Tag Archives: Study

November 17, 2014 · 9:38 pm

Tuition Tip – Student Burnout

A sports coach knows the signs when he sees them – decreased ability to concentrate, confusion, decreased motivation, increased irritability, grumbling, quarrelsomeness, over sensitivity to criticism, anxiety, depression.

A good coach will recognises the signs of over-training and give his athlete a break before burn-out sets in. A great coach will not let these signs develop because he knows how to pace his athlete to bring them to their peak without demoralising them.

Burn-out can occur in any one of any profession and of any age, children included. Many parents do not realise they may be setting their child up for burn-out later in the year because they, as their child’s coach, have not planned their activities so that their academic athlete may peak at the appropriate times (exams).

It is with the best intentions that many parents will fill almost every minute of their little one’s waking hours with sport, training for sport and transport to and from sport. I am amazed at how many children are undertaking more than one sport a school term. If you are a parent who is building a champion please remember three things.

  1. Training and playing sport is very tiring. That is why great coaches do not over-load their prized athletes. They allow down time for recovery and for their protégés to spend time doing non-competitive recreational activities.
  2. A tired student will find it difficult to concentrate in class.
  3. In today’s world a person has a much better chance of achieving a high income with good grades than becoming a highly paid athlete.

If the situation has developed where a student may require extra tuition to assist with their education then a choice has to be made with a view to prioritising. It may be necessary to drop another activity for a while as the student regains their academic confidence. It is best to not load up an already over-loaded timetable.

As for being a great coach and preparing for the next season we will be running a pre-school program in January to ease our students back into their academic year.  Contact us for more details.

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October 30, 2014 · 12:40 am

Sometimes There Might Be Learning Difficulties

I don’t know where this statistic arises from but I read that about 5% of public school children suffer from a learning disability.  The difficulties experienced by students include language, reading and mathematics.  At times social skill, emotional and behavioural problems are associated with learning disabilities. As a parent what can you do?

There are many services available to help parents with children who have learning difficulties but, according to Henry Osieki [B.Sc. (Hons.) & Grad. Dip. Nutrition and Dietetics], one of the prime causes is malnutrition.  He suggests certain factors as possible causes to learning disorders include:

Heavy metal toxicity – in the past lead toxicity has been associated with learning problems.

Nutritional Deficiencies – The most common nutrients associated with difficulties with learning are B-vitamins, iron, iodine, magnesium, and zinc.  This can be linked directly to a poor diet.  Here is an example diet for you to consider:

  • Breakfast – bowl of low nutrient cereal; or nothing (because the parent has not prepared a breakfast for their child).
  • Morning tea – nothing.
  • Lunch – hot dog and can of soft drink; or nothing.
  • Afternoon tea – junk food purchased from local shop on the way home or nothing as both parents work.
  • Dinner – sausages, vegetables and gravy with ice cream for dessert.

A child of any age is growing pretty rapidly and is in need of food for energy and nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals) to help supply the body with the building blocks to allow the cells to multiply and the body to grow.  If the dinner from the above example was to become the breakfast you would have an alert, bright student sitting in the class until about lunch time.

Impaired hearing – inner ear infections or inflammation of the ear drum from allergies will hamper the early learning stages of pre-schoolers.  I am talking about your toddler here who is doing their best to learn a language so they may communicate with the world.  Parents need to be vigilant when it comes to ear infections at this stage.  Image the problems caused with learning a language when a child hears only the first part of a word the first time and the last part the next time.  To them they are hearing two separate words relating to the same subject.

Osieki states that dyslexic children tend to have a higher concentration of copper in sweat and hair and this may be reduced by taking zinc and vitamin C.

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July 5, 2014 · 4:18 am

The Mystery – by Oscar (aged 8)

hikerA boy named Dean was walking in the morning on a steep mountain because he was trying to get away from thinking about money. While he walked, he met Major Walnut.

Dean asked Major Walnut ‘Is money good or bad?’

Major Walnut said ‘Money is the main thing.’

Dean and major Walnut saw a pretty girl who was in trouble.  She was in danger.  Dean said to Major Walnut “What is going on around here? I just met you and now a pretty girl is in trouble and now the bad men are holding on to her?”

The girl was smiling.  She had pink cheeks which were very bright.  Silently she said “Thank you very much.” She hugged the two blokes, Dean and Major Walnut.

‘We are a pair of heroes!’ laughed the two friends as they said ‘good bye’ to the girl.

Oscar (aged 8)

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April 23, 2014 · 2:05 am

Are Your Expectations Aligned With The Curriculum?

Year 3

Tuition Logo“These are the best years of your life.”, self assuring words spruiked by many a parent and teacher to seven-year old students who do not need reassurance after remembering their potty training years.  They have just cruised through the first two years of primary school, they know all the numbers, the alphabet and can write their name; what else is there to learn?

Year 3 is where many young students realise their world will never be the same again.  It is during this year they discover numbers do not stop at 1,000 but continue all the way to 10,000 and they have to know their order, place value, and be able to recognise if they are odd or even!   Not only that but there are numbers smaller than one that no-one told them about as they are introduced to the fractions 1/2, 1/4, 1/3, and 1/5.

