Based on current research, the constant carrot of money or gifts for good grades - referred to as extrinsic motivation - will lose its effectiveness over time. We need to figure out ways to intrinsically motivate our kids, which means helping them to create an inner drive to learn rather than having it coming from an external source or reward.

Class sizes are large and the Common Core dictated curriculum more rigorous now than it was back in the 1950s. Though kids spend the same amount of time in school, there's a laundry list of additional expectations heaped on schools that fall more squarely in the arena of raisingour kids than teaching them. It's no wonder that teachers have a tough time sparking a passion for learning in every single student. That's why it's important for parents to help inspire a passion for learning in our kids - even in the subjects that are outside their normal areas of interest.

How to help

Contextualize homework

. If your child is complaining about a homework assignment, help frame the lesson with how they can use that new knowledge to do something better that they are passionate about.

If handwriting is an issue and she really likes art, talk about how she's also learning finger control that will take her artwork to the next level. If he's complaining about math, but he's a sports fan, help him understand that those concepts he's learning form the basis for sports stats that help everyone understand how good each player on the field is and getting better at them can help him pick a better Fantasy Football team.

If spelling is the problem, then show her how the spelling of words actually gives her clues to the definitions, so she can more fully understand reading assignments - even if she didn't know the word before she started reading.

After talking to them about why it's important, brainstorm how they could tackle these types of assignments more effectively and praise the different kinds of strategies they attempt.

Make learning fun

. If your child is learning times tables and enjoys sports, try putting chalk answers to a times table on an outside wall and giving him a squirt gun to "hit" the right answer to a question you call out. If your child enjoys board games and is learning spelling words, try using Scrabble Scoop to compete to find the letters that go into each word as quickly as possible. If your child is musically inclined, have her put a musical tune to concepts on which she will be quizzed.

These types of strategies are not only more fun than flashcards, but because they're enjoyable, your child will stay at it longer and be more engaged, which ultimately means more learning time.

Praise better attitudes

. Looking at a glass as half full instead of half empty can often help us continue to work at things we don't like. Talk to your child about what she likes about school, how she feels after she's learned something new, a new concept has finally clicked or how much better she feels after her homework is done than when it's still an action item on her to-do list.

After all, our kids have many years of school in their lives and a lifetime of learning after they've received their diplomas. Practicing finding the good in something they don't like is not just important during their years of school, it will be important if they are to have a happy and fulfilling life.

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Hares approach tasks like sprinters and like to be spontaneous. Hares are not known for great time management skills. (After all, if the hare in the story had been a hair faster, he probably would have won the race!) Tortoises embody the slow and steady wins the race approach in the story. And while they do better with a game plan, they are not as adaptable when things don't go according to plan. Here are some general guidelines for getting your hares and tortoises ready for back to school. Because you are either a tortoise or a hare yourself, you'll probably find that one of these lists will work best for you this back-to-school season, too!

Tortoises

Clear the desktop! Get in-the-drawer or accordion files for your tortoise. A pencil case with compartments keeps pencils, pens and highlighters organized and out of view. Set up a filing system with a pocket for each subject and a set of file folders that can be slipped inside for long-term assignments. Attach a project ladder inside long-term project folders where your tortoise can put together a game plan with interim due dates like research done, first draft, teacher preview, final draft and turn in assignment.

Other helpful organizational items:

1. A day timer where daily to-dos are organized by what can be done quickly, first to what will take longest, last.

2. An outbox for completed tasks.

3. A consistent routine for each evening so your tortoise can anticipate what's coming next at home - even if she got a few curve balls thrown her way at school.

When things don't go as planned, be ready to help your tortoise readjust her game plan so she doesn't get flustered.

Hares

Out of sight is out of mind for hares, so think on the desk rather than in the desk when organizing. For instance, grab a desktop organizer for homework tools like highlighters and post-its rather than one that slips in a drawer. Because hares thrive on the pressure of looming deadlines, get an inbox rather than an outbox for them and a stacked file-folder rack for long-term projects. Make sure your hare's assignments go right into his backpack after he's done!

Other helpful organizational items:

1. An at-a-glance calendar with everything listed - both in school and out of school - so that your hare doesn't overcommit.

2. While hares enjoy more spontaneity in the evening routine, be sure to enforce grandma's rule - work first, reward after.

When a long-term assignment comes home, help your hare outline all of the interim steps it will take to complete the assignment, then put deadlines for each phase on his calendar so he doesn't leave everything to the last minute.

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Summer brain drain

On average, kids lose 2.6 months of math skills over Summer Break - some lose even more. Young learners lose, on average, a month or more of spelling skills, the second highest loss in any area.

De-test-able research

While math and spelling typically suffer the worst learning loss, study after study has administered the same test to students at the end of one school year, then at the beginning of the next school year with dramatically lower scores across the board in September than June.

