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.

Cultivating a Growth Mindset

The way we think about ourselves as learners directly impacts our performance. If we think we’re capable, we become capable. If we think we can’t do something, we probably won’t even try. This applies especially to students, who often hear messages that reinforce a “fixed mindset”– a concept of self defined by the idea that one’s strengths, challenges, and abilities are predetermined, “fixed,” and simply a part of our nature. When grades are the only tangible reward students get for their learning, it can be hard to use anything else as a metric for success. Even in the lower grades, students often earn points, cute smiley faces, or even little tschotskes when they get or do something right. This is how they know if they are on the right track. It’s also usually how a student’s fixed mindset begins.

What are growth and fixed mindsets?

When your kid comes home, beaming about the A they got on their test, but unable to tell you anything they learned...that behavior is the result of a fixed mindset. When she comes home the next day with a C on a paper filled with helpful comments on how to improve next time, then immediately throws it in the garbage...another product of a fixed mindset. With a fixed mindset, one believes that their inherent intelligence, talents, and value are unchangeable, and that their successes and failures in school and in life are a reflection of their abilities and not their efforts. Fixed mindsets are made, not born, and they are unfortunately all-too common in students.

A growth mindset, on the other hand, comes with the belief that one can always improve if they put in the effort. For a student, actually practicing a growth mindset is easier said than done. It requires the child in the example above to not only be proud of the A she got on her test, but to think about how she might further apply the knowledge that she worked so hard to demonstrate. It also means reading the comments on that less-than-perfect paper, taking them to heart, and applying them to her next piece of writing. A growth mindset not only requires one to work harder, it also requires the emotionally difficult task of looking at one’s mistakes head-on in an attempt to strengthen areas of weakness. This level of self-awareness is hard for adults and sometimes impossible for students, especially when not facilitated by a teacher.

Why is a Growth Mindset Important?

Believing that we can grow and develop our skills is directly related to our learning and how we interact with the world around us. If we all believed that our potential was fixed, there would be no patience or compassion for when others fall short. We wouldn’t feel the desire or motivation to seek out potential or root for the underdog. The course of one’s life would become painfully predictable. But thankfully, we weren’t built that way! Everyone can grow and improve when they apply themselves.

How do I help my child develop a growth mindset?

Start by changing the language you use at home. This chart gives helpful replacement language for some of the (well-meaning) things we often say to our kids:

And encourage them to use “growth mindset” language with themselves, too:

Finally, read your children stories of people who persevered and overcame adversity with their growth mindsets, and model a growth mindset yourself. Choose something you think you’re bad at, change the narrative you tell yourself, and watch yourself improve. They’ll follow your example!

It's all connected... so get moving!

It’s all connected

Increasingly, research demonstrates that each of the various physical, emotional, and mental components of our well-being are inextricably linked. For students this means that nutrition, exercise, and social interaction are (of course) linked to learning and performance in school. Recent work in psychology has shown that controlling procrastination, the bane of many students’ efforts, requires not just time management, but also emotional regulation. In quarantine, when access to the common digital tools of procrastination is ever greater, it’s all the more important to make sure we are teaching students to regulate their emotions, using what we know about the mind/body connection to their advantage. For this week’s post, we offer a few ways to exercise the body, knowing its connection to emotional and mental well-being. Since many students aren’t able to participate in the group sports that usually keep them up and moving, it’s time to get creative and try something new!

Get outside for some socially-distanced hiking

Time outdoors is essential for healthy development, building vitamin D and decreasing health risks. While it’s vital to observe public safety precautions, experts agree that the virus is much less likely to spread in outdoor areas, where aerosols are soon dispersed - especially if everyone’s wearing masks. Many city-dwellers have re-discovered the resource of walkable parkland around them, and for those families who have left the city behind for the summer, this is an opportunity to take advantage of state parks on a grander scale than the city can offer, with lakes, waterfalls, and trails to explore. 

Track progress, and learn to set goals

Competition can be a great motivator - and if you can’t compete with peers, you can compete with yourself! In any sort of exercise that can be measured in some way - whether by timing intervals, counting reps, or hitting other targets - tracking progress offers the opportunity to develop goal-setting skills and help students watch themselves grow over time as a direct result of effort and practice. This lesson is one that extends beyond the ability to do an extra five push-ups! These flashcards offer a range of exercises that kids can learn to master. 

Go old school with it

Although it’s almost unimaginable for anyone born after the year 2000, for most of human history kids have found ways to play that don’t involve a screen. From the thousand and one variations on tag or hide and go seek, to hopscotch and jumping rope, encourage your kids to try out a classic activity from your own childhood. This list is a good place to start reminiscing...

Embrace the new school too!

It’s easy to get nostalgic about an era of play before screens. Not all screen-time is wasted, however - there are a plethora of Youtube exercise tutorials and phone apps that aim to game-ify the exercise experience. The Nintendo Wii system was a pioneer in merging video games with exercise, and is still a leader in the space, but others have emerged to compete as well. Check out Go Noodle Games for another option! 