When learning the multiplication table by heart for 2, 3, 5 and 10 no-one warned them about having to manage multiplying a two digit number by a single digit number, without a smart phone.  In fact, they are expected to develop strategies to perform addition and subtraction in their head (mental maths).  Counting on, regrouping and partitioning are all strategies employed to perform mental maths.

It is during this year our students are introduced to metric measurement.  I hear very few complaints from students in our tuition centre about learning measurements.  I simply remind them that learning 1,000 metres equals one  kilometre is much easier than remembering there are 1,760 yards to a mile, 22 yards to a chain, or 16 ounces to a pound.

Yes, there is a lot to learn in Year 3 (and this is only maths) and yes, these may be the best years of their life because Year 5 is ahead of them, but we won’t tell them about that yet.

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April 10, 2014 · 4:16 am

I Can’t Tie My Laces Because I Can’t Write

Man walking on 1 2 3 stepsIt caused me considerable concern when I read that the American Government had dropped teaching cursive writing from the core curriculum in 2010.  They have left it up to the states to decide if it should be taught in elementary schools.  Some have decided not to teach the writing and reading of cursive script.  Their students are not being taught to read or write past the printed letter.

Does not teaching how to write have repercussions other than affecting the way we develop and record our thoughts?  Is it even a concern that we become solely dependant upon smart phones, tablets and computers for recording our words?

People may have asked the same question as the motor car replaced the bicycle or television replaced evening family interaction.  Change produces change and each alteration to our lifestyle needs to be considered for its own new path.  If we haven’t looked far enough down the path before we have taken the first few steps we may arrive at a destination we did not desire.  I do not think an obese society and world environmental problem  was what Henry Ford envisioned with his Model T; nor did Steve Jobs foresee family members retreating to separate rooms when he wanted to bring the world together.

What damage can possibly be caused by not teaching cursive writing to young students?  I have already encountered a young postman who has difficulty delivering hand written letters because they used “running writing”.  So we don’t receive our mail, is that a problem these days?  The fact the young man could not decipher or decode the letters on the envelope is of greater problem to me.

Cursive writing as with all writing requires the development of fine motor skills; skills that come with practice.  The fine dexterity of finger and hand movement learned by a seven or eight year old is the same skill required to tie shoe laces, do up buttons, place a nut on a bolt or to produce a painting.  I have already begun to see within my tuition experience young students unable to control letter and number formation between 8 millimetre lines or contain them within 7 millimetre squares of a quad page.  Is this a problem?

When I was in primary school the pencil and then the pen was an important tool to my learning.  Our teacher came in early to prepare the black board with the day’s lessons.  These lessons were copied into our notebooks.  Maths problems were copied from the board or the text book before being solved.  Our scholastic days were filled with scribing and learning.  Our weekends required us to compose an essay just so we could practise our scribbles and improve our imagination.  Even now I produced drafts for this post with pencil and paper before committing them to digital creation.

Reading, writing and arithmetic formed the foundation of independence for an individual.  With all three mastered a person was armed to contribute to society, create wealth from nothing and control their destiny.  I am afraid the removal of just one may have an impact on creating an independent individual.

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March 12, 2014 · 2:17 am

Cows in Winter by Dionara (aged 6)

CowThe cows in the North Pole in winter feel cold.  They like the snowing days.  The blue sky high above was cloudy.  All day and night the poor cows shiver.

 Dionara aged 6.

 

Some of you may be wondering how it is that our students produce the stories that are published on this site.  Well, here is our process.  We hand the children a foolscap page, a pencil and some motivation.  Presently they are looking at the paintings on our walls and choosing that as their subject matter.  In this case Dionara chose a cow (actually the photograph is just the ears and horns of a cow) in a hot stock yard.  I guess in her mind she would prefer the cow to be cooler than it was.  Then we encourage them to expand on that thought.  There is nothing elaborate and at times it requires some coaxing to bring the story out.

The goal is to practise using their imagination, word sounding skills and hands and fingers to form the letters with a pencil (keyboards do not help with fine motor skills at this stage).  We fix up the spelling for the publication but encourage them to have a go at sounding the words and writing the letters for those sounds.  Most of all it has to be fun!

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February 3, 2014 · 1:22 am

Early Steps to Avoid Stressed Students

Daily Diary Does the Deed

The year is going to progress whether we become involved with it or not.  It has been my experience with students, particularly at secondary school level, that those who do not take control of time will have time controlling them.  It is these students that display symptoms of stress as the year progresses.

Students who learn how to use a diary and planner at the beginning of the year are more likely to feel relaxed as the year progresses.  Keeping a written diary/planner appears to be almost a lost science.  Everything today seems to be electronic with touch pads for keying entries and apps that help to link all the diaries together and co-ordinate your appointments.  This is all very impressive but is it helping your student?

At the beginning of the term or semester your student is given their assignments and due dates.  They are also aware of sports training and events they should be attending; forthcoming birthdays and family events; and school activities.  Showing your son or daughter how to use a diary is a valuable life skill to pass on to them.  Sitting down once a week (my wife and I use Sundays) and running through that week’s entries helps to co-ordinate lifestyles.

