By Sarah Vander Schaaff “What parents see is a very bright and intelligent child who can’t pass the grade because they can’t get the homework turned in.” What the child needs, Joyce Kubik says, is to learn simple skills to fit into the linear world when they need to. Kubik is the president of the nonprofit ADHD Coaches Organization, (ACO) a group that serves ADHD coaches and families. As a coach, she brings another level of expertise to her work: she has ADHD, too. For a person with ADHD, Kubik says, “…their brain is wired to be the person who sees everything and reacts to things—they are the movers and shakers.” Still, in a world with linear expectations, such as following… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff Could you identify William Henry Harrison out of a lineup of John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, and Franklin Pierce? To be fair, I pulled these presidents from a posting on US News and World Report highlighting the 10 worst presidents, and this particular question is not one of the many my children have been fielding in the app, Presidents vs. Aliens. But it’s not far off. Presidents vs. Aliens is a 4.5 star app in the Mindprint Collection, reviews of apps, workbooks, games and learning strategies focused on how the material meets the cognitive needs or strengths of children. These are no iTunes reviews, helpful as those are. These address concepts that speak to the individual… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff The time to underestimate your own potential is now, my fellow parents. It’s February, yes, and I hear the groundhog saw his shadow, but summer will be here before you know it. At least the week of camp you really hope to send your kid to will be filled up or canceled before you know it. Some may adhere to a laissez faire approach to June through August, and I’m all for less hustle and more restoration of balance for the body, mind, and academic load. But I have learned two things over the course of nine years of parenting. The first is that days off from school are not days off from meeting the curiosity… 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

As if your life depends on it… In 650 words or less, describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there and why is it meaningful? You are now sitting in the shoes of a high school senior, thank you very much. These questions are a few of the prompts on the 2014-15 Common Application for college. They are the same ones from last year, the makers of the common app essay say, because feedback was positive. Still, Brenda Bernstein, a professional resume writer, personal statement coach, and business copywriter behind the Essay Expert, knows that for some students facing the questions, it’s not that simple. “They don’t all have life coaches… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff For the past month, I have been thinking about my interview with literacy expert, Peggy Kaye (LEARN WITH HOMER) who reminded me that children sometimes feel vulnerable when learning a new skill. I had forgotten that sense of fear; a worry that one will never understand. I’ve been reminded of it now each night that I practice my Italian, a hobby I picked up again after realizing it had been ten years and two kids since I first made it a goal to learn the language. When I first started, I bought a textbook and dictionaries and took the “T” once a week for a class in Boston. Now, I have my iPad, the Duolingo app,… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff A few months ago, I decided that instead of buying workbooks for my kids to look at over the summer, I’d start collecting the homework they brought home and use it as a basis for a personalized binder.  I’d add new material, too, of course, and try to find things that appealed to their interests as well as their grade level and the one they’d be approaching. But you know, it was only last month that I took down the Halloween lights that had been iced into a bush in our front yard for most of the winter. I may, perhaps, have been too ambitious in my dream for the ideal summer “let’s not forget everything… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff When Peggy Kaye was first starting out in teaching, a parent asked if there was something she could use for the classroom. “Yes,” she said, “a tape recorder.” The parent got her one, and Kaye recorded herself reading books her students could later listen to on their own. Today, Kaye is Director of Joyful Learning for the Learn with Homer App, and it’s children who have the ability to record their voices in the product designed for beginning readers. She’s come a long way, it seems, from the days of analog cassettes. But Learn with Homer is all about blending the creative and imaginative traditions of the past with the capabilities of the present  moment. As… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff This past Wednesday, Nancy and I broke from our regular routine of packing lunches, hunting for missing mittens, and heading to our office in Tiger Labs, and made our way to Manhattan where we explored the 412,000 square feet of the American International Toy Fair. We walked the aisles, showcasing more than 1,150 toy company exhibits, on the hunt for toys and games with an educational bent. Mindprint Learning CEO, Nancy Weinstein, was intent on meeting the inventors behind the games as well as finding new products to review and add to our database. It was my first experience at the Toy Fair, and after I reminded myself that I was not an eight-year-old let loose… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff Ok, I admit it, I don’t know where Azerbaijan is on a map. I know where it is not, generally speaking, and where it is most likely, generally speaking, but that does little good when your eight year old turns to you during the Olympic Parade of Nations, and asks, “So, Mom, where is that country?” “Hum. That’s a really good question. Oh, look, it’s Matt Lauer!” As my husband pointed out