The (Lesser Known) Benefits of Reading

Everyone knows that reading is important. Not only have societies valued literacy for centuries, in work and for pleasure, but it is the only mode of learning that is used in virtually every academic domain. Reading builds vocabulary and teaches people about any subject matter they could possibly want to learn. Most people know that increased reading is linked to improved grades, test scores, and even IQ. But there are nonacademic benefits to reading that many people don't know about. Here are some of the lesser known reasons why we should all pick up a book every day:

Decrease Stress, Increase Empathy

Now is the perfect time to incorporate reading into your family's daily routine if it isn't there already. We can all use some new ways to bring calm into our lives during these stressful times. Choose a time of the day most convenient and conducive to quiet, peaceful reading. You will reap the benefits no matter what time of day, but reading right before bed, especially in place of watching TV or scrolling on a smartphone, will be particularly beneficial and is more likely to lull you into a deeper, more restorative sleep. In addition to stress reduction, new perspectives found in both fiction and nonfiction books help strengthen the muscle in the brain responsible for empathy, so a reading routine will not only improve your child's brain but also their relationships. 

Improve Physical Health

While reading is primarily an exercise for the brain, other body systems benefit from it as well. Reading has been proven to lower blood pressure and heart rate and calm nerves. Think of it as a more intellectually engaging form of meditation! 

Alleviate Depression

Studies have shown that reading can actually ease some of the symptoms of depression. While the blue light of TV and computer screens can worsen symptoms, print books can have the reverse effect. Even for those who don't suffer from clinical depression, the escape that books offer can help children and adults alike cope with trauma and adversity in a healthy way.

Improve Family Relationships

Finally, read together! No matter what this looks like for your family, try to build in a daily, weekly, or even monthly routine where everyone is sitting down together and reading. Whether it's the same book out loud, or different books independently, families who read together are stronger, happier, and healthier.

Talking to Your Kids About Next School Year

None of us know quite yet what the upcoming school year will bring. Every expert seems to have a different opinion about what’s in students’ collective best interest. Even though we do not know exactly what the fall will look like, we can help our children begin to mentally prepare for whatever form the school year takes. Here are some of the comments your kids might make as they slowly begin to prepare themselves for the unknown, and how you can respond. 

“I want to go back to school to see my friends.”

This is a popular argument, and a compelling one. Socialization, both unstructured and in the context of skill-building, is just as crucial for a child’s healthy development as robust academics. But even if school is in person to any extent, your kids should not expect it to look like what they remember. They certainly won’t be able to huddle in the corner of the school yard with their friends at recess. They might not even be able to sit with their friends at the lunch table, as schools are likely to have students eating in their classrooms, alone at their own desks. Playing contact sports with their friends is definitely out. Their social life as they know it will be completely different.

“I want to go back to school because that’s where I learn best.”

For students who genuinely enjoy school for the academics and in-person learning, the prospect of more remote learning is especially heart-breaking. But for those students who are spending their summer hoping to go back in the fall, this time is an excellent opportunity to do some reflecting on what exactly makes their in-person experience particularly preferable. A great place to start is to take a learning style quiz, which will tell students if they are visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners. From there, you or their tutor can help them find resources and strategies to directly address the way they learn best. That way, even if they are required to learn from home again, they’ll have the tools they need to make the most of it.

“I am worried about going back to school because of everything I hear on the news.”

If your children have had more media exposure than you’ve intended, you’re not alone. Even the most conscientious of parents struggle to shield their children from everything. The best response to this anxiety is the reassurance that if schools are in session, teachers, administrators, and building staff will be doing everything possible to keep everyone in the building safe.

For the most part, these types of comments all boil down to one thing: kids want their lives to go back to normal. Unfortunately, no matter what happens, that just isn’t an option. But we can help our kids see that “normal” to them actually just means safe, predictable, and routine, and we can definitely help them establish those things no matter what the school year has in store.

Smarter College

We spend a lot of our time at Smarten Up working alongside parents to support students as they grow toward adulthood, preparing them for the independence that comes once they leave home. However, data suggests that many students struggle to make that leap at first, as they jump abruptly into a new environment and way of working outside of the context they have carefully learned to navigate. Our Smarter College program addresses this gap in support.

The new context of college is, in several important ways, more complicated than what came before it, and requires different skills. Increasingly, researchers have shown that scores on traditional admissions exams such as the ACT and SAT are not a very good predictor of success in college; high school GPA is a better indicator, suggesting that hard work and good habits are key in either context (Hiss & Vicks, 2014). Still, as Bryan Goodwin and Heather Hein point out in their article “The X Factor in College Success,” most of what determines whether a student will succeed in college (and later in life) “seems to lie outside the tidy box” of either grades or test scores. And although more students than ever are successfully matriculating to some form of university education, only 59% will graduate in five years or less, according to US Department of Education figures from 2015. 

This data suggests that students must aim beyond traditional academics to consider the ‘X Factor’ skills they will need as they enter a new period of independence and development. Smarter College is a transition mentorship program that is designed to support students’ movement toward independence and help them to get the most of the college experience they’ve worked so hard to have. Our intention is for these skill lessons to complement the work students are doing in school, so the schedule can (and should) be adapted according to each student’s individual needs. If you have a student preparing for college next year -- particularly in this strange quarantine time, full of uncertainty on every front -- reach out for more information on the Smarter College program.