Researchers from three Canadian universities claim that the popular gym class game dodgeball is a tool for certain students to oppress their peers. This isn’t the first time you have heard this. People have been talking about dodgeball for a while. There are two camps: (1) the sissification of American…
Does summer vacation affect children’s overall academic performance? National Summer Learning Association argues that by 9th grade, two-thirds of the achievement gap between low and middle-income children is due to summer learning loss. I’ve been hearing these types of arguments forever and have pretty much accepted them as fact. In part…
Kindergarten used to be a place where you really honed in on your napping and fingerpainting skills. No longer. My youngest son graduated from kindergarten a few weeks ago. The academic requirements of a kindergartener in 2019 are significantly greater than those placed on my 13-year-old son when he was in…
My favorite website for teaching children how to read is Starfall.com. Starfall is a (mostly) free website that focuses on teaching children to read with phonics. I started using Starfall in 2006 before my son turned one. My kids no longer use Starfall. But I have a six-year-old and I…
I’ve been spending a lot of time on Reading Bear with my youngest son. I always touted Startfall as the single best site to teach young readers. I think Reading Bear is the next “learn to read” vehicle after you have finished up Starfall. Reading Bear is a wonderful…
I look so hard for these on-line. Annoying, North Carolina has some that you can’t print out. So you can put them on line but you take off the print function. I would love to see the meeting where that was decided. Anyway, I discovered today that the great state…
I’m a big fan of standardized tests. I’m probably the only one. But I think it is helpful to have a measuring stick that cuts down on variables. It also allows you to get a clean handle on what you child needs to work on to get better. This webpage…
Splash Math Makes a Splash There are a lot – a lot – of iPad math apps for kids. They are multiplying like rabbits in the App Store. The problem is that most are just a replica of the last one. I’ve used hundreds – literally – of math apps with…
There has been a lot of debate of late about whether college is for everyone. Robert Samuelson, a noted economist, wrote a editorial in the Washington Post a few weeks ago arguing that the ” college-for-all crusade” is one of those utopia dreams that should come to an end for…
Flow Math Is an App Worth Trying FlowMath is a really good iPad math app that helps your child take the leap from memorizing math facts to making use of that knowledge. It is a great bridge from facts to a real math application. FlowMath gives you an answer. Let’s…