Losses accumulate over the years

Many kids never catch-up to their peers. Losses accumulate year after year, particularly in low-income areas. This eventually results in students performing below their grade level. In fact, unequal summer learning opportunities during elementary school accounts for two-thirds of the ninth grade achievement gap. This can make a significant impact on the universities to which your kids are accepted.

Kids don't want to fall behind

According to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Summer Learning, a majority of students - 56 percent, in fact - want to be involved in a summer program that "helps kids keep up with schoolwork or prepare for the next grade."

Parents can make a difference

Learning loss is much less pronounced in families that enrolled kids in enrichment classes, visited the local library, spent time reading, or took advantage of other types of low-cost or free learning opportunities. Think of summer learning like a daily "mind muscle" workout for your kids. It only requires 20-30 minutes per day. Think of it as the daily body workout you do to fend off flab. The rest of their time can be spent on fun activities or relaxing.

It also doesn't need to be dull, boring, or expensive. Kids can work on math skills by adjusting recipes in the kitchen or going to garage sales. They can visit the local library and check out books about subjects that fascinate them while earning rewards and prizes through either local or national summer reading programs. Games like Scrabble, acrostics and other word games can keep spelling and vocabulary skills sharp.

Steve Spangler has an experiment library full of fun ideas to help young science buffs stem summer learning loss. Kidzmet.com emails free learning activities every day during the summer to help kids stretch their body, music, nature, spatial, people, word, and number smarts in fun ways. FunBrain.com has a wide variety of free computer-based educational games that, just like their domain name suggests, are also fun. Check your local newspaper's or parent guide's calendar section for on-the-go learning fun for the whole family.

This Shifts for Students and Parents PDF is also a great reference that highlights how you can help build the skills required of your kids in school.

Finally, thanks to the new Common Core Standards, finding out what your kids should know when they walk through the door on the first day of school this fall is as easy as reading the "what x-grade students should know" section in the appropriate grade levels below.

1st Grade
2nd Grade
3rd Grade
4th Grade
5th Grade
6th Grade

The post Smart reasons to keep kids learning over the summer appeared first on FamilyToday.

However, when our initial second grade parent-teacher conference came along, her teacher asked if I would be willing to place Lana in "handwriting club" for extra practice. I now understand that dysgraphia - or a learning disability related to handwriting - is one type of dyslexia. Despite my background in education, it was a disability I had never heard of before. I knew Lana was at risk for dyslexia because my husband is dyslexic. But I had no idea that this brain difference could also impact handwriting. The bigger challenge is that it's not just parents that are unaware of the warning signs of this disability and how to remediate them.Many mainstream preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade teachers are unaware of the signs of this disability, too.

I'm hoping this article will help many parents identify signs of dysgraphia, start to remedy them at home, and - maybe most importantly - pass this information along to preschool and primary teachers so that we can all help kids who suffer from this learning challenge overcome issues sooner rather than later.

What is Dysgraphia?

Per the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD), kids with dysgraphia, "can have trouble organizing letters, numbers, and words on a line or page."

How your child forms letters matters

When your children are starting to write, make sure to keep an eye on them to ensure they are forming letters from the "sky to the ground." As soon as he begins to write in preschool, make a $5 investment in Smart Start's Story Paper which will give him visual cues to form letters from the sky to the ground, as well as help him remember the "wormy" letters that dig under the ground like j, g, p, q, and y.

Make sure your kids are page turners

Depending on whether your child is left-handed or right-handed, she will need to turn the paper to "point" to her belly button. If she's a "righty," she'll need to turn the paper to the left. If she's a "lefty," she'll need to turn the paper to the right. Because kids in school often look at their classmates' papers to make sure they are "doing it right," a left-handed child may assume she is doing it wrong when her paper position doesn't match her classmates'. If you start this process before school, you'll help cement the proper position in her muscle memory before elementary school.

This is one time kids should put an elbow on the table

Or, rather, a forearm. This tip, paired with page positioning, can make sure that kids use the minimum effort possible to move their writing across the page. Their forearms should move like windshield wipers as they draw lines or letters across the page. Their arm shouldn't need to move - the page should. You will be surprised how much this helps with how quickly kids give up on writing tasks.

Get a grip

This is another aspect of handwriting development that is important to address as young as possible. Luckily, there are tripod pencil grips available that can help this process along for under $10 that can be used and reused through elementary school. Triangle pencils and triangular crayons can also help your child practice - and make permanent - proper grip.

For Older Students"¦

Info Graphic

Because dysgraphia impacts both letter and number spacing, higher math tasks can quickly become more challenging for older students. Wide-ruled graph paper can prove incredibly helpful to make sure numbers stay in the place (value) where they belong, and the proper numbers are added or subtracted from each other. Another option is to turn normal lined paper from portrait to landscape format to solve math equations. In this way, the ones, tens, and hundreds places - and beyond - always remain where they belong.

