michael's blog

ADHD or Sleep Deprivation?

 

"A number of studies have shown that a huge proportion of children with an A.D.H.D. diagnosis also have sleep-disordered breathing like apnea or snoring, restless leg syndrome or non-restorative sleep, in which delta sleep is frequently interrupted."

A thought-provoking opinion piece in the New York Times entitled, “Diagnosing the Wrong Deficit” bears mentioning and discussion.  In it, the author raises the point that the rising incidence with which ADHD is being diagnosed could in fact be reflective of another phenomenon: delta sleep deprivation. 

Bullying: Warning Signs And Starting A Dialogue With Your Child

 

As a second post in a series on bullying, we’re going to look at some warning signs that may indicate that your child may be the victim of a bully, and talk about how to start a dialogue with your child and the school to resolve the issues.

There are a panoply of signs and symptoms that your child may be bullied, either at school or elsewhere. Listed here are a few of the most common:

Common Math Misconceptions

 

If someone struggles in math, there are often three misconceptions to which people will point as an explanation.

Why You Should Consider Summer Tutoring for Your Student

 

Every year at this time, parents begin thinking about and planning for the activities that they want their children to participate in for the upcoming summer.  As we are educators, it should come as no surprise that we think that a summer tutoring program is one activity that should be considered for part of your child’s activities.

There are a variety of reasons that we believe summer tutoring is a “no brainer.”  A big one has to do with minimizing the “summer slide” in student knowledge that invariably accompanies two or in some cases, two-and-a-half, months away from the learning environment.  This is a phenomenon well known by teachers.  In fact, many autumn curriculums build in accommodations for it.

Bullying Redux

 

In a prior post, we touched on bullying and some things to consider if having to contend with a bullying situation.  In this post we revisit bullying and start to consider some additional information.  We will blog on this some more and get specific in future posts.

Contrary to what you might think due to the last few years of news prevalence, there is not a bullying epidemic.  According to SLATE Senior Editor and author of the book Sticks and Stones, Emily Bazelon, statistics show that the frequency of bullying has remained fairly unchanged over the last 25 years. However, while the instances of bullying may not have increased, that does not negate the fact that bullying still exists and, as Bazelon is quick to note, is a serious problem.

Managing "Push Back"

 

QWERTY's founder, Mark Carey, M.A., guest blogs today and offers some excellent advice about managing a student that is resisting tutoring.

When a student announces that he or she no longer thinks they should continue (or start) tutoring, parents have an opportunity to model effective reasoning and problem-solving skills and can help position this decision in a way that makes it, and similar decisions, go better in the future.

When A Failure May Be A Success

 

A recent piece in The Atlantic Magazine, Why Parents Need To Let Their Children Fail, touches on the non-content related goals of education and ways that overzealous parents can sometimes short-circuit them.  The gist of the article, that the possibility of occasional failure must be allowed by parents, caused us to again reflect on the role that we believe effective tutoring should play and how that perspective informs our approach with students.

How Effective Are Your Study Techniques?

 

Not all study techniques are created equal and many traditional techniques are not as effective as we believe.  At least, that’s the result of a new scholarly article recently published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest. The study takes a scientific, measured, and psychological approach to how students study and determines for most students which techniques are the most, and the least, effective ways to study in order to learn material, or pass that exam.

Planning For Study Space

Many students will benefit from a degree of preplanned structure and habit when it comes to study space.  Here are some thoughts to consider when creating a study space for your student.

General Principle: Focus on what you want to accomplish, not how you want things to look.

Location

Start your thinking from the end of the school day.  Consider the "Drop Zone" and the "Pickup Zone" problem:

Through which door does the student enter? Does s/he have a place here to leave coats, shoes, skateboard, etc.? Is this also where the backpack gets dropped? Where would you like the backpack to be when it comes time to start homework?

"I've Never Seen That Before."

 

Here's a useful bit of information for students that feel like their teacher has asked them things on a test or quiz that they have “never seen before.”

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