Edited by Mindprint Staff In this story, Beth, mother of 8 year old Talya, describes why she used Mindprint Learning to calm her lingering concerns about her daughter who was born prematurely.  (Editor’s note: To protect the privacy of the child, Beth and Talya are not their real names.) Talya is very bright, but moves notoriously slowly in many ways. She was born very early so I was concerned that there might be learning disabilities that we hadn’t seen show up yet, or the school hadn’t noticed, but lingered beneath her sweet exterior. Talya had a range of services provided when she was little, including occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy. She worked so hard and was placed out of… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff We’ve had an exciting week on this blog, with a team of bloggers joining me in our drive to “learn something new everyday.” Can you imagine if the energy and money that went into sports commentary were put towards educational programs, or if we had a 24-hour cable network with the pizzazz of ESPN devoted to the issues parents cope with in raising kids? In case you missed it, here’s a recap of what we’ve featured this week.   1. Benefits of Music for Children with Attention Issues This well-received post was written by Nicole Davies with follow-up commentary by a Mindprint Learning educator with years of experience teaching special education.       2. All… Read More

Never The First to Finish: Why Pace Matters By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff.  This post originally appeared on the Getting Smart website as part of a series of blogs written by parents called, “Smart Parents.” Remember how it felt to be halfway through a math quiz and a classmate gets up and turns it in to the teacher? Maybe that other student rushed, or maybe he or she just happened to be super speedy. Either way, I always came to the same conclusion: I’m just never going to be that fast. Years have passed since I’ve had to take a math quiz. As an adult, I’m comfortable with my own strengths and weaknesses and the time it takes me to do… Read More

Slower processing speed can cause frustration for even the brightest kids. They might have a hard time finishing tests, take longer on homework, or have trouble keeping up with class discussions even when they know the answers. Note: This is one of a 10 blog series on learning traits. Read about all 10 learning traits here. What is Processing Speed? Processing speed is the rate at which a student can see or hear information, analyze it, and respond. It is also referred to as visual processing, auditory processing, or processing efficiency. Why is Processing Speed important? In elementary school, slower processing might only be evident when a student scores much lower than expected on standardized tests. Slower processing might become more obvious in middle or high school, when there is a lot more work. Slow processing… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff Why are these children protesting in front of their school? Oh, wait—their parents are there, too. And their teachers. And their principal? One of them was Brooklyn mother, Jody Alperin. She has a first and fourth grader in PS10, a school that draws students from Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and Greenwood Heights. Why were she and her kids expressing their discontent with the recent round of state language arts (ELA) tests? She’s not against all forms of testing. She’s not against standards.  But she had expected that after last year’s experimental first round—the first to be aligned with what has been a problematic rollout of Common Core standards—this year’s state tests would reflect improvements. By… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff What does it take to get into college? For that matter, preschool? Two recent stories in The New York Times address changes in the admissions process for some schools and both look at efforts to take the focus off standardized tests. First, there was the attention-grabbing headline: “Private Schools are Expected to Drop a Dreaded Entrance Test.” The test, as the story states, is “commonly known as the E.R.B.” and the organization that is dropping it when a contract expires next spring is the Independent School Admissions Association of Greater New York, which represents 130 schools. E.R.B. is shorthand for many things. Officially, it stands for Educational Records Bureau, a company founded in 1927. Today the… Read More

The documentary film, “Race to Nowhere” is described on the film’s website as, “Featuring the heartbreaking stories of students across the country who have been pushed to the brink by over-scheduling, over-testing and the relentless pressure to achieve…” It was nearly three years ago that the film came to the Princeton-area community, thanks in large part to Jess Deutsch. Today she reflects on the experience, sharing some answers to questions she’s been asked over the years. How did you hear about “Race To Nowhere”, and why did you lead the effort to have it screened at Princeton High School? JD: The short answer is that I watched the film at a very small venue, and decided on the spot that… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff I didn’t go to Harvard, so I don’t often spend my afternoons perusing Harvard Magazine, but it’s sometimes nice to have a friend or colleague share the news of her esteemed alumni publication. In this case, it was a story “Investigating Academic Misconduct” that caught my interest. We’d all heard some of the details of the recent episode, but this story had an inside perspective. The world could hardly conceal its schadenfreude at the scandal that involved more than half of a large Government class last spring. More than a hundred students, it seemed, had cheated on a take-home exam, their written answers so similar they were suspected of collaborating on their compositions. But the article… Read More