Bump it up

Because dysgraphia is often a result of visual-spatial processing problems, buying ridged paper that allows kids to "bump the lines" gives them a tactile reminder of the bottom and top of each line so that their letters remain in the space where they belong horizontally. Also, the ridged rules on the left and right provide that same tactile reminder vertically of where each line of text should begin and end. This type of paper is also available with visual cues for ensuring that letters that hit the midline - which is most of them - are all formed properly and, most importantly, legibly.

Key into the issue

One of the most popular and most accepted classroom accommodations is simply to bring a laptop into class to take notes or type up papers instead of handwriting them. The challenge is that most teachers will not allow kids to take tests in this manner without a learning plan like an IEP or 504.

Whether you just try a couple of techniques above or start working on the whole gamut, please don't wait to address this learning challenge or assume that it will "work itself out." I've heard from far too many occupational therapists, special needs teachers, and parents that playing the waiting game adds undue stress not only to your life but to your child. Isn't school stressful enough for kids without adding an unnecessary one to their book bags?

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We met when my husband was in college. I spent many a late night typing as he dictated papers so that his dyslexia didn't interfere with his thought process. He was incredibly bright - he just learned differently. Unfortunately, his learning difference made the way he spent the majority of his youth - doing schoolwork - a lot less fun and a lot more challenging than it was for his non-dyslexic peers.

My daughter started showing what I thought were signs of dyslexia in kindergarten. Upon further research, she had been giving me clues that she was dyslexic even during preschool. I pushed for two years to get a child study done. When we finally completed it in second grade, the results were no surprise to me. I knew her grades weren't a problem with her being lazy, nor was it that we didn't read with her enough. The way her brain processes information is different.

This difference has now been proven in study after study to be genetic. In fact, if there is a dyslexic in your family tree, your kids have a 50 percent, or flip-of-a-coin, chance of also being dyslexic. Recent studies estimate that up to 17% of the population grapple with this different kind of brain process. That's almost 3 million U.S. children! Our public school system is just not set up to help these kids learn better in a mainstream classroom.

The dyslexic path started out rocky with my daughter, but has since smoothed out substantially. Our trials and tribulations have now helped pave an easier course for her younger brother. I feel very fortunate to live in a time where the Internet and neuroscience are helping stamp out the stigma of dyslexia. This being said, it can still be tough to cope at times.

Below is a list of the top 10 things that have made a positive impact in how my kids, husband and I perceive and cope with dyslexia. I hope they help you as much as they've helped us.

1.

Let your child know that he actually has a BIGGER brain than other kids

How much bigger? The left hemisphere of a dyslexic's brain is the same size as non-dyslexics, but the right hemisphere is about 10% larger.

2.

Remind your child that being dyslexic does not mean he is not smart

Brain imaging studies that use both fMRI and PET scans have now proven that people with dyslexia process language in a completely different area of the brain than people who aren't dyslexic. It has nothing to do with IQ. In fact, in some situations, dyslexics actually learn moreeffectively.

3.

Watch The Big Picture with your child when she gets frustrated

This movie highlights uplifting stories from dyslexics who've gone on to greatness like Sir Richard Branson and Charles Schwab. Or just occasionally drop other names of famous dyslexics like Hans Christian Anderson, Steven Spielberg or Anderson Cooper.

4.

Remember that dyslexia is a challenge with directionality in general-not just left-to-right, but top-to-bottom and sequences. Be sure to stay on the lookout for other ways it may manifest - like place values. In our house, covering and uncovering pieces of words and equations with a ruler or rectangle eraser has worked wonders. Similarly, helping your child translate word problems into numeric expressions by hunting for "clue" words helps simplify comprehension.

5.

Teach your child to use graphic organizers like Venn Diagrams as early as possible for note taking and studying. There are literally thousands that are available for free on Google and many more on sites like TeachersPayTeachers and Lesson Planet.

6.

Connect with other parents of dyslexics

Each Wednesday on Twitter at 12 p.m. Eastern time, parents and educators participate in #ldchat and the topic is often related to dyslexia. We share techniques that are working with our kids and students for schoolwork as well as self-esteem strategies to help our kids cope with negative, misguided perceptions from peers and adults.

7.

Don't "wait it out" if your child is exhibiting 3 or more of the warning signs of dyslexia in preschool or early elementary school. Keep pushing for a plan to get your child the accommodations, modifications and remediation they need to smooth out schoolwork. It will make the time he spends in school and on homework more enjoyable and effectivefor you both. Moreover, it will help ensure that his self-esteem is not negatively impacted by falling even further behind as a result of waiting it out.

8.

