am reminded of the definition offered by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen in the first chapter of their book Writing Analytically. “To analyze something is to ask what that something means,” they write. “It is to ask how something does what it does or why it is as it is. Analysis is, then, a form of detective work that pursues something puzzling, something you are seeking to understand rather than something you believe you already have the answers to.” While high school teachers spend a great deal of time teaching critical thinking and analysis techniques, high school writers tend to deploy those skills by performing the acts of analysis and writing as separate steps — by figuring out and planning all of their ideas, then recording them. High school writers would likely be surprised, and perhaps intimidated, by the notion of “thinking on the page” in this way. Accordingly, a key aspect of facilitating college writing readiness is helping students become comfortable with this concept, and comfortable trying new writing and learning approaches overall.

Parents and tutors can help their high schoolers develop a number of writing techniques that make it easier to engage in college-level analytical writing. For instance, they can introduce brief, low-pressure exercises that make it easy to perform thinking on the page, to generate material that can become part of a more formal composition, and to conceptualize the writing process as a series of small, manageable steps. They can strengthen high school writers’ executive functioning skills by showing them how to set — and meet — deadlines for each distinct step of a writing project. They can help high school writers identify sources of support at their institution, such as writing centers. They can help to remediate weaknesses in reading that inhibit students from fully understanding and engaging with the texts they write about. They can find exemplar essays and help writers examine and learn from them. They can help writers move from perceiving revision as a one-time activity to perceiving it as a process of rethinking and rethinking again, of crafting several drafts, of revisiting a piece of writing and re-engaging with its ideas and its object of analysis until the writer feels that they are saying what they truly want to say.

These techniques pay off beyond the matter of college writing readiness; they help with college readiness overall. Students can employ low-pressure writing exercises to reflect on course readings and to prepare for class discussions, for example, and they can use their strengthened reading skills to navigate challenging technical documents. Stronger planning and time management skills are helpful in countless situations.

More importantly, these approaches bring about shifts in thinking that prepare them for the challenges of adult life. Dividing big tasks into manageable pieces prepares students for a range of professional situations. Visiting a writing center or a peer tutor helps a student realize that asking for help is a sign of initiative, not weakness, and that they don’t have to struggle alone. Moving from a rigid revision process into a more recursive and rewarding one teaches writers the importance of flexibility and perseverance. After all, in life, it often takes us more than two tries to get something right. It is not lost on me that when it comes to the Common Application personal statement — often the highest-stakes essay that they have composed up to that point in their lives — high school writers generally go through six to twelve drafts before the piece is ready to share with colleges.

“Analysis is, then, more than just a set of skills: it is a frame of mind, an attitude toward experience,” Graff and Birkenstein conclude. By helping high school writers cultivate both this set of skills and this attitude, parents and tutors are helping them not only to develop college writing readiness but to prepare for the world beyond.

By Elizabeth Walters, Private Tutor and Writing Coach

Should 9th Graders Study For College Entrance Exams?

January 29, 2019 Brad Hoffman

Worrying about college entrance exams — the ACT and SAT — seems to start earlier and earlier, which can unnecessarily derail important resources during the 9th grade year. It’s important to remember that many of the skills and concepts that you learn throughout high school — starting day one — will help develop the skills needed to succeed when testing time comes.

Freshmen year is an important foundation year to learn lessons that underpin the rest of your high school journey. It’s also when you should establish or continue good study patterns and organizational habits for the years to come. These habits will help when you cultivate test taking strategies and start officially preparing for college entrance exams in January or February of 10th grade. During freshman year of high school, it’s best to focus on a successful transition to high school both academically and socially.

Classroom Instruction and College Entrance Exams

One of the most important ways that students can prepare for college entrance exams is by recognizing that daily classroom lessons are already preparing you! You will encounter terms, concepts, and ideas every day that will serve you in the test taking to come.

Keep in mind that the “boring” basics are vital to your future success. Building vocabulary is key. Look up words as they appear in texts to minimize drilling later. Learn grammar now. English teachers will provide sentence level corrections on essays at this stage so that subsequent teachers focus more on organization, concept development, and higher order writing skills. This is the moment to establish and retain grammar rules because you will have so much more to study later. Math and language classes are strictly sequenced so mastering those foundation skills will ensure you succeed in and enjoy future classes.

