Elevate Learning with Mnemonic Devices

Remembering is hard! That is especially true of remembering the types of complex (and sometimes uninteresting) information kids have to learn in school. Memorization through repetition is rarely effective. That's why it is so important to teach kids the power of mnemonics. Then they can learn to be more strategic and creative when it comes to remembering. That's because mnemonics make information more sticky. By connecting unmemorable information to something more memorable, kids can create lasting knowledge. 

Examples of Popular Mnemonics

Young students sometimes use the phrase “big elephants can’t always use small elevators” to remember the spelling of "because." When they get older, they remember the order of operations through PEMDAS. There is also ROY G BIV for the colors of the rainbow. The list goes on and on. That's because they are popular for a reason: mnemonics actually work! Once students buy into that fact, they can create their own mnemonics for the information they need to learn. All it takes is a little practice and creativity.

Types of Mnemonics

IMAGES AND VISUALS

The brain often remembers visual information more easily than written or verbal details. Students can take advantage of their visual memory when it comes to trying to remember anything from the meaning of a vocabulary word to how to spell it, or the journey of a blood cell through the circulatory system to chemical equations. The visual reference can highlight spelling features, diagrams, relationships – you name it! The key is that it is memorable to the student.

Another variation on visualization strategies includes creating imaginary relationships between images and objects. For some, placing images or objects in a familiar location helps to create memorable associations with existing memories. According to the internet, this is a good strategy for memorizing a deck of cards (we haven't tried!). Similarly, you can picture how a series of objects or figures relate to one another. If, for example, you had to remember the words "banana," "beach," and "skunk," you could imagine a skunk in the sand eating a banana. The goal of these strategies is to create relationships between seemingly random things in order to "chunk" them together. This helps to use limited working memory space more effectively!

ACRONYMS AND ACROSTICS

An acronym is made by taking the first letter (or initial letters) of a list of words to create a more memorable word. We can all learned PEMDAS to remember the order of operations, or HOMES for the five Great Lakes. Acrostics are similar to acronyms, and more commonly called silly sentences. Instead of PEMDAS, students could remember "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally;" and instead of HOMES, they could think of Hairy Orangutans Make Excellent Saviors. Once again, the key is creating an acronym or acrostic that is memorable!

MUSICAL AND RHYMING MNEMONICS

Perhaps the most famous musical mnemonic is the classic alphabet song. Without this simple, catchy tune, the alphabet would be much harder to memorize. These devices use melody or rhyme to help students remember rules or procedures. A popular example of this is “30 days have September, April, June, and November." All of the incredible School House Rock songs also take advantage of music and rhyming to make content more memorable. Plus, research has shown that musical elements like rhyme and melody not only make information more memorable, but actually improve the general performance of our memory.

In Conclusion

Next time you find your child cramming for a quiz or test, encourage them to create some mnemonic devices for the information that just won't stick. Maybe they need a silly sentence to remember difficult formulas, or a memorable picture to recall the steps of a process? And not only will mnemonics make information more memorable, they'll also make learning more fun!

College on the Brain

As the first round of early application deadlines for colleges looms on the horizon, we’ve been reflecting on the best way to approach a student’s entire academic career with this transition in mind—and that doesn’t mean stressing out about building an ‘impressive’ resumé that will feel inauthentic or contrived. It’s important to live in the present moment and enjoy growing up without having college as a permanent fixture on your mental horizon—and if you live in that present according to these precepts, you’ll be ready when the time comes. 

Follow your natural curiosity 

Instead of thinking of extracurricular activities, volunteer opportunities, and course choices as a laundry list of requirements to be checked off and added to your resumé, focus on making the most of the time you have to explore what interests you, trying new things or going further with a particular passion. The cookie cutter student follows a model she believes will cause her to appear successful in the eyes of an admissions committee; the authentic student follows her natural curiosity and winds up building a much more compelling profile. Absolutely do get off the couch and get involved! Life is short. But get involved with what interests you, not what you imagine will be interesting to an admissions officer. 

Seek out challenges

Once you’ve found a niche or two, an activity or subject you can tinker with for hours without getting bored, look for ways to challenge yourself in that realm. Take initiative to learn a new skill or complete a significant project in your niche, collaborate and/or compete with others who share your passion, and emulate your heroes, be they favorite musicians or favorite athletes. And in general, seek out challenges: colleges are more impressed by a 3.75 in a challenging course load than a perfect 4.0 in classes that you can coast through. We learn by being challenged, struggling, and then adapting by mastering a new skill or new content—so if you take Spanish but aren’t comfortable in conversations, find a way to immerse yourself with extra classes, volunteer opportunities, or travel. Take a step out of your comfort zone, and take some level of initiative that your peers might not be to see how far you can go. 

