Beginning middle school is an important milestone for both students and parents.  The transition to increased academic responsibilities, new social pressures, and a variety of new extracurricular opportunities can seem like an intimidating path to navigate.  We hope the tips contained in this guide will help you turn the beginningRead More

Does your student seem to understand the material one day but can’t remember it the next? Memory retention is most often associated with “rote learning,” which is learning strictly through memorization.  However, memory retention issues surface in all areas of study.  Memory retention difficulties do not differentiate between difficult conceptsRead More

Psychology research shows that the more specific a plan is for achieving a reasonably attainable goal the better your chances are of reaching that goal. Seems like common sense, right? Well, it isn’t always. Organization and planning time for school-work is important for any student. Skills that make a studentRead More

The state of Texas treats home schools the same as non-accredited private schools.  To this extent, parents have great flexibility to teach or have an instructor teach their children in the manner that they see most fitting.  However, parents planning to interact with accredited public and private schools will wantRead More

When faced with a difficult situation concerning motivation, parents often turn to offering external rewards or threatening to revoke perceived privileges; such actions are all forms of extrinsic motivation but some methods are more effective than others. While these tactics can be effective, often they are overused and in someRead More

Students and parents can enhance student motivation by working together to establish long-term and short-term goals that are challenging, measurable, and attainable.  Students and parents should also work to set up systems of incentives and disincentives for both kinds of goals when intrinsic motivation fails [See our article on “TypesRead More

In today’s competitive college application environment, many students and parents are tempted to choose prospective schools based solely on rank or name recognition.  For others, tuition costs are the most important concern.  While each of these factors is important, it is also critical to thoroughly evaluate a school to makeRead More