The PSAT

Most schools organize a PSAT date during the Sophomore year. Many students worry about and even compete for high PSAT scores, but studying for the PSAT isn’t really necessary unless you aspire to earn a National Merit Scholarship. For most students, the purpose of the PSAT is to provide a concrete experience with college entrance exams and to show what knowledge areas you need to enrich and what types of questions are hardest for you.

The PSAT simply provides an initial baseline from which to judge your strengths and areas that require additional attention. It’s an abridged multiple-choice test, thus stamina and attention factors aren’t pushed to the same limits as full length SAT or ACT test, and it does not include a writing section, so this testing yields only limited information for planning purposes. Therefore, don’t take time away from your school work to study for the PSAT.

Test Taking Strategies

One of the challenges with college entrance exams are their structure, and that’s where learning the format of the test and developing some basic test taking strategies really helps. However, strategies must be taught in conjunction with content. Like tools in a toolbox, students need to know when to choose a particular strategy, or they’ll end up trying to hammer a nail with a screwdriver. As content is mastered, strategies help with efficient pacing and approach.

As a means of demonstrating subject matter mastery and building test taking skills, many students are in a position to take at least one SAT subject test at the end of 9th grade. If a SAT subject test aligns with a 9th grade course that is also a subject area of strength for you, then we strongly recommend taking it. Popular 9th grade choices are biology or foreign language, particularly if the student is a native speaker. Math 2 and physics are usually too difficult to take until junior or senior year. Subject tests related to chemistry, history, English, and literature are often managed during 10th and/or 11th grades. For students enrolled in AP courses, these exams are typically layered in during grades 10, 11 and 12. Students enrolled in IB programs have other specific planning to manage that can be leveraged for SAT subject tests or AP exams.

Regardless of school environment, it’s often the case that a school course isn’t completely aligned to any particular standardized test, or the course pacing isn’t on target to cover all necessary content. In January of 9th grade, we recommend you take a baseline assessment as a benchmarking opportunity so that any supplemental private tutoring needs and/or independent study can be strategically managed.

Timing For College Entrance Exams

Ninth graders don’t need to be thinking too much about college entrance exams, but they should be thinking about developing their intellectual engagement with the world in order to be prepared for those final high school years when tests and applications dominate. Ninth graders should also be thinking about their extracurricular activities and exploring new interests and hobbies, or deepening existing ones. Ideally school breaks and vacations allow students to discover their own pleasure reading, take fun workshops or courses in areas of interest, and/or manage a part-time job. They are, however, also an opportunity to create and launch a study plan for college entrance exams as well as SAT Subject tests, AP tests, or challenging subjects in school.

Most students should plan on taking college entrance exams officially for the first time in the late fall, winter, and/or spring terms of their Junior year. We recommend completing diagnostic testing in January or February of 10th grade in order to make an informed and strategic choice between the ACT or SAT. It’s absolutely not necessary to manage both tests.

Targeted instruction, structured practice, and accountability are all critical to your success with college entrance exams. Baseline ACT or SAT testing will reveal strengths and areas for growth. The summer between 10th and 11th grade is a great time to work more intensively. If a private tutor hasn’t already been established, now is the time to find one that will help address the specific areas of competency that need improvement. Taking the test 2-3 times during Junior year ensures that you have completed one of the major components of the college application process. With college entrance exams completed, you can spend the summer between 11th and 12th grades focusing on college visits and developing the Common Application essay as well as supplemental essays.

For a college planning overview from grades 7 through 12, please click here.

To further discuss high school and college planning as well as private tutoring, please contact our office.

By Brad Hoffman, MS.Ed., and Faya Hoffman, MA, and Charlotte Kent, Ph.D.

Engaging Young Writers

January 12, 2019 Brad Hoffman

Engaging young writers can be a formidable challenge for any parent or teacher. In thinking about how to motivate students, it is helpful to step back from our preconceived notions about academic writing and lean into thinking about our own adult writing lives.

