Category Archives: For Parents

Struggling Students, Response to Intervention

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One of the major frameworks that teachers and administrators use to organize their remediation efforts for struggling students is called Response to Intervention, or RTI for short.

Through a series of assessments, remediations, and behavior corrections, students are organized into three tiers:

Tier 1 – Students who are in general education classes. They are assessed consistently, but need no remediation.

Tier 2 – Students who are struggling, usually do to a lack of background knowledge compared to their peers. They spend about half of class time in a general classroom and half being “pulled out” by a remediation teacher to receive instruction in the skills they lack that are keeping them from staying on pace. If done correctly, a student should move up from Tier 2.

Tier 3 – Students who are profoundly struggling or have diagnosed learning or behavioral disabilities. These students spend the majority, if not all, of their time in self-contained classes with a team of teachers. Moving up from Tier 3 is rare but it does happen.

There are specific intervention strategies that go along with each tier. If a school or district is using RTI, most teachers and administrators have received significant training not only in the framework but also the instructional skills needed under the program.

If your child is at an RTI school and you are approached to allow remediation (a move to Tier 2 or 3), here is what you should ask.

What input do I have? – Yes, you should be approached. It’s rare that a parent is not updated regularly under the RTI program and most moves or changes need to be approved, especially if the student has an Individual Education Plan (IEP).

What data supports this move? – RTI is based heavily in data, not only with major state assessments but also with grades and thorough, periodic assessments that are given by the school to inform their instruction. Ask to see this data and how it indicates that your child needs more support.

What specific interventions will my child be receiving? – You want to know what your child’s school day will look like. If they will be spending a significant amount of time with a pullout teacher, ask to meet them. They will be your child’s most important instructor.

What is the forecast? – RTI is designed to help students receive the support they need in order to make educational progress. Students move up and down the tiers all the time. Ask for an estimation of what can be expected of your child in the near future.

What To Do When Your Child Gets Frustrated In School

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Even involved, engaged parents can be surprised when bad grades start showing up on their child’s report cards. As far as they knew, everything was fine.

Bad grades are the last sign of a child struggling in school. By then, their levels of frustration and futility might have reached a point of no return. The trick is figuring out that your child needs help before the disappointing grades start arriving.

Here are some signs to do just that:

Mood swings just before or after school

Just like adults heading to the DMV, children get irritable when faced with an unpleasant experience. If that moodiness is coming just before or just after school, that unpleasant experience is school itself. If you notice this pattern, try to get them to open up about why they’re upset. Hopefully you can get specific about what’s troubling them at school. It might be academic struggling or something even more serious, like being bullied. Just know that it might take more than one attempt to get them to open up.

Avoidance of school discussion

On the best days, children aren’t exactly conversational masters. “How was school today?” is often met with “Fine”. It takes the highly trained ear of a parent to discern whether they are actually avoiding talking about school, but if they are, it’s a sure sign of struggle. Keep pressing, as casually as possible, getting increasingly specific as you go. If you suspect something, start talking to teachers and looking up your child’s grades online.

Changes in friends or activities

Is your child not interested in basketball anymore, even though they were obsessed with it last month? Do they talk about new friends whose names you’ve never heard before? Any drastic changes in behavior usually have root causes and you want to rule out any of the serious ones, including underperformance in school, bullying, or drug use. That’s not to say that students can’t try new things or meet new people, but listen to your parental radar. If something doesn’t add up, start finding the underlying cause.

Listen to the teacher

If you’ve established a good, open relationship with your child’s teachers, they should feel free to drop you an email when they see something amiss. Their motivation in reaching out to you is not just to enlist your help in addressing any problem behaviors, but also to give you a heads-up that changes are afoot. They see your child in a completely different environment than you do and can tell when a good kid is starting to go south—and can usually tell you why.

The Next Level

Did your child exhibit these signs or others before you realized they needed academic help? What happened? Educate us in the comments below.

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And if you feel your child needs a little more help to succeed in school, please find out more about Athena’s services and how they can help you using this link.

 

At-Home Assessment Tips

At-Home Assessment Tips

To prepare, students should vary what they read outside of school.

High-stakes assessment season is about to be in full swing. While your child’s teachers might be spending their final weeks trying to fill their students’ heads with more information, there are also things you can do to help your child ace the state’s test.

Practice the procedures

Let the teachers worry about the actual content. Practice at home should consist of preparing your child to actually take the test.

For instance, many students don’t know what 45 minutes “feels” like, so when the proctor starts issuing time warnings, they are caught off guard and might freeze up (or rush, which is worse). On many assessments, there may be types of questions they haven’t seen yet. Both can be remedied with some dry runs before the big day.

Relaxation techniques

Test anxiety takes many forms and may not manifest before the big day itself. If you know your child might experience anxiety, start working on some relaxation techniques that can help calm them down.

