Homeschooling Archives

Dr. Dorothy Strickland on Improving Early Literacy Skills

April 30, 2020 Brad Hoffman

We can’t stress enough the importance of early literacy, thus we wanted to present this great video by Dr. Dorothy Strickland, who was the State of New Jersey Professor of Reading at Rutgers University; she passed away in April 2020. Prior to her appointment at Rutgers, Dr. Strickland was professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and she is also the coauthor of the text Supporting Struggling Readers and Writers.

In this video, Dr. Dorothy Strickland speaks at a hearing on improving literacy skills in children and young adults. In her presentation, she discusses the key role that early literacy plays in enabling the kind of early experiences linked to academic achievement:

“For example, young children need parents, caregivers, and teachers who: know that a child’s capacity for learning is not determined at birth; who involve children in trips to local points of interest and talk with them about what they see and do; who provide time for reading to children and talking with them about what is read.”

Improving the Literacy Skills of Children and Young Adults: Dorothy Strickland

Watch this video on YouTube

Check out some of our other resources on early literacy:

Written by: Editorial Team, My Learning Springboard, Inc.

Online Learning Routines

March 21, 2020 Brad Hoffman

Executive Functions and Our New Normal: How to Make Remote Learning Work for Your Family

For students and parents across the nation (and the world), the COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting education in a truly unprecedented way. With schools switching to various kinds of remote instruction and timelines for the future remaining uncertain, it’s very difficult for families to know how best to serve their children’s educational needs at this time and to develop new and effective online learning routines.

But while the situation is evolving rapidly, there are nonetheless some concrete steps you can take to meet this challenge and make the situation easier on your kids—and yourself. The first thing to realize is that you’re not alone in your confusion. No one is completely sure what to do right now, and that’s okay! Know that if you’ve got your children safely at home and their basic needs are being met, you and your family are already in a fortunate situation compared to many.

What’s more, this unique set of circumstances can also provide some surprising opportunities for growth that your child’s regular school year might not have. Without the day-to-day pressures of school, extracurriculars, and social commitments, you and your family have a chance to dig into some of the skills that can get lost in the shuffle. Think executive functions, organizational skills, building new online learning routines—all these are skills that are critically important to academic success, and transitioning to remote learning can be a valuable way for your child to practice them. Students who have been homeschooled (myself included!) often report that these skills are the key assets that help them succeed later in life.

Plus, when it comes to executive functioning, you don’t need any special background to support your child. For instance, if you’ve been fretting that subpar multiplication skills will hold your child back during their remote math classes, you can breathe easy; you don’t have to be a content expert to help your child get a lot out of remote learning. By shifting your expectations for the rest of this school year and focusing on the following tips, you’ll be able to support your child in building valuable skills and effective online learning routines during the coming weeks and months—even though the learning experience looks much different than we all thought it would.

Keep Things Predictable

In executive function coaching, we often focus on the value of routines, especially during the school week. You’ve probably experienced this yourself—for example, you may have noticed that your child does better in school or is in a better mood when they do their homework on a consistent schedule. The same thing is still true now: having a steady routine can help students feel balanced and give them a chance to practice being responsible and independent, even though the routines themselves will be somewhat unfamiliar.

As your family is building your new routines, including online learning routines, consider the following questions:

What does the school require of students right now? When are online classes, and what do students need to do to prepare for them? How about homework?
What extracurriculars can we try to maintain at home? For example, kids who are missing out on a school play can write skits with siblings, or kids who usually play sports can come up with warmups and stretches to do at home.
What hobbies does my child enjoy? Now is the time to give kids space for activities—reading for fun, playing games, doing crafts—that might not usually fit into their daily schedules.
How can we socialize right now? Consider FaceTime with friends and extended family, or visits to open spaces like parks where you can still practice social distancing.

With all of the above laid out clearly, you can piece together structured days that meet your family’s needs and give your child a sense of stability amid the chaos.

Plan With Your Child

As important as routines are, it’s also important not to force them on your child unilaterally. Helping your child develop a sense of ownership and responsibility in this situation is key to supporting them in building their executive function skills. Even more important, making sure your child buys in to your family’s new day-to-day life will give them a much-needed sense of agency in these uncertain times—and likely help you avoid fights and tantrums, too.

Where you can, give your child choices about how to structure daily routines and online learning routines. You might ask:

Which tasks would you like to do earlier in the day? How about later on?
How would you like to organize your workspace?
What would you like to do during breaks in your schoolwork?
What should we try to do the same way as your school does? What would you like to try doing differently?
Which tasks (or school subjects, or kinds of homework) do you want to try doing on your own? Which ones would you like more help with?