Can you remember the last time you sat down and wrote a five-paragraph essay? Perhaps you spent a few minutes crafting your thesis and three supporting details and then moved on to mapping out your writing on a graphic organizer before sitting down to type?

For most of us, thinking back to our last experience cycling through the writing process transports us immediately back to sixth grade English class, nervously mapping out three strong reasons that supported your mother as your hero. This form of writing was born, bred, and remains firmly in our middle and high school experiences. The writing process we shepherded through as students—the meticulous, often redundant planning, the stagnated, structured paragraphs, and the clever closing— is far removed from our current, everyday writing experiences. Engaging young writers requires a step back from our preconceived notions of academic writing and a step towards thinking about writing in the world.

In our day to day, writing takes on a more organic, natural feel. We write to-do lists for the week, notes to our children’s teachers, emails to colleagues, and thank you notes to friends. We put pen to paper when the tasks are relevant to our lives and personally motivating. Our everyday writing is task oriented— a means to an end. When we do sit down and write for pleasure, it is often a project of passion. We write because we are moved by an experience, whether it was a delicious meal to review on Yelp or an amazing trip to recount on a blog.

Our professional writing tasks are the ones that often require the most planning, thinking, and following of a firm structure. They are the writing pieces most closely aligned to the ideal middle school essay. And not surprisingly, for most of us, we go through the process of completing these tasks with the same lack of joy we experienced when crafting our introduction on George Washington as an 11 year old.

As we reflect back on our academic writing experience, it should be of little surprise that our students are often reluctant to engage in the writing process. School writing often sets students up to only think about writing through the lens of five perfect, thesis-supporting paragraphs. It is no wonder so many of our students are uninspired and unmotivated to engage with the written word.

But, like any other craft, when it comes to developing stronger writing skills and, ultimately engaging young writers, practice is key. The strongest, most confident writers are those that write often. With increased time on task, young writers develop the courage to play around with new vocabulary and varied sentence structure. They develop writing self awareness and identify what topics, formats, and ideas inspire them to write. They begin to self monitor, editing and revising as they write instead of as prepublication chore. The more students write, the stronger they become at writing.

So, how does one inspire their student to write? The key to engaging young writers is finding what motivates them and giving them choices and ideas for how writers operate outside the parameters of a five paragraph essay.

Here are some ideas to engage your student in writing:

Set up an email account: There is something incredibly joyous about sending and receiving letters. Setting up an email account establishes a natural tool for writing. Instead of calling grandma to tell her about a playdate, your student can send a written account of the adventure.
Start a bullet journal: If you have not yet googled bullet journalling, you are in for a real treat. Invented by a designer and sensationalized by Instagram, bullet journaling is a recent phenomenon that is part sketchbook and part planner. “Bujo” enthusiasts track, organize, and memorialize their day-to-day life using every medium— from patterned washi tape to neon highlighters. Start exploring #bujoinspiration with your young writer and head to the craft store to stock up on supplies. They will be hooked and writing daily in no time!
Write a graphic novel: While the inexperienced reader may shrug graphic novels off as comics, the astute consumer knows that they are filled with incredible dialogue, sophisticated vocabulary, and nuanced plot lines. If your student can not pull their head out of their favorite graphic novel, it may be high time they write their own! Pick out a printable comic frame online and your young writer is just a few pen strokes away from creating a new character or illustrating their summer vacation.

Writing does not have to be a stressful experience. Engaging young writers can be a meaningful and rewarding task!

For help supporting your writer, contact us about private tutoring.

By Marisa Krohn, Learning Specialist

Understanding ACT Scores

January 7, 2019 Brad Hoffman

“So what did you get on the ACT?” As soon as two weeks have passed since your child’s test date, they will start logging onto the website several times a day, reloading and reloading, until the answer to that question finally appears: a single two-digit number. Students are often so focused on that number, and the handful of subscores below it, that they overlook a statement that appears in small print above their score: “ACT will notify you by email when your score report is ready.” Unfortunately, many students and parents never look at the full score report and, therefore, don’t fully understand ACT scores. It’s really a missed opportunity because fully understanding ACT scores helps students and families make informed decisions about their next steps.