Remember: We are all given twenty four hours a day, how you use them is up to you.

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April 15, 2013 · 1:21 am

Food For Thought About Learning Difficulties

I don’t know where this statistic arises from but I read that about 5% of public school children suffer from a learning disability.

Confused BabyThe difficulties experienced by students include language, reading and mathematics. At times social skill, emotional and behavioural problems are associated with learning disabilities. As a parent what can you do?

There are many services available to help parents with children who have learning difficulties but, according to Henry Osieki [B.Sc. (Hons.) & Grad. Dip. Nutrition and Dietetics], one of the prime causes is malnutrition. He suggests certain factors as possible causes to learning disorders include:

Heavy metal toxicity – in the past lead toxicity has been associated with learning problems.

Nutritional Deficiencies – The most common nutrients associated with difficulties with learning are B-vitamins, iron, iodine, magnesium, and zinc. This can be linked directly to a poor diet. Here is an example diet for you to consider:

  • Breakfast – bowl of low nutrient cereal; or nothing (because the parent has not prepared a breakfast for their child).
  • Morning tea – nothing.
  • Lunch – hot dog and can of soft drink; or nothing.
  • Afternoon tea – junk food purchased from local shop on the way home or nothing as both parents work.
  • Dinner – sausages, vegetables and gravy with ice cream for dessert.

A child of any age is growing pretty rapidly and is in need of food for energy and nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals) to help supply the body with the building blocks to allow the cells to multiply and the body to grow. If the dinner from the above example was to become the breakfast you would have an alert, bright student sitting in the class until about lunch time.

Impaired hearing – inner ear infections or inflammation of the ear drum from allergies will hamper the early learning stages of pre-schoolers. I am talking about your toddler here who is doing their best to learn a language so they may communicate with the world. Parents need to be vigilant when it comes to ear infections at this stage. Image the problems caused with learning a language when a child hears only the first part of a word the first time and the last part the next time. To them they are hearing two separate words relating to the same subject.

Osieki states that dyslexic children tend to have a higher concentration of copper in sweat and hair and this may be reduced by taking zinc and vitamin C.

Nutritional consideration to help your youngster to learn:

  • Most importantly is a healthy diet. Keep the crunchy low nutrient junk foods to a minimum. Remember who the parent is here.
  • A child’s dose multi vitamin/mineral if the diet is inadequate.
  • If you think your child is dyslexic then perhaps some zinc and vitamin C. (Always follow the recommended dose for age).
  • If inner ear inflammation is a continual problem then consider testing for food allergies.

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April 15, 2013 · 1:02 am

I Almost Forgot To Tell You To Remember

Student 3“I just don’t get this!” is a cry for help from a student of any age. Here is the first thing about the learning process – if you don’t get it you won’t remember it and you won’t learn it. A student must understand a concept, in their own words, to be able to learn it.

So the first step to learning something effectively is to understand it. If you do not understand it ask your teacher or instructor to explain it another way. You will not be the only person not understanding and it is your teacher’s job to see that you do understand.

Once you think you understand it then write it out in your own words, this will help to put it into short-term memory. Now this might require the old-fashioned pen and paper rather than a laptop. This is where most students stop and then wonder why they cannot remember material. Short term is good for a few minutes, hours or days, after that it is gone. You have to take the next step to move it into long-term memory.

Recitation (saying something over and over again) has been proved to be the most effective way of placing information into long-term memory. And by long-term I am talking about a life time. Reading something quietly over and over again to yourself or writing it down a number of times is not as effective as reading the material, in your own words, over and over again ALOUD.

BRAIN FOOD – For the MEMORY

There are five essential nutrients for effective brain function, and this includes memory. Many teenagers are low in iodine, as can be said about the general population. It is readily found in some seafood but if you do not eat seafood then you must obtain it from another source.

Decades ago the government placed iodine in table salt so that inland populations may have a non-seafood source of the nutrient. If your family eats salt then it may be beneficial to purchase iodised salt. Other nutrients are omega-3 (from oily fish), iron (meat), zinc (almonds) and the B vitamins.

Two herbs gaining respect for their ability to aid memory are Ginkgo biloba and gotu kola. Ginkgo increases blood flow and fluidity to the brain. Improved circulation aides brain function.

The quality of food is so important. We do no good for our children when we give into their tantrums for low nutrient junk food. Be parents to your children now and their friends when they grow up.

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April 15, 2013 · 12:49 am

Keeping Your Student’s Motor Running

Empty Gas TankYour car will not run without fuel, and neither will your body, including your brain. Too often the last decent meal a student has before they attend a tuition centre after school is breakfast – and it shows.

The inability to concentrate, feeling listless, unenthusiastic and headaches are all signs of insufficient nutrient intake. The body begins to slow down by mid-afternoon after a day of high activity and very little nutritious food.

The best way to maintain high-energy output is to ensure a nutritious breakfast, a healthy lunch and perhaps morning and afternoon tea. A healthy round of vegemite sandwiches with a glass of water or milk will ensure the B Vitamins for energy production are in the body to spur the brain into motion.

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