As a new year begins, setting goals is on everyone’s to-do list.  Let’s talk about how you can help kids start the year on the right foot. Goals provide vision and motivation – when you know what you want and how to accomplish it, you have a greater chance of success. Setting effective goals helps you stay organized and motivates you to focus on acquiring knowledge and developing new skills.Goal setting is crucial for your

School-related anxiety may spike during the holiday season.  This is supposed to be the most magical time of the year.  But for many kids, and adults too, this season is less magical and more stressful.Read on to see what Ann Dolin, teacher, author, and President of Educational Connections Tutoring, has to say about helping kids cope with school anxiety at any time of the year. Does your child struggle with school-related anxiety? Maybe they avoid

In my experience, I have found that struggling readers often have weak visual discrimination skills, and this must be addressed first in order for them to become better readers. When students practice and improve their visual discrimination skills, then practicing phonics, sight words, and decoding is more meaningful and successful.The good news is that this is a skill that can be learned and improved upon with explicit teaching and practice. Today, I’m going to share

Growth Mindset Tips for a New School Year It’s back-to-school time which is also the perfect time to introduce students to growth mindset. We often take the first few weeks of school to establish rules and routines and build classroom community. Teaching students about growth mindset at the beginning of the year is a great way to create a community of learners who are willing to take risks.  They will be able to learn from

 Make sure your classroom has these 10 things.With summer coming to an end and back to school right around the corner, it’s time to start thinking about classroom décor. The way we set up and decorate our classrooms is essential. After all, it’s where we and our students will spend 35 hours per week learning, laughing, and growing together over the course of the year. Although there are countless ways to decorate a classroom, I believe