Sample Score Report

For ease of reading this article, we recommend downloading a sample ACT score report.

Composite Scores

Upon opening the report, you’ll notice a two-digit number, labeled “composite,” on the upper lefthand corner of the first page. ACT intentionally places this number in the first place our eyes would look — the composite is seen as both the first and the last word on how well the student performed. This number is the reason your child kept refreshing their phone’s web browser. This number is what colleges use to discuss the ACT scores of the students they admit. For instance, the middle 50 percent of students starting at the University of Michigan this fall scored 31 to 34, and the middle range starting at Fordham scored 28 to 32. Calculated on a scale from 1 to 36, the composite is the average of your child’s performance on the multiple choice sections of the test. (For reference, the national average ACT composite is about 21.)

STEM and ELA Scores

The next step in understanding ACT scores is to look at the numbers extending to the right of the composite, all of which are scored on the same 36-point scale as the composite. First are the scores for the Math and Science sections, followed by a STEM subscore that represents the average of those two numbers. Next come the scores for the English (proofreading) and Reading sections. If your child took the essay section — which is officially optional but highly recommended — the next score in the line will be labeled “Writing”. Writing is scored differently, on a scale of 1 to 12. But the ACT uses a formula to incorporate the Writing score along with the English and Reading scores into the last score in the column, a subscore labeled ELA for English Language Arts. A graph that extends below each of the scores gives a visual representation of the tester’s score on the 36-point scale, as well as that number’s distance above or below the score that ACT considers a demonstration of college readiness in that subject area.

It is worth noting that the STEM and ELA subscores are arguably of limited utility. First, they don’t match the way that students conceptualize the test, as four or five distinct sections. Second, the STEM subscore is complicated in that the Science section does not rely on scientific content knowledge — instead, it behaves like a critical reading section about scientific topics that incorporates charts and graphic representations. However, the two graphs below the section scores and subscores graph are definitely useful in understanding ACT scores. The left graph measures the tester’s performance on each section relative to other ACT testers in the state, and the right graph measures performance relative to all ACT testers in the nation. Instead of the 36-point scale, these graphs are scaled as percentiles, a measurement many students and parents find easier to understand.

Detailed Results

The percentiles allow testers and parents to conceptualize the strength of the tester’s performance, and the bottom of the page, labeled “Detailed Results,” offers a path forward for improvement. For each multiple choice section, the report lists a few major categories of skills. Next to each category is the raw number of questions answered correctly out of the total number of questions in that skill, plus the score translated into a percentage. Above the bar that serves as a visual representation of the percentage is a marker for what ACT calls the “Readiness Range,” the percentage correct that testers would need to earn in order to meet the test’s standards of college readiness. Categories that have reached college readiness will have a checkmark next to them.

So how does your child know whether to test again? Use your newfound skills with understanding ACT scores to decide, starting with the composite. Has it fallen comfortably into the range for their target colleges? Conversely, should they adjust their college list to more comfortably fit their composite? What about the section scores — are any of them lower than you’d like? If your child decides to test again — and many students end up testing two to three times (score choice or super scoring may also apply to your child’s college list) — the “Detailed Results” page lets them know which skills need the most development. A skillful tutor can help your child identify the most useful practice materials and help them find strategies to let their skills shine.

College and Career Planning

Standardized tests are an important element of the college application process, and students should spend ample time preparing for them; as a parent, though, you want to make sure that your child is not feeling unduly anxious or concerned about their scores. One section of the ACT score report that might inadvertently cause stress is the section labeled “College and Career Planning,” which draws inferences about their future careers based on the tester’s results. While this section is well-intentioned, we contend that the ACT simply does not cover a broad enough range of material or skills to predict, for instance, whether a high-school junior could eventually become a good engineer. Your child is very much at the beginning of their college and career journey, and their future holds all sorts of possibilities. Ideally, the feeling that their test results will bring is one of pride and empowerment.

To learn more about understanding SAT Scores, click here.

Please contact our office to discuss your child’s test preparation and college planning needs.

By Elizabeth Walters, Private Tutor and Writing Coach, and Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and College Counselor