Build independence 

One thing hardly anybody is prepared for when they first arrive at college is the massive leap forward in independence. For your own well-being, and to show colleges that you’re ready for this next life-stage, make sure that as you move through high school you become comfortable with tracking and being responsible for all of your own assignments, communicating with teachers, and maintaining a positive work-life balance. Bonus points if you can learn to cook a few things before leaving for dorm life!

What is Cognitive Flexibility?

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to think flexibly. Cognitive flexibility makes it possible for students to quickly shift their mental gears; they're able to look at a problem from multiple perspectives and adapt to new situations. There are two main types of cognitive flexibility. With “flexible thinking,” kids are able to think about or see something in a new way or from a new perspective. We use "set shifting” or “task switching" to seamlessly shift our attention from one thing to another or discover a new way of accomplishing something. Improving cognitive flexibility is key to supporting executive function skills!

How “flexible thinking” helps kids learn

Thinking flexibly is a crucial part of any learning process. As a student develops number sense, it isn’t enough to just be able to count a set of objects or add two quantities together. Instead, students should learn to think about numbers in different ways. In early grades, this includes finding all of the ways to “make 10.” While 5+5 might come to mind first, there are nearly endless possibilities! The more ways children come up with, the more flexibly they are thinking. In higher grades, flexible thinking in math might look like using multiple strategies to solve the same problem. Or better yet, kids can evaluate all of the possible strategies and select the best one.

Kids need to learn how to think flexibly when reading and writing as well. For example, they must learn to analyze text purposefully. This might mean a first read to understand the author's purpose, and a second pass to identify main ideas and supporting details. They must find evidence of the author’s purpose when reading a text. Students should also learn to write a paper with their audience in mind. Plus, they must think flexibly and consider multiple view points in order to create a compelling argument. With flexible thinking, we can do the same task over and over again but gain new meaning from it each time.

How “set shifting” helps kids be successful

Shifting gears without getting derailed is an important skill, but one that is often challenging for kids. In the classroom, a student works through set shifting with each transition from one task to another. This could be as simple as transitioning from eating lunch to cleaning up, or as complex as moving from the planning phase to the drafting phase of a writing task. Students also use this form of cognitive flexibility when they learn to solve a problem in a new way. When they are younger, they might add by counting on their fingers; as their math skills develop, they’ll use more sophisticated strategies to achieve the same goal. Similarly, most sentences written by younger kids are short and choppy, without much detail or expressive language. With improved writing skills, their sentences evolve. With these forms of cognitive flexibility, students learn to be more active, engaged, and thoughtful learners.

How to help your child who struggles with cognitive flexibility

Kids who lack cognitive flexibility are often resistant to change, rigid in their thinking, and have trouble with transitions. Here are some strategies to try at home:

• Word play - Here is a list of great word play games that develop students’ cognitive flexibility in written and oral language.

• Pros and cons lists - Anytime we need to think about the pros and cons of a situation, we are practicing cognitive flexibility. Have them do this next time they are deciding which video game to buy, or what they should order from a restaurant!

• Have your child make up new rules to the games they already play.

• Use different color highlighters to locate different items in a text. This can become a reading scavenger hunt of sorts. First, children can use one color to highlight main ideas. Then, they can use another color to identify important characters, events, or terms.

Testing Tips

Compared to the stresses of life under quarantine, test day jitters might feel trivial - but for many students, quizzes and exams are a perennial source of anxiety. Students, parents, and even teachers can become frustrated when performance on test day doesn’t seem to match up with a student’s potential. Test scores aren’t always the most reliable measure of mastery/growth in a subject, it’s true, but if testing is a persistent trouble spot, it’s important to incorporate that pattern as feedback on how students are preparing, and adjust appropriately. Below are a few of our tried and true tips for studying for an exam. 

1. Treat every assignment and reading as a part of your preparation.

The most important element of test preparation comes in the weeks (and sometimes months) before a test, as a student remains actively engaged with lectures and homework assignments, moving from knowing to understanding as they learn so that, when it comes time to study, they are already beginning from a place of confidence, rather than starting from scratch. The test is not a separate, stress-charged event in this model, but the natural culmination of weeks of learning. In concrete terms, this means that students should be taking clear notes and creating study materials as they learn the content, keeping up with readings and assignments, and independently reviewing at the end of every shorter unit.

