Stacey Hernberg
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Helping Children Learn and Succeed

LEARN EASIER STUDY BETTER!

8/28/2014

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Learn Easier Study Better was created with middle and high school students, online learners, and adult learners returning to a student role, in mind. Typically these types of students are the ones who most need to learn how to develop their ability to learn independently, boost their confidence in their abilities and basically learn easier and study better. However anyone who feels that they could improve their learning and study abilities will benefit from this course. Parents who wish to work with their own children would also benefit from this course.

This course helps these students accomplish exactly this in two main ways. First, it will increase students' meta-cognition. This is the ability to think about one's thinking. Thus students will learn to recognize what it is that they do that helps their learning as well as what they do that hinders their learning. Secondly, this course encourages students to develop a growth mindset. A growth mindset includes perseverance and a "can do" attitude. A growth mindset is more indicative of success than IQ!

In this course you, you will learn to improve and maintain your motivation and attitude toward learning, understand the learning process, increase your confidence in your learning, and learn an assortment of tricks and strategies to help you learn and study more effectively. This is taught through standard videos, narrated slideshow videos, handouts, reading texts, and key concept visuals. Students will learn through repetition, reflection, and using the three modes of learning (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic).

It should take a student 4-5 hours to complete this course. This time lime includes watching the videos, reading and viewing the text materials and doing the handout exercises. The benefits of the work that you will do in this short time will be felt throughout your life!



For a $10 of discount use the code PARENTDISCOUNT for you or your child. Just click the link. It only takes a couple minutes to enroll. Happy learning!

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Reading Activities

8/4/2014

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Picture
Is there more to reading books than just reading? Yes! There is comprehension, reflection, and connection to name a few higher level thinking skills that go along with reading. In simpler terms, that means, understanding, thinking about, and relating to other ideas learned. Follow up reading activities are a great way to get readers to engage in these higher level thinking skills. In teacher jargon, we call them “reader response” activities. I guess that is because they get the readers to respond to what they read. There are lots of reader response activities that are a fun way to get kids to think more deeply about their summer reading.

Above is a picture of a diorama that my daughter made for a scene in the novel Charlotte’s Web. It’s the scene where people come to see Charlotte’s web when it says “some pig”. She also did a write up of a summary which is glued on the back. My daughter dislikes writing but she loves making things. I have sometimes wondered if she had a bad experience with a pencil in a past life but she also dislikes typing. Fortunately the write up was totally overshadowed by the fun of making a diorama. The summary encourages differentiating between main points and minor detail whereas the diorama encourages attention to detail. Here are more reader response ideas:

·         Do a book review (there are lots of online samples)

·         Write the author a letter

·         Write a summary (younger kids can summarize the beginning, middle and end)

·         Act it out

·         Write the story into a play format

·         Identify the story elements (characters, setting, problem, climax, resolution, theme)

·         Compare and contrast the book with the movie (Venn Diagrams are a nice way to organize thoughts)

·         Write a different ending for the story

·         Make a commercial to sell people on the idea of reading the book

All these activities require readers to use higher-level thinking skills. They are also a great base for discussing what they read and what they thought about it. And many of them are suitable for children who dislike their pencils (and keyboard).

If your child is reading regularly this summer then great! Talk about the value of doing some reader response activities and let them choose an activity to do for the next book they read. If your child is not reading regularly then I would work on helping them develop that habit first. For some ideas on how to do that see the previous post “Summer Reading”.
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    Stacey Hernberg is a brain-based learning enthusiast. Passionate about parenting, teaching, and helping children get the most out of their education.

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