5 Tips to Make it a Great School Year

5 Tips to Make it a Great School Year As your child starts the new school year, its the best time to set the tone for positivity. As Eileen Huntington of Huntington Learning Center says, a bit of mental preparation can help children and parents kick things off on a good note. We tell families all the time that attitude has a major impact on how a child views school, she says. Parents who communicate with their children about school and its importance and embrace an optimistic demeanor about how to tackle challenges along the way have a tremendous influence on their childrens outlook as well. How can you help your child make this a great school year from the start? Here are five tips: Talk about failure as a good thing. Many children who have faced school adversity in the past approach each new school year with trepidationand its understandable. However, the best thing parents can do is talk about the fact that each failure yields a new and important lesson. Explain that every mistake or difficult class is an opportunity to grow and learn and apply that knowledge to a future situation. Keep it in perspective. Reflection is a powerful activity and reminds your child that even the hardest situations will turn out fine. Talk about problems your child has had in the past and how he or she overcame them. Remind your child that if similar issues arise this year, they wont ruin your childs life forever. When a poor grade or failed test occurs, teach your child to take a deep breath, calm down and think about how to do better. Give a refresher on problem-solving. Problems in life are inevitable. Build your childs independence this year by reminding him or her of the steps to solve problems. Give your child plenty of opportunities to make decisions and deal with the consequences of those decisionsgood or bad. Encourage your child to persevere when his or her first attempt at something isnt successful. Embrace a growth mindset. Children who believe their intelligence can be developed excel in school and life much more than those who believe it is static. Talk with your child about embracing challenges, even when they prove frustrating. Celebrate forward momentum and progress and remind your child regularly that theres something new to learn each and every day. The more you can show your child that learning is continuous, the more open he or she will be to soaking up new knowledge. Set goals. A new school year is the perfect time for children to think about what they want to achieve in the months to come and how they will do so. Talk with your child about what is important to him or her this school year and how you can support those efforts. Then, be sure to revisit those goals every month and at report card time. Parents can make such a big difference in how their children approach the school year by being confident and enthusiastic from the outset. Even if your child has had some difficult times in school, you can still start things off with a positive attitude,Huntington says. Children are perceptiveif they sense optimism from their parents, it rubs off. Make this school year great by encouraging your child to put the best foot forward and committing to supporting your child however he or she needs it. About Huntington Huntington is the tutoring and test prep leader.Its certified tutors provide individualized instruction in reading, phonics, writing, study skills, elementary and middle school math, Algebra through Calculus, Chemistry, and other sciences. It preps for the SAT and ACT, as well as state and standardized exams. Huntington programs develop the skills, confidence, and motivation to help students succeed and meet the needs of Common Core State Standards. Founded in 1977, Huntingtons mission is to give every student the best education possible. Learn how Huntington can help at www.huntingtonhelps.com. For franchise opportunities please visit www.huntingtonfranchise.com. 2017 Huntington Mark, LLC. Huntington Learning Center, the three-leaf logo, and 1 800 CAN LEARN are registered trademarks of Huntington Mark, LLC. Each franchised Huntington Learning Center is operated under a franchise agreement with Huntington Learning Centers, Inc.

Anaheim SAT Tutoring SAT Essay Vocabulary - TutorNerds

Anaheim SAT Tutoring SAT Essay Vocabulary - TutorNerds Tips from an Anaheim SAT Tutor: Easy SAT Essay Tip: Vocabulary Tips from an Anaheim SAT Tutor: Easy SAT Essay Tip: Vocabulary  Though not a required section of the current SAT, the essay portion is a significant section that you can use to impress colleges and stand out by doing well.   The problem is that there isn’t much time to read and analyze the prompt, organize your thoughts and observations, and write and proofread your essay.   And since part of your grade is based on your writing skills, it can be stressful and difficult to execute a well-constructed and high-quality essay in only fifty minutes our Anaheim SAT tutors are the most experienced in SoCal. The solution to this problem is to practice writing many essays and mastering your process.   Every essay you write will be different, because every SAT prompt is different.   (for some advice about mastering the analysis of the prompt, click here.   However, there are a few tips that you can incorporate into your writing to help you boost your writing score every time, regardless of the prompt. The SAT is a standardized test and is administered at a massive scale, so graders must be very objective in their evaluations of your writing.   This keeps grading consistent across various graders and various students across the country. One of the criteria that graders are judging your essay on is your writing.   In the writing rubric, the highest score includes writing that “demonstrates a highly effective use and command of language” as well as “a consistent use of precise word choice.”   See College Board’s page on essay scores for more information. This means that graders are looking at your vocabulary and word choice and want to see appropriate uses of more advanced words.   This also means that you should not just be tossing big words into your essay without knowing what they mean. We can use this grading criteria to help boost our essay score in a similar way that we can think about sentence variety to boost our score (see SAT essay sentence complexity).   By researching a few choice vocabulary words and mastering them, you can more consistently find more impressive words to fit correctly into your essay. There are many places to find good lists of vocabulary lists, but let’s look at SATVocabulary.us as our source.   This list was made for when vocabulary was more specifically tested on the SAT back before 2016.   Students today don’t benefit as much from memorizing hundreds of new words, but the list still can help us find a few we want to remember for our essay. Look through the list and find words you already know.   They shouldn’t be new words, but they also shouldn’t be words you use regularly.   Words that you wouldn’t typically say or write, but that you understand how they should be used.   These are the words that you want to incorporate into your essay because you are less likely to use them incorrectly. Make a list of no more than around ten words and write them down.   When you do your next practice essay, have the list with you and check it to find a place to use two or three of your words.   Don’t force yourself to use the words, but chances are that if you have a list of around ten words that at least a couple will fit your prompt. Do this a few more times until you are used to these vocabulary words.   This way, on test day, it will be second nature to include this more advanced vocabulary and hopefully boost your writing score. Sign up for our private Anaheim SAT tutoring today. Michael C. is currently a private math, science, and standardized test tutor with TutorNerds in Irvine and Anaheim. All blog entries, with the exception of guest bloggers, are written by Tutor Nerds. Are you an education professional? If so, email us at pr@tutornerds.com for guest blogging and collaborations. We want to make this the best free education resource in SoCal, so feel free to suggest what you would like to see us write.