2. Distribute practice by spreading out your studying.

Studies have shown that if you believe a test will require four hours of studying in the week of the exam, it is much more effective to split up this time into smaller chunks, spread out over multiple days, than to cram all four hours on the night before the exam. So…

3. Make a clear study plan.

It isn’t always easy for students to manage the many tasks that are thrust upon them—to use time wisely, set up a study plan well in advance of the test, with an explicit schedule for studying that splits up the content over multiple days and a specific plan for which study strategies to employ. 

4. Mix it up by using a variety of strategies.

Different types of content (and different types of tests) will require different strategies—and students should also consider what strategies work best for their specific learning strengths. The more that you can approach a subject from different angles—with flashcards written in your own words, illustrated histories, timelines, online video resources, practice problems, poetic adaptations, mnemonics and memory aides, etc—the more you’ll move from knowing to understanding. Your goal should be to absorb new information with context, thinking about it as a story, rather than memorizing in isolation or by rote. Use a timer to focus for specific periods, and switch between strategies. 

5. Find a buddy (or a student).

Study groups are a great way to stay motivated and trade notes with a peer, whose insight into the specifics of your test might go beyond what a generalized online resource can offer. Even better, studies have shown that teaching content is one of the most effective ways to retain it—with a classmate, take turns teaching one another concepts from your exam, or ask your parents if they need a refresher on selective permeability of the cell membrane (my guess is, they will).

6. Get a good night’s sleep, and stay healthy.

It is tempting to believe that staying up late to cram will help you conquer the test—but the truth is, giving your brain the rest it needs is more important. This is another reason why it’s important to distribute your studying across multiple days! Take care of yourself and your body as if you’re an athlete preparing for an event. That means you should take active breaks, drink water, and eat healthy snacks!

7. After the test, reflect!

Your job isn’t over when the test is done —take a well-deserved break, of course, but then take time to reflect on the study process and the test itself. Think about what worked, so that you can use it again next time. What areas can you identify for improvement next time? Taking a moment to register the feedback your test experience provides is how you’ll become a better student.

The Road to Reading Fluency

Last week, we posted about the importance of active reading. To widen the lens on the reading process in general, we are taking this week to lay out the steps students need to take to become active, fluent readers. Every one of these steps is crucial, as each skill builds upon the one before it. In this way, a strong foundation will lay the groundwork for the success that is sure to follow. With that in mind, however, it is also important to note that if any one step is not mastered, a student is likely to need some sort of learning intervention in order to catch up. As they say, first students learn to read, and then they read to learn, which is why achieving reading fluency is so central to academic success!

Early Literacy Skills

From birth, children are developing literacy skills. It’s hard to believe, but it is true! The first sounds of their parents’ voices introduce them to the concept of spoken language. Shortly after, they begin to develop awareness of their ability to communicate and get a response. Over the first twelve months of a baby’s life, they are exposed to stories, both in book form and orally, and these experiences build the foundation for understanding the concept of print and the structure of a story. Kids learn to hold a book right side up, to open it and turn the pages, and to make up their own stories as they look at the pictures. While it may come as a surprise, these early reading skills are crucial to the eventual development of a fluent reader.

At home: Give your pre-reader plenty of exposure to books with pictures, and make sure you read to them often! They are absorbing all of your reading skills, and you are planting the seed for a love of books as your kids grow.

Phonological Awareness 

Around when a student enters Pre-K, they begin to develop phonological awareness. This refers to the broad concept that words are made up of sounds, that there are relationships between certain sounds, and that these sounds aren’t random. While students who are phonologically aware have not necessarily learned letter-sound correspondence yet, they can begin to identify and play with the sounds in words by playing games with rhyming and beginning sounds.

At home: Songs offer a fantastic way to introduce or reinforce phonological awareness. The rhythmic patterns of most song lyrics, combined with the rhyming words most songs contain, will help pave the way for strong phonological awareness.

Phonemic Awareness

Considered a sub-category of phonological awareness, phonemic awareness refers to a student’s ability to identify, manipulate, and produce individual sounds in words. This is where students begin to connect the printed letter ‘m,’ for example, with its name and sound. Ultimately, students who have low or limited phonological and/or phonemic awareness will inevitably also have trouble with both decoding (reading words) and encoding (spelling words), which is why these early pre-reading skills are so important to work on!

