A tutoring expert explains the best tips to help your child ace their next test.

Your child may have cruised through the early years of elementary school. Tests and quizzes were rare, homework was a a breeze, ‎and projects involved simply cutting out images from magazines. Yet as students move through school, the testing demands increase rapidly. With these rising demands often comes stress, anxiety, and that how-am-I-ever-going-to-get-through-this feeling. Help your child build confidence and ace exams with the ideas detailed below.

Create a ‘big picture’ plan

Your child may feel overwhelmed by the quantity of material she needs to learn for a test. With terms to memorize, notes to process, and articles to read, the task of studying can seem downright insurmountable. To combat this feeling, help your child come up with a ‘big picture’ plan, with each topic she needs to learn for an exam detailed on a single sheet of paper. She can start by drawing a large bubble in the center of a page and writing the class name and date of the exam inside the bubble. Then, surrounding the center bubble, she can branch out with a series of smaller bubbles, each containing a topic she needs to learn for the test. Once she has effectively learned a given topic, she should cross out that bubble. The more bubbles she crosses out, the more accomplished she will feel, and the closer she will be to learning all of the material for the exam.

Break down studying into steps

Many of us know students who feel they can squeeze all of their studying into the night before the exam. Yet that “strategy” rarely works, especially as the quantity of material to learn increases.‎ Instead of this no-win plan, help your child learn to break his studying into steps, then put each step in his assignment book. For instance, if he has a science test to study for that covers five text book chapters, have him create a five day plan that includes studying one chapter per day (reading the chapter, taking notes, and perhaps creating flash cards on the material), and designate the fifth day as a review day to review all of the material from each chapter. Creating an organized, daily plan can help him feel fully prepared come test day.

Integrate memory strategies

Your child may feel overwhelmed by the quantity of vocabulary terms, names, dates, and facts she needs to memorize. Encourage her to use memory tactics to learn and retain this information. For instance, she can learn the acronym PEMDAS (Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally) to remember the steps involved in solving math equations; the letters of the acronym stand for parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, attraction. You can also try encouraging her to draw visual diagrams to visualize and remember information (like a diagram of a heart with its individual parts) or retell material aloud to tap into the auditory modality. Additionally, try having her teach the material to someone else (even a parent) for another layer of memory and understanding.

Integrate technology

Students can now choose from a plethora of online resources to help them study. ‎Quizlet, for instance, is an online option that helps students create virtual flash cards, then test themselves and play games using the material. They can also create study guides using Power Point, where they create a virtual presentation on material they need to learn for a test. This interactive tool taps into the kinesthetic learning modality and can help engage students in the process of studying. Students can even have the computer read the material aloud to them as they listen and (hopefully) retain the information.

Limit distractions

Almost all students—not just those who have ADHD—can have difficulty at times staying focused and on-task. Let’s face it—distractions are everywhere. Many students have not just computers, but often also tablets, phones, video games, and access social media and chatting apps. Let’s also not forget “old fashioned” distractions, like hunger, boredom, and sounds of nature. Help your child learn to anticipate these distractions and come up with solutions for each possible one.‎ She can create a list on a sheet of paper before she begins studying with two columns—distractions and solutions. On this sheet, have her list each potential distraction in the distractions column and a corresponding solution in the solutions column. For instance, if her phone is a potential distraction, a solution might be setting it to silent mode or turning it off entirely. If she thinks she may become hungry when studying, she might want to eat a small snack before she begins. The more she anticipates and solves these potential distractions, the more on-task she will remain.

As students progress through school, they will inevitably encounter increasingly complex tests. Encourage your child to try these strategies to effectively prepare for exams and ultimately achieve academic success.

The post 5 Strategies To Help Your Child Study For Tests appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Integrating technology can help your child master these basic math facts

You’ve tried flash cards, lists, and straight-up memorization, but your child still can’t seem to remember the addition and subtraction facts. Integrating technology, particularly with addition and subtraction specific apps, can help her finally learn and retain these facts, while enjoying the process. Try the math apps below:

Hungry Fish
Ages 4 and up
Hungry Fish helps children develop basic addition and subtraction skills while boosting their mental ‎math abilities. In one of the games, a fish swims into the “ocean” with a number displayed on its belly. Bubbles pop up, each containing a different number. Players must combine the numbers to meet the sum displayed on the fish, thereby practicing basic addition. The same type of game is played with subtraction and negative numbers, and the difficulty level of each game can be adjusted.

Addition & Subtraction for Kids
Ages 4 and up
Kids age 4 and up love this animated app that integrates pictures to help them master their math facts. ‎At the most basic level, students are presented with simple math fact problems, such as 3+2, and are simultaneously presented with underwater objects to represent the numbers (i.e., three fish plus two starfish). They must choose the correct answer from one of three bubbles presented at the bottom of the screen. Practicing facts using this app helps children fundamentally understand addition and subtraction concepts while becoming more automatic with their facts.

Squeebles Maths Race
Ages 5-11
In this colorful app, players choose a fish type and race in a blue body of water either against the “computer” or another player. ‎Players select an operation–addition, subtraction, addition/subtraction combo, multiplication, or division–and must correctly answer various problems in order to move forward in the race. Winning players earn squabbles and flipfish thay help them with future races.

