First, before I jump into this topic, I want to apologize for the long delay since my last blog. I recently had a third child, so it’s difficult to keep up! My aim is to post weekly, so I promise to get back on track. I listened the audiobook version of Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of …Read More
Helping Your Child Succeed In School V: Get Involved
Jan 15, 2011
One of the most important things that parents can do to help their child succeed in school is to become involved in their education. Decades of research shows that parent involvement has a positive influence on students’ school performance and social emotional well being in school. This is the fifth installment of a series of …Read More
Helping Your Child Succeed In School I: Healthy Food and Exercise
Sep 16, 2010
A couple of weeks ago I posted a blog about measuring teacher effectiveness. While I was writing this blog, I reflected on how many different factors influence children’s success in school, and how you can’t just pin everything on the teacher. This gave me the idea to write a series of blogs about many of …Read More
Measuring Teacher Effectiveness?
Sep 3, 2010
We all want our children to be successful in school. There are many different factors that influence children’s success in education, and recently much of the attention in politics and in the media has turned to the influence of individual teachers on students’ success. Most of this attention centers around teacher effectiveness, and there is …Read More
The Nature-Nurture Model and Reading: Does Genetic Makeup or Instruction Determine Early Reading Skills
May 17, 2010
Are good readers born or is it taught skills? A recent study conducted by researchers at Florida State University examined differences in reading performance among identical and fraternal twins enrolled in first and second grade on reading performance. The identical twins tended to perform similarly on standardized measures, indicating that genetics play the largest role …Read More
Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and Compassion?
Dec 17, 2009
A recent article titled “More Compassion, Less Competition” by Richard Davidson presents the benefits of having a broader definition of education that focuses not only on academic growth but also overall emotional well being. Specifically, he argues that focusing heavily on competition and passing tests has resulted in teachers and students discriminating against those who …Read More