Get hooked up with LearningAlly

Once you've got a learning plan, get yourself a LearningAlly subscription. Their library of more than 70,000 audio books and audio textbooks can keep your child's appetite for knowledge satiated without getting slowed down by reading difficulties. Plus, it can make studying for tests more effective because your child can learn by listening instead of by looking. (And because dyslexia is inherited, chances are that this subscription can reignite a passion for learning in you or your spouse, as well!) LearningAlly also has some great webinars available to help avoid nightly "backpack disasters."

9.

Opt your child out of standardized testing

In most places in the U.S., you are able to opt your child out of spring testing as long as you let your administration know ahead of time. This will eliminate the challenge of test score comparisons that happen on the playground and will score you points as a super-cool parent.

10.

Pick up a copy of Essentials of Dyslexia Assessment and Intervention by Nancy Mather and Barbara J. Wendling, which is an absolute must have resource for the bookshelves of parents of dyslexics. It's an in-depth look at the gift of dyslexia with a wealth of effective, well-researched treatment options for your child.

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Susan Cain's book Quiet reignited the extroversion/introversion conversation in popular culture. Her chapter focused on Jerome Kagan's work firmly planted both Ms. Kain and Dr. Kagan on the nature side of the debate. But Dr. Dario Nardi's current brain imaging work at UCLA proved through the use of MRI images that the brains of different personality types actually do "light up" in different ways in the same situations.

The first personality preference to reveal itself is extroversion or introversion. In fact, most personality type books state that this aspect of personality shows up as early as two years old. I don't know about you, but in both of my kids, this preference became abundantly clear before they could crawl. While this observation is fun during early Mommy & Me classes and baby play dates, as kids get older, extroverted kids thrive with very different parenting styles than introverts. This can be particularly challenging for introverted parents who will need to modify some of the strategies that worked best for them as kids into techniques that work better for extraverts. Here are the top 5 tips from our house to yours for parenting an extroverted child:

Tackling Time Outs

Instead of sending an extroverted child straight into time out when they act out of line, try this strategy instead:

• TakeΒ two minutes to talk about what he did wrong and have him mirror what made you unhappy with his behavior.

• Send him into time out forΒ one minute per year of age.

• Regroup forΒ two minutes (or more) to talk about - or, better yet, role play - different strategies that could work better in a similar situation in the future.

This technique embraces the extravert's natural process of understanding, which is a discuss β†’ reflect β†’ discuss progression. (Very different than the reflect β†’ discuss β†’ reflect path to understanding that comes most naturally to introverts.)

Get in the Game

As an introverted parent, you may come home from a long day and crave time for yourself to recharge. Remember that this is the opposite feeling for your extroverted child. While it's perfectly fine to take 5 minutes for Mom, be sure to set aside a good sized daily block of time to recharge your outgoing child's batteries with lots of positive interaction. Whether you go for a walk together, play a board game, imagine you are pirates or fairies, or simply sit down and chat about her day over a snack, don't let her think that acting out is the only way to get you to interact in a way that she enjoys.

Handling Homework

This is one of the most crucial things to remember to help your extroverted child achieve success in school. Remember that discuss β†’ reflect β†’ discuss path to understanding I talked about with respect to time outs? It's even more important when you're talking about school work. If you've been waging an uphill battle with your extravert during homework, try these techniques instead.

1. Take 15-20 minutes to chat with your child before breaking out the books. Or schedule a super-short play date with a friend. This interaction will help him recharge his batteries so he can take on his homework with gusto.

2. Talk to him about any assignments before sending him into the "solo zone" to complete his homework. This will get his brain fired-up about how to tackle his take-home tasks.

3. If an essay or any type of written expression task is on the agenda for the evening, make sure he's got some kind of voice recording device like an iTouch or smart phone. First, so that he can think out loud, then structure his thoughts after this verbal stream of consciousness. Encourage him to read his preliminary and final drafts aloud to catch any grammatical mistakes or unclear passages.

Layered Listening

If you are an introvert, this can be one of the single-most frustrating aspects of parenting an extravert. Mostly because you have very different listening blocks than your child. Particularly in more heated conversations, your little extravert will naturally be inclined toward more "layered listening." You may recognize it as talking over each other. In order to help her listen and communicate more effectively, grab a box of unsharpened pencils. Hand a few to her and keep an equal number for yourself. Then, sit down to discuss the problem. When either of you speaks, you must put down one of the pencils. You are only allowed to speak when you've got a pencil to use. In this way, she will learn to pace the conversation in a way that helps her drink in a fuller picture of the situation from your side before adding her perspective.

Be Present

One of the gifts that extraverts are blessed with that we introverts struggle with more often is the ability to stay "in the now." As an introvert, you are naturally more inclined to ruminate on the past or try to forecast the future. Your extroverted child can help you bring more awareness into what's happening right now and help you to live more often in the moment. And, as we've all experienced as parents, the moments when our children are small truly are fleeting, so the more time we spend being present with them is one of life's greatest gifts.

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