All these details will vary according to your child’s age, their learning style, and your family’s circumstances overall. And of course, not all of your child’s ideas and preferences will be practical. But even with very young children, it’s worth opening up these conversations and working together to make sure their voices are heard.

Prioritize Mental Health

Especially during times of crisis, it’s important to remember that your child’s mental and emotional health are even more important than their academic development. As you establish your family’s new routines, make sure that you’re paying plenty of attention to managing stress and giving your child outlets for their feelings. Taking some responsibility for these needs is also another way for kids to build executive function skills—maybe they can use their newfound free time to help you plan healthy meals, for example.

This will look a little different for every child and every family, but a few essential areas to consider include:

Sleep hygiene: As much as you can, try to maintain regular sleep schedules for everyone in your family. Just because you don’t need to leave home early in the morning doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to stay up late or ignore the difference between weekdays and weekends.
Physical exercise: Make sure your child stays moving! Go for walks or jogs outside if you can, take your child to play in an open space like a park, or explore child-friendly online yoga videos.
Nutrition: Kids generally eat at set times at school, and they should do the same at home. Make sure that meals and snacks are predictable and wholesome, and that kids don’t see being at home all day as permission to snack whenever they want.
Setting boundaries: As any adult who works from home knows, it can be hard to switch out of work mode when your workspace overlaps with your living space. Try to set up a designated space for children’s schoolwork and online learning routines, and then use that physical boundary as a way to mark transitions from work to play throughout the day.
Managing anxiety: Understandably, a lot of kids are anxious about the current state of the world. Acknowledge their fears, give them space to talk, and lead them in calming activities like painting, listening to music, or even simple mindfulness meditations.

The coming weeks and months are bound to be challenging for all of us, but by focusing on the unique opportunities of these very strange circumstances, you can help your child come out the other side with new skills that will support them long into the future.

By Hannah Sheldon Dean, MSW and Private Tutor, and Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and Learning Specialist

Optimizing Online Learning: Supporting Upper School Students

March 21, 2020 Brad Hoffman

Any new activity requires a little more time and attention, and the same is true for optimizing online learning. One advantage for students today is that most schools already use a virtual course platform for homework. When schools need to switch from in-person classrooms to online learning, however, new platforms may be necessary. All the change is disruptive, but it is possible to succeed with some extra time and patience.

The most confusing thing that many students face is the plethora of new small assignments posted online that compensate for the in-class tutorial. Every teacher is doing something slightly different to ensure that students still gain important knowledge while optimizing online learning environments. The nature of the course topic requires these slight variations in style and assignment. This is true in person as well, but online learning highlights these differences. So many differences all at once, seemingly on the same platform is why that sense of disorientation arises.

The following are some learning tips for optimizing online learning.

Start from the growth mindset that you can do this. You’ve learned things that seemed difficult before and online learning systems are no different. When you encounter a new online platform believe that by clicking around, looking for tips online, and using the help section, you will eventually be able to use it. If you need to set up a new system or connect a program with a computer tool, like a camera or microphone, no matter how disorienting it seems at first, remember that you can do this. Others have and you will too.

Anything new requires extra time. In the beginning, plan a set-up period to minimize stress about completing an assignment. This is especially true as you face new kinds of online learning activities. If a live presentation starts at 10 am on a platform you have not used before, log in fifteen minutes early to see how it works and troubleshoot any problems.

Keep a notebook near the computer (or a document in your files) to keep your log-in information and the specific steps necessary for each new system. Or better yet, make use of a secure password vault, such as LastPass. As your instructors introduce different online learning platforms and systems, remembering all the particular features to engage with the online learning will get overwhelming. Dedicate a page to each system so that you can add additional notes about the system’s features and utility as you learn how to use it.

Computers are filled with distractions that make focused time difficult. This is even more true for anyone who has ADD or ADHD. Pop-ups, updates, and notifications may be useful sometimes, but when trying to concentrate on something new, those reminders interrupt your thinking. Consider turning off automatic notifications when you engage with any online learning, including texting notifications.

For those unaccustomed to online learning, your mind is challenged to learn two new things at once. You are both learning the new course content and the new delivery system. This is tiring and remote education therefore often requires additional short breaks to let the mind relax. To optimize your success with online learning, the Pomodoro method can be useful. Set a timer for 25 minutes of work with a 5-minute break period at the end. Repeat this 3-4 times and then take a longer break. Try to avoid using breaks to search online or play games, both of which still make the brain work to solve problems. Stretch, knit, draw, make tea, do push-ups…find whatever amuses you that won’t tax your mind.