Math Doodles
Ages 4 and up
This app integrates beautiful illustrations ‎and engages students in activities that make math fun. Games such as Sums Stacker, Connect Sums, Unknown Square, and SplatGoRound teach students basic addition and subtraction concepts, such as merging objects to form sums and identifying missing values. The options for choosing numeric values are unique and interesting, including choices such as fingers, coins, Roman numerals, and even Hebrew and Chinese letters! The whimsical artwork is stellar.‎ This app is a great one for building fluency with math facts and for giving students repetition with basic math concepts.

Let’s Do Mental Maths
Ages 5-11
These apps, which are grouped by age (5-6, 6-7, 7-8, 9-10, and 10-11), help students practice simple math skills and improve their mental math abilities. Basic math concepts are covered in the form of quizzes, including addition and subtraction, but also addressing multiplication, division, fractions, time, and measurement at higher levels.  Students can select quizzes to take on a given topic and can take progress tests along the way. For students who need repetition and extra reinforcement of their math facts, this app is a great one!

Learning math facts doesn’t need to feel like a chore. With these colorful and engaging math apps, students will learn their math facts in no time!

The post The 5 Best Apps For Learning Addition & Subtraction Facts appeared first on EBL Coaching.

When most parents were in grade school, excelling in math meant calculating the right answers. They were taught tricks for memorizing multiplication facts, dividing fractions, and remembering the order of operations for solving equations, often feeling a pang of excitement when they figured out a correct answer.  Yet with the Common Core standards, which most states have now adopted, coming up with the correct answer is no longer the primary goal of teaching math. Instead, understanding the principles behind each problem and developing critical thinking skills have become key instructional goals. ‎Yet for many children (and their parents), this “new” way of teaching math is overly complex, confusing, and downright frustrating. Students who once took pride in their math abilities now feel utterly discouraged. So what can you do to help your child?

Old Way vs. New Way

Let’s start by looking at the “old” verses “new” way of teaching math.

Imagine your child needs to solve the addition problem 8+9. When parents were young, they likely knew the answer simply from “drill and kill” – or memorizing the addition facts. Yet with Common Core standards, one way students might be asked to solve this problem is using doubles. They’d need to identify the closest double (8+8) and move upwards from there. 8+8=16, plus 1 equals 17. They might also look at a ten frame and see that 8 darkened circles on the frame plus 2 more circles gives us 10 circles (one complete ten frame), plus 7 more on another ten frame gives us 17 total circles.

Now let’s move to the problem 325-27. In the “old” days we learned a basic algorithm for solving subtraction problems with regrouping, starting on the right side, borrowing from the tens, and so on. Yet with Common Core standards, this problem might be solved with the “counting up” mathod – essentially “counting up” from the smaller number to the larger number using 10’s and 100’s. For example, we’d start with 27. We’d add 3 to get to the nearest 10 and therefore circle the 3. Then we’d add 70 to get to the nearest 100 and circle 70. Next, we’d add 200 more to get to 300 (and circle 200). Finally, we’d add (and circle) 25 to reach the larger number (325). Then we’d add together all of the numbers we circled to come up with the answer. Sounds complicated, right? It is, to many.

Yet the reality is that math instruction is not reverting back to the “old” way anytime soon. The days of memorizing equations and plugging in numbers are behind us, and the wave of understanding and applying math concepts is here to stay, at least for the near term.

So what’s a parent to do?

1. Get to know the math curriculum your child’s school is using. Look for parent resources online‎. Ask the principal of your child’s school to set up parent workshops so you can learn more about the curriculum. Embrace the change and do what you can to understand this way of teaching.

2. Try not to teach your child “your” way to solve a problem when his teacher is emphasizing a different way. This will only confuse him even more!

3. Since many parents themselves struggle with this new style of math, use it as an opportunity to teach your child to advocate for herself. If she is struggling with a concept, encourage h‎er to ask her teacher for clarification rather than reeling in frustration. She can learn how to solve the problem the “Common Core” way and then even become your teacher, teaching you this new way of coming up with an answer.

4.  Let your child know that this approach is confusing for you too and that it’s okay! In life we all struggle with different problems and we can find a way to figure out how to get through them. Share the success of moving from an utterly confused to an utterly satisifed state by finally understanding this new way of approaching a problem.

5. Many parents feel strong disdain towards Common Core-style math. They feel that “their” way (the old way) is is simpler, clearer, and downright better. Don’t share these thoughts with your child. The “new” math is the “new” reality. You can share your views privately with your child’s teacher or principal but avoid sharing them with your child, or you will likely create deeper frustration.

There are many benefits to Common Core-style math. Learning to think critically, estimate, and understand math are all valuable skills that will help your child excel in the long run. Think of the “old” style you learned for solving math problems as simply different. Embrace this new style  and encourage your child to find pleasure and success in making it over this high but surmountable mountain.

The post How Can Parents Help Kids Improve Their Math Skills? appeared first on EBL Coaching.