Greetings!

We would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank you for your patronage this past year.
We hope the 2006-2007 school year has been a successful one for your children. Summer is only three weeks away; every year the time seems to fly by so quickly!

We want to remind you that we tutor during the summer months. If you simply want to keep your student on top of their "academic game" throughout the summer, review the previous years' work, or prepare for the coming year's curriculum, we are here to take care of your students needs.

Please call to schedule your summer sessions now. See below for our summer special!
If you want to reserve your tutor for the fall, please call us or send us an email. We appreciate your business!
Sincerely,

Jane Saeman
Aim High Tutors
"exclusively in your home"

 posted by Jane    0 comments

Summertime Tutoring - Yes or No?

School is coming to an end for this year. Has your child reached the goals that you and his teacher had for him? Is there any talk of repeating the grade next year? And, of course, your biggest concerns are the skills that are behind grade level. It is time to make the decision - summer tutoring or not. Consider a few things that might help you make up your mind.

Any child who is in need of summer tutoring because of his or her lack of success in the classroom is probably also the child who has struggled all year. And, although, tutoring may indeed provide the time for direct one-on-one address of deficient educational areas, you don't want the child to believe he or she is being 'punished' for getting 'bad' grades. If the decision is made to have tutoring over the summer, make sure that you also set aside time to have fun.

Plan and mark days for specific events or trips on your calendar. It can be inexpensive outings like a trip to the frozen yogurt store or the movies, a visit to the country (or city), swimming in the ocean or lake, or a visit to Gramma's house to get spoiled. Spread these out over the summer so that your child can look at the calendar and have those times to look forward to. If your child plays sports, arrange tutoring time around the sports. Physical activity is an excellent outlet, especially if the child excels on the field or the court. This can rebuild self-esteem that may have been hurt by bad grades in school. Never take an activity away that the child excels in. Very often when a parent does this, the child gives up on everything.

Choose your tutor carefully. Find a happy and fun teacher. Keep the tutoring consistent. Of course, you will take a vacation and there will be some missed lessons, but don't cancel tutoring at the drop of a hat. The tendency will be to try and "make up" for those missed lessons by pushing harder the next session. That puts too much pressure on the child. You want slow and consistent progress. That is what makes summer tutoring successful - school is out, there is no homework, and hopefully some of the pressure has been lifted. Use this to create a less stressful environment where the child and the tutor work on core areas of learning that are deficient like basic reading or math skills.

And above all, keep your child's best interest in mind. Maybe you made straight A's in school, but your son or daughter may struggle to make B's and C's. Accept that this is their personal best. The goal of tutoring - or any teaching experience, for that matter - is to help children be all that they can be. This does not necessarily mean living up to parents' expectations or legacy. Always be positive about any improvement that is made. Children want to see your pride in them when they look in your eyes. And a smile along with that never hurts.
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La Paz Intermediate

FYI: Nervous about sending your child to middle school? Think middle school teachers assign too much homework? La Paz Intermediate wants to know. The school is asking parents of incoming students and current students to fill out their separate surveys about their experiences. Go to www.svusd.k12.ca.us, click on schools and go to the La Paz site.
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Creative Techniques and Learning Disabilities

Many strategies for dealing effectively with learning disabilities include multi-sensory approaches. The thinking behind this is simple: the more ways you give a person to remember something, the more chances they have of actually doing so. One approach that works particularly for the artistically inclined-is the use of creative techniques to relay and interpret academic information. These techniques may include the integration of visual art (such as painting, drawing, or photography), literary art (such as poems, short stories, or plays), music, or drama. Not only are these approaches entertaining for students, they also make use of different areas of the brain, which promotes valuable cross-region connections.

There are two excellent sources on the subject, which are profiled below.

1. The Power of the Arts: Creative Strategies for Teaching Exceptional Learners, written by Sally L. Smith
The author of this revolutionary book is one of the country's foremost experts on working with learning disabled students. She's the founder and director of Washington D.C.'s Lab School, an institution she created specifically for students with learning differences. Smith is also a professor of education at American University and the mother of a child with scholastic difficulties. All of these qualifications make her well-suited to providing parents, teachers, and other learning disability specialists with information on the best techniques for working with special needs students. This book consists of interviews with faculty members of the Lab School, who have found that incorporating art into their curriculum has made their lessons come alive for their students. One example illustrates how sculpture can be used to teach students about geometric principles, while another shows how acting can enhance students' vocabularies. Clear, detailed instructions allow readers to put these techniques to use in their own homes or classrooms. Smith makes the important argument that art is not only a fun way for students to express themselves, but also culturally and scholastically enriching.

2. Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level, written by Sally Shaywitz
This critically-acclaimed book uses science to give evidence that artistic techniques are an effective way to teach dyslexic students how to read. Shaywitz-a Yale neuroscientist-looks at the structure of the dyslexic brain and how it functions. Neurotechnology has proven that those with dyslexia use a different part of the brain to read than those without dyslexia. Art can be used as a means to create connections between the two areas of the brain, thus enabling the ability to make sense of written language. Shaywitz makes the compelling argument that dyslexia should be looked at not just as a weakness, but also as a strength. She points to the large number of highly successful artists who have struggled with and benefited from their dyslexia, including Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein and bestselling author John Irving. Shaywitz provides in-depth case studies of these artists to illustrate how dyslexia allows for increased creativity and comprehension, while at the same time inhibiting the ability to decode letters and punctuation marks. She indicates that art can help to bridge the gap between these two types of skills, which can lead to great personal and professional achievement.
 posted by Jane    0 comments

Do I Need a Tutor?

Sometimes it is difficult for parents to know if their child needs a tutor. Do you see your child studying hard for tests or preparing homework and bringing home a report card that says insufficient effort? Do you wish your child could have more one-on-one time with her/his teachers but know the teachers are too busy to provide it? If you're not certain what would help your child to do better in school, then a good first step is to ask your child's teacher! Teachers know how a child is doing, and how well s/he is doing relative to the other students in his/her class. They also know exactly what the state or local school district requires the student to know before the end of the school year. If you feel your child is struggling, or if you want to make sure that your child gets and stays ahead of the pack, taking action sooner rather than later is the key!

CAN'T TUTOR YOUR OWN CHILD?

Not a problem! Many parents cannot tutor their own children.Educators have long known that parents often can't assist their children with their homework. At this point, you have to step in and save the child from future problems. Hiring the right tutor is often the most efficient way to provide the support, confidence and edge your child needs to reach his or her full potential. The sooner you do that, the quicker and easier the situation can be reversed. Remember: If a weak foundation goes unnoticed in the early stages, it won't be long before the whole building collapses, leaving the child and parent disappointed and frustrated.
 posted by Jane    0 comments

Do You Need a Little Memory Help?

Mnemonics is the general name for those “little sayings” such as “i before e except after c;” that work as memory aids. The topic of mnemonics actually encompasses a variety of devices, which includes pictures, rhymes, and using letters to make a sentence.
Mnemonics fall into five main technique categories:
1. ACROSTIC – This technique is the most common and is created by using the first letter of each word to make a sentence. Examples include:
“Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally,” which designates the mathematical order of operations (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction) and
“My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas,” which refers to the order of the planets from the sun (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto)
2. ACRONYMS – Acronyms are formed by taking the first letter of each word to form a new word. This technique is often used in organizations and businesses (NASA, IBM) but is quite effective as a memory technique as well because the student only needs to remember one word rather than several. Examples of this include:
HOMES, which is to remember the names of the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior)
UCAN, which is the name of the four states that meet at one point (Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada.)
3. KEYWORD – This is a two-step process that requires the student to first think of a word that reminds them of the concept they are trying to remember and then come up with a sentence (and/or image) that combines the two to represent the meaning. For example:
The French word dormir means to sleep so a sentence that a student could use would be Norm sleeps in the Dorm (which has the bonus of rhyming.)
4. ROMAN ROOM – This technique is especially effective for memorizing long lists such as presidents of the United States, the classification of plants, or the layers of the Earth. Students can use the technique by thinking of a their favorite room and imagining themselves looking from left to right, picking out the pieces of furniture. They then take the information they want to remember and attach one “piece” of it to a certain piece of furniture. For example:
To remember the first ten states to ratify the Constitution of the United States, students make connections between the states and the furniture in the room. For instance, Delaware was the first state; a student may connect Delaware to a Dell computer, then think of Delaware sitting on top of the computer. Pennsylvania, the second state, may connect to a pencil, a really huge pencil sitting on a desk, with Pennsylvania on top of it. To store the information students imagine states in a room fighting over who gets to ratify the constitution first. To retrieve the information students then make their way through the room in their mind and make the connections to the information again.
5. PEG WORDS – Peg words involve using an organized numbering system to connect to ideas or words that need to be learned in order. First the student creates a rhyming word to go with each step (or peg) of the organization structure that will help to recall it quickly. For example:
In a numerical system a student may use 1-bun, 2-shoe, 3-tree, etc. Then, when trying to recall something in numerical order, the presidents of the United States for instance, the student will connect the first name in the list to 1 – bun by first finding an image to connect to George Washington (perhaps a washing machine?) then connecting the washing machine to a bun (1-bun) by picturing a hotdog bun trying to put something into a washing machine.
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Free Books

Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org) is a great source of free e-books, with thousands of titles in its catalog (nearly all of ther U.S. copyrights have expired). Or try Google Book Search. Browse classics and search books' full text for keywords at books.google.com
 posted by Jane    0 comments