At home: Multi-sensory letter practice is a super engaging way for little ones to practice forming letters. Use any small object like buttons or beads, or more motivating edibles like cheerios, to have students "write" out their letters. Don't forget to have them "read" their creation too by naming their letter, making the sound they formed, and they can get bonus points for thinking of some words that begin with that sound!

Phonics

Phonics is the pattern of sound-symbol relationships that are at the core of reading and writing skills. When students become fluent in phonics, they are able to correctly identify, manipulate and use all standard letter combinations. A student will know the sound that the letter ‘s’ makes, and will also know that this sound changes when combined with ‘h’ to make ‘sh.’ They will be able to recognize these sounds in and out of the context of words, and even in ‘nonsense’ words (words that follow conventional phonics rules but have no meaning in the English language).

At home: Give your child plenty of practice with reading short CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) like "mat" or "web". Incorporate practice into your day by having him/her read you these short words in newspapers, magazines, recipes, or in the books you read to them. Also encourage your child to write as developing confidence with invented spelling, pencil grip, and letter formation is sure to lead to more success with writing down the road.

Decoding

Here is where students take all of the phonics rules they’ve learned and apply them to read words in order to make meaning from text. Kids will begin by reading simple sentences, and then they can tackle books with two sentences on a page, and then build up to pages with paragraphs, until eventually they are tackling paragraphs and chapter books. It’s a magical process to watch!

Of note with the earliest of books for budding readers is the difference between decodable texts and books that rely largely on predictable patterns. The former, like Bob books, place an emphasis on using phonics skills in order to read. These books will largely include words with a limited number of spelling patterns in order to ensure that students can independently decode the text with confidence; the latter, like this set, places more of an emphasis on using picture cues and sentence patterns to support early reading. These books do not necessarily provide a lot of opportunities for kids to practice decoding, but they are good for reinforcing sight words and learning to use pictures to make predictions while reading.

At home: If your family has a bedtime book routine (which you should if you don't!), start to give your child some reading responsibility! Let them practice their decoding skills by giving them a word, a sentence, or a paragraph at a time, depending on how much text they can handle.

Encoding

At the same time that students are practicing their decoding skills, they are also practicing encoding--using the correct (or reasonably approximate) phonics/spelling patterns to write words in order to express their ideas. Some students with certain learning disabilities, like dyslexia, might have no issues with encoding but have trouble decoding or vice versa. Both are important skills in becoming a fluent reader (and writer)!

At home: Journaling is an amazing activity for any age. The beauty of journaling for emerging readers and writers is that it gives them a place to practice their skills where no one will be looking over their shoulder to correct them. They can practice their writing in absolute peace and comfort, which will increase their confidence and make them more likely to enjoy doing it!

In Conclusion

Reading fluency is central to academic success. Once students learn to read with confidence, they will be able to read to learn. For that reason, it is especially important to make sure that students build phonemic and phonological awareness, that they master phonics, and that they use those spelling rules in order to decode and encode with fluency!

Back to School, Back to Basics

Most of our attention these days is focused on the many, quickly-shifting variables in the world of education. Even within the ever-changing landscape of hybrid schooling, though, there are some basics that remain constant. This week, we wanted to take a moment to highlight a perennially important (and under-appreciated) skill for any student: active reading.

Reading actively means engaging more of yourself in the process, from drawing abstract connections between texts as you read, to literally drawing characters or plot charts. Activating the reading process improves comprehension and sets students’ analytical wheels into motion from the start. We’ve all had the experience of reading before bed, and finding ourselves at the end of a page not having any idea what we just read; think of that as one end of the spectrum when it comes to your level of engagement, when you’re technically decoding the words to move through the text, but their content hasn’t even reached you. 

For academic reading, especially when a text is not inherently interesting to a student, it’s all too easy to fall into this passive pattern, and finish a reading without having absorbed any of the needed information. To avoid this trap, below are some of our classic tips for how students should activate their academic reading.

-Underline or highlight—but with purpose, please! A simple guiding rule is that a student should almost never highlight more than a quarter of the words on the page; given that the goal of highlighting is to help a reader pick out the most important information in a reading, a sea of color will only serve to mask the importance of those details. 

-Decode by translating into your own schema! Using different colors for different themes, or picking a separate color for important dates, vocabulary terms, or names will help to prioritize and categorize key details. 

-Keep in mind that a good nonfiction paragraph always includes a topic sentence, supporting details, and a concluding sentence. This often makes the task of highlighting “the important stuff” a bit more explicit. 