Here’s a quick rundown on some breathing exercises proven to lower stress levels in 10 minutes or less. Here is a list of stretches that students can do while staying in their desks. Both can pay dividends during testing season.

Read deeply

Most of the next generation assessments focus more on non-fiction when it comes to their reading comprehension sections, rather than fiction and poetry. This forces students to be well rounded in their approach, having to understand everything from history to science to data.

To prepare, students should vary what they read outside of school. Mix in a newspaper or some advanced magazines, like National Geographic or The Economist, as well as some non-fiction books.

Eat right and rest—for more than just the night before

Educators and others often preach that it’s important for students to get a good night’s rest and eat a solid breakfast before a big test. That is crucial, but good habits start long before the last night. Eating right as soon as possible can produce energy reserves that can have benefits on test day and beyond. And if good sleep habits are established early, it will be less of a shock to the brain when your child goes to bed early on test day.

What to Do If You’re Having Difficulties with Your Child’s Teacher

What to Do If You’re Having Difficulties with Your Child’s Teacher

Get your facts straight

As a school year wears on, a parent can become increasingly unhappy with their child’s teacher. Perhaps they feel as if their child is being singled out or that the teacher is not keeping control of their classroom. Whatever the reason, there are ways of trying to help while still being diplomatic and leading everyone to a positive solution.
Get your facts straight
Before you even approach the teacher, you want to know the specifics of why your child is unhappy. Don’t settle for “she’s mean to me”. Badger your child for specific details. If other children are involved, you need names. If it happens only during a certain subject, which one? There are always two sides to a story and you want the most complete picture you can get before hearing the other side.
Schedule a collaborative meeting
If it comes time to speak to the teacher, schedule a separate meeting rather than having a quick word at drop off or pick up. You want to have enough time to come to a resolution.
In your meeting, take the collaborative approach. Coming across as working toward a common goal is much more effective than demanding things or accusing the teacher of wrongdoing. Patiently ask to hear what the teacher’s perspective is. He or she might not even know that there is a problem. Ask how you can help in the situation. At the end of the meeting, both sides should have a clear idea of what they should do moving forward.
Follow up
Give it a week or two, then follow up with both your child and the teacher. Have they noticed a difference? What has been done (on both sides) to improve the situation. More often than not, they have started working better together.
The principal
If your child is holding up their end of the bargain but the teacher is falling short, or if there simply is not any progress being made, it’s time to get the principal (or assistant principal, if that is the teacher’s direct superior) involved. Again, take the collaborative approach. Explain the situation and the steps you have already taken. Take notes. Also again, everyone should know what he or she is doing to move the situation forward once the meeting has concluded.
The last resort: changing classes
Schools hate changing a student’s schedule. It throws off the balance of other classes and is disruptive to the child in question and their new classmates. But sometimes it’s unavoidable. After a reasonable amount of time and proper follow up (make sure the principal knows you aren’t going to let this drop), if no improvement in the situation has been made, it’s time to request a change. It’s the best way to rescue a school year that has probably become toxic.

A Different Approach to Vocabulary in the New SAT

A Different Approach to Vocabulary in the New SAT

Your best study strategy? Reading

As you know, the SAT is undergoing a radical overhaul this year to make sure it better reflects the skills students need in college and career. The most divergent changes are happening on the verbal side. In particular, vocabulary is tested in a completely different way from years past. Here is what’s new.
A different type of words
Linguists and educators break words up into three major categories:
• Tier 1: Words that are used often in everyday speech
• Tier 2: Words that occur on a regular basis in speech but might need context to fully understand
• Tier 3: Obscure words that only occur in specific, discipline-based situations
The previous SAT tested a lot of Tier 3 words, which is why the best way to study was “drill and kill” using word lists. The new SAT has moved to testing Tier 2 words. They want to make sure students can use context clues to really understand text, rather than just see if the student has a big (but mainly useless) vocabulary.
Context is everything
As mentioned above, the Tier 2 words used on the new SAT rely on context for meaning. In fact, most of them will have multiple meanings. In a sample test item, a non-fiction passage is given with the word “intense” highlighted. The question asks for the meaning of intense within the given context. The four possible answers are all an accepted meaning of the word, but only one is right within the context of the passage. There are also items in which you have to justify your answer by highlighting the part(s) of the passage that give you a clue into the meaning.
Although it’s still possible to study words with flash cards and similar old-school strategies, you need to make sure that your study materials cover all of the possible meanings of a word.
Your best study strategy? Reading
To best prepare for the verbal side of the new SAT, including vocabulary, the best preparation is to read deeply, both in fiction and nonfiction. Make sure to vary your sources as well. Tier 2 words can carry a different context depending on the source, but if you only read one type of source (like scientific magazines), you might miss other meanings that come from other sources.
No more analogies
The SAT was famous for its use of analogies when testing vocab. Because they want to focus more on context and reading skills rather than rote memorization, the analogies are gone.