(TIP: a boxing timer app can be useful for Pomodoro method. It lets you set the time for work and breaks in your desired number of cycles. This eliminates the additional work of tracking a timer.)

The advantage and challenge of online learning is that it makes the student more responsible for acknowledging any difficulties they face. When something doesn’t work or you don’t understand, there is no instructor there to notice the look of confusion on your face. Recognizing your own confusion and learning to ask for assistance are the most important personal development skills that students gain in online learning environments. Instructors expect students to communicate more often in these situations. Don’t hesitate to ask questions, sign up for chat study sessions, and communicate what isn’t working so that you get the assistance you need.

Finally, a hovering parent can be just as disabling as an inattentive one, depending on the needs of the student in online learning circumstances. Some students thrive at the opportunity to be independently responsible. Other students need and want oversight and encouragement to produce. Also, different classes using an assortment of online learning techniques may require different kinds of support. To optimize online learning within the home, communication is key. Parents have an opportunity to show faith in their students’ abilities, but children also need to recognize when they aren’t succeeding on the terms they established. When a student is struggling with online learning, the student has a chance to self-reflect and consider what would help. Learning to communicate those needs are a part of the executive function skills that make young adults into successful citizens of the world.

The struggles we face optimizing online learning are opportunities to become more effective tomorrow. The challenges are real and require our time to learn and adapt to these new systems. Everyone needs to be patient with each other as we face this unexpected thrust into a completely online realm with online learning and remote work the new norm.

By Charlotte Kent, Ph.D. and Private Tutor, and Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and Learning Specialist

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

Yet: A Small But Powerful Word To Change Mental Habits

October 17, 2018 Brad Hoffman

Anxiety arises at the most inopportune moments. When it does, its message debilitates with a long list of negatives about our own potential. Mental habits need to be eased into new directions. Using the word “yet” offers a little crack in that storm. Adding that simple word at the end of your sentence can help you start to believe in what you don’t know how to do…yet.

For a long time in school, I would freeze with worries. I would get frustrated with all that I did not know and could not accomplish. One day, during a study session, a friend noticed and made a simple suggestion. Just add the word yet at the end of the sentence. My mental habits wouldn’t change overnight. That was too difficult, given my situation and state of mind. But, introducing “yet” could allow that some moment in the future might be less poignant, thus some relief from the pressure I felt.

I don’t know anything…yet.

I can’t…yet.

I won’t…yet.

I haven’t ever and can’t imagine…yet.

Over the next few months, I started including yet at the end of my sentences. Not aloud, but in my head. That little word opened a new expanse for me and can for you. Mental habits change one word at a time.

In the years since my own discovery of the word yet, I have recommended it to many as a simple but effective and powerful mental shift. I’ve seen it change how people approach homework, standardized test practice, graduate school prep, and even career development.

The word yet allows possibility, when ready. The pressure to know now, immediately, easily, without effort no longer applies. The moment will come. It will happen. Mental habits will shift and those new ways of thinking will transform what you believe you can do. The word “yet” reminds us that developing new mental habits takes continuous practice, slow advancement, and constant return to the place of struggle in order to get to that final place of success.

Fear of failure or success, past or current academic challenges, and personal stressors all contribute to anxiety. One of the great difficulties of dealing with anxiety is the way it does not respond to rational arguments. Some mental habits slime our emotional and intellectual space. Spreading across all parts of our lives, they becomes the lens through which we see the world. Anxiety often feels permanent, but that’s why “yet” helps.

“Yet” doesn’t try to fight anxiety. It acknowledges the immediate moment full with feelings of fear and failure. Rather than argue against them, “yet” gently suggests that this moment isn’t forever. There is a future in which things can be different. Your mental habits can also help you manage anxiety. To get there will take showing up here, where there is effort to be made, fears to face and, with that practice, success to be found. The mental habit of including “yet” at the end of the sentence is a simple contribution to managing anxiety.

I like that the word “yet” is “of obscure origin” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Obscure origins somehow permit potentialities to flow into the obscure future. “Yet” allows us to look forward when all we want to do is look down. “Yet” encourages us to consider how to get to what we know nothing about, yet.

By Charlotte Kent, Private Tutor and Executive Function Coach

Dr. Dorothy Strickland on Improving Early Literacy Skills

Online Learning Routines

Executive Functions and Our New Normal: How to Make Remote Learning Work for Your Family

Keep Things Predictable

Plan With Your Child

Prioritize Mental Health

Optimizing Online Learning: Supporting Upper School Students

What Does College Writing Readiness Look Like?

Yet: A Small But Powerful Word To Change Mental Habits

Company Overview

School Planning

Private Tutoring

Test Preparation