-While highlighting is great, annotation is even better! When students take notes in their own words, it ensures that the brain continuously processes and synthesizes important ideas and details. This rephrasing will help them to check in on whether they actually understand what they are reading, and solidify the information in their memory. Plus, jots will create an easy-to-navigate map of the text whenever students need to return to it to study for an exam or find quotes for a paper, just like those color-coded references. 

-Lastly, nothing replaces note-taking. Whether students create a chart of character traits and relationships, a timeline to organize dates, or a diagram to map out the steps of a scientific process, well organized notes are an amazing tool to support processing and retention, while also serving as a study guide for the inevitable test or quiz.

Re-establishing Your Kids’ Routines

Chances are, it has been almost six months since you or your children have experienced a “normal” daily routine. The comforting monotony of our daily rhythm, as we knew it, is a thing of the past. But despite the lack of structure brought on by the drastic changes we’ve all gone through, we can begin to bring some structure and routine back into our children's lives. Research has overwhelmingly shown kids and grownups benefit from routines. With that in mind, here are some tips and strategies for establishing new rhythms to your days.

Involve kids in establishing their own routines

At Smarten Up, we are big fans of building independence, metacognition, confidence, and all the other life skills that can help kids grow into successful, well-rounded adults. Including your children in the conversation about what their new routine will look like could be the difference between whether or not it sticks. This doesn't mean letting them choose when they go to bed, or whether they’ll do their homework before or after watching TV. It does mean giving them some say in areas that do have flexibility. For example, let them choose the order in which they perform all of their morning tasks before they head to school, or to their desk if they are learning remotely. For some kids, just being given the freedom to decide whether they will get dressed or eat breakfast first is enough to make a routine stick. The key is in making sure that the new schedule becomes routine, which is a matter of practice, practice, practice!

Make it visual

Once your children have a routine that you are both happy with, make sure to write it down! It’s best if you let your kids take over this part with as much independence as possible. They can decorate the paper with colors and pictures, write it in a fancy font, cover it with glitter – whatever works to make the schedule something your kids are excited about! Then, hang it on the wall in their bedroom, or in another place where their eyes are likely to catch it often, as this will help promote consistency as the new routine becomes habit.

Shake things up

Because it has likely been quite some time since your kids have followed a strict routine, make sure the new schedule is different enough from the old one that it feels like a fresh start. Of course, breakfast will still happen in the morning and they will still need to brush their teeth before bed, but change some of the details so that it feels a little different from before. Maybe it might be sitting at a new spot at the dinner table, or changing the layout of furniture in a room. It’s just important to make some sort of small changes to reinforce that this is a new beginning with a better plan for success.

Be patient

No matter how excited your children may (or may not) appear to be to establish a new routine, two things are guaranteed: they will benefit from it tremendously, and they will resist it at one point or another. This resistance is normal, and you must persevere in spite of it. Keep reminding your children of their routine. If there's a day where things get a bit wonky, tomorrow is always a new day and a fresh opportunity to stick to the plan you created. It will not happen right away. It takes time to establish a routine, but be consistent! Your child will thank you in the long run. 

Learning Beyond the Classroom

Right now, we’re all focused on managing the return to school, and on all the questions that come with taking that step in the time we’re living in: how to return, when to return, with what aim? It might seem odd then, to take this week’s post to consider learning beyond the classroom. In the context of an ever-shifting academic landscape, though, it’s all the more important to remember those parts of the learning process over which we can have more control. 

We depend on schools for so much, as families and as a society. But social scientists and public policy researchers have long argued that focusing on school as the only source of education ignores the broader context in which students live, and the important educational impacts of that  context. Put simply: kids are sponges, and their ability to absorb lessons from their environment doesn’t magically begin and end with the ringing of the school bell (especially true when the school bell no longer sounds at all for so many!). Thinking of education as a job that students can clock in and out of can build bad habits and leave opportunities on the table. This is not to say that homework should be an all day everyday activity! Rather, it’s about more consciously acknowledging that the way kids spend their time outside of school plays an important role in shaping them as individuals. 

