StudySkills.com by SOAR Study Skills

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and that your new year is off to a good start.  As you may recall, I tackled a big project in November and December, writing 30 articles in 30 days.  I wanted to determine the topics and issues that are of greatest to concern to parents and educators so I can better target the materials we develop and the free articles we distribute.

Some of the hot topics included handwriting (to my surprise), gaps in our educational system, and challenges with motivation.  Teachers spoke about their constant frustration that they just can’t “do enough” to reach all of the students they want to reach or have the impact they had hoped to have.  Parents are struggling with homework and finding that homework is, in many instances, destroying their relationships with their children.  Heavy stuff.

Read more »

Two-thirds of students entering high school are not proficient readers! This is a crisis, but there is a simple piece of the puzzle to fix this problem.  It would dramatically improve student performance! However, most of us don’t know anything about it.

The problem is that we do not teach a COMPLETE set of English rules. In last week’s article, I shared information about a fabulous book called, Uncovering the Logic of English.  The author, Denise Elde, clearly explains how much we are missing in our traditional reading instruction.

Read more »

Last week, a friend was telling me about her work with a community initiative to help “at-risk” youth get better grades in school. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Oooh…they need study skills!”

She responded, “Well, we are focusing more on motivation,” and quickly continued with her story.

Read more »

Study skills have earned a bad “rap” over the years for many reasons:

-Students think they are “boring” because many boring things are lumped together with study skills.

Read more »

“I’d say only about 25% of my students are motivated. The rest don’t care about anything. They don’t respond to anything.”

This is the concern I heard from a teacher, whom I will call Vivian, when she called during a recent “Ask the Author” session. Vivian teaches students with a very low socio-economic background, but her concern is being echoed by teachers and parents all over the country. “Motivation” is quickly becoming the hottest topic amongst teachers and parents; we are hearing of this concern a lot more recently than ever before! (more…)

Today, I want to share a resource that became the topic of one of the “rants” Susan mentioned yesterday. We were discussing how important it is for student to learn how to “delay gratification” in order to be successful… in school or in life.

So, I shared this video with her: (more…)

Last week, I received an email from a 30-in-30 subscriber: Her son is a junior in high school who struggles academically. He refuses extra help from a tutor or teacher, insisting he can do it on his own. He has an older brother who does well in school with relatively little effort, so the young man is likely feeling inferior. This ended with, “Can you help?”

Well, I hope I can. Ultimately, this is an issue of confidence (or lack of it) with a heaping spoonful of sibling rivalry. However, once the confidence is addressed, this young man’s tendency to compare himself to his brother will fade away.

Read more »

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! There are a few lose ends to tie up from last week.

THE DRAGONS WON!

Read more »

My husband’s high school is playing in the state football competition tomorrow! We are quite excited to see the Lake Orion Dragons perform on the home field of the Detroit Lions and sure hope to see them bring home a victory! In honor of our community’s celebration, I want to share some quotes from one of the greatest football coaches in history, Vince Lombardi. (more…)

Can you think of a few times in your life when you felt particularly good about yourself…when your “self-esteem” meter was on the rise?

What inspired those feelings?

Read more »