This is true regardless of age, but because it’s a context we often encounter, let’s think for a moment about what this means in the world of college admissions. If we stop to think for a moment about how an outsider - say, a college admissions officer - will come to understand and evaluate our students as individuals, it makes sense that those activities that extend beyond the school context are often most prominent in their narrative. How a student performs in school (and even in certain school-sponsored extracurricular activities) can tell us a lot about them, but independent ventures that are pursued without the guiding structure imposed by school, and without the extrinsic incentives of the school context, can feel inherently closer to a student’s genuine passion and motivation. If you can empower your students to develop these independent opportunities - especially in a time when the school context is not as reliable as we’ve come to expect - their initiative and natural curiosity will stand out.

How to Prepare Your Kids for the New School Year

Get Involved

It is always a good idea to build a positive relationship with your child’s teacher from the beginning. This year, it may be more important than ever. If any portion of your child’s learning is remote, the relationships teachers work so hard to build in-person will be that much harder to develop. And even if your child is in person full-time, they won’t be sitting in intimate book club circles with their teacher. The help they get on their science lab will be from 6 feet away. The authentic relationships that are usually built naturally will take a lot of intentional effort. The best thing you can do to help ensure a positive relationship between your child and his/her teacher is to develop one with the teacher yourself! Reach out early on, offer information about your child that you think might be helpful (needs, interests, quirks, etc.), and most importantly, show them that you are on their side. Offer any kind of help you feel comfortable offering, and show empathy. It is not an easy time to be a teacher.

Monitor screen time

Screen time these days is necessary. And research shows that there is actually an amount of screen-time that is healthier than none at all. But there is also a limit, of course. Especially if your child is fully remote. Then their classes and academic work should be just about the only screen time they are getting (to a reasonable extent). Get creative with enriching the rest of their day with screen-free activities like arts and crafts, cooking, listening to music, writing, and reading (paper books, not digital).

Temper academics

If your children are doing any of their learning from home, they may not be getting the structured, built-in “brain breaks” that invariably come during the school day through snack time, recess, study hall, or whatever else may break up the rigor of your child’s day. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that these necessary breaks are still happening. If your child doesn’t have the planning and self-monitoring skills to give themselves these breaks when needed, give them some suggestions, or plan out their breaks with them.

Check in on Emotions

If your child isn’t the type to readily volunteer emotional check-ins, now is the time to do some probing. Without putting any pressure on your child to share feelings they aren’t ready to share or discuss topics they aren’t comfortable discussing, gently invite them into the conversation. An effective way of doing this might be to start by naming your own emotions, talking about where they might be coming from, and what you can do to address them. This takes the pressure off, and might help them let their guard down a little. It’s a scary time, and none of us have the foresight or tools to know how this school year will pan out. So be patient with yourself and with your child, and take it one day at a time.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

Entering the world of test prep is a fraught prospect for many families. Competition can be a valuable motivator in the right context, but it can also sow feelings of inadequacy, bring added stress to students and parents, and wield undue influence on a student’s educational experience. As we guide families through the process of test prep, from the ISEE to the SAT/ACT, there are a few tenets we hold to in order to align with our own philosophy of teaching and learning. 

1. Treat testing (and preparation) as a learning opportunity -- for content, and for executive function skills

In most cases, the test prep process occurs entirely outside of school - this makes it a valuable opportunity to teach good habits around independent time management and structured goal-setting. Since test prep also inherently involves an element of repetition and error analysis, it’s also a chance for students to learn how to evaluate the effectiveness of different learning styles and study strategies as they reflect on their own mistakes and track their own progress over time. These metacognitive and executive function skills will empower students to work more effectively across the board. 

2. Teach a growth mindset: embrace challenge, celebrate effort, support learning

As last week’s post makes clear, we’re big believers in the growth mindset - and dealing with standardized tests is both the perfect chance to put it into practice, and, unfortunately the perfect trap for falling back into a fixed mindset perspective. From day one we want to encourage students to sit with the discomfort of not knowing how to solve a puzzling problem, and remember that challenge is an opportunity to grow by trying new strategies, rather than a sign of failure. We help them recognize the value of their effort, and demonstrate through results that their abilities can improve in direct relation to the work they put in - rather than allowing their test score to define them in a fixed, unchangeable way. 

3. Remember that every student is unique

One reason standardized testing can be stressful is that it throws everyone into the same basket, ignoring (but in practice amplifying) differences in schooling, family background, learning style, etc. Although the test is the same for everyone, though, we must remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to test prep. The value of tutoring is that it can - and should - be individualized to match the specific needs of each child, both in terms of learning style, and in terms of content. It’s also vitally important that the goals and expectations set for students by parents and tutors be appropriate, and based as much as possible in the mastery of skills and strategies that will be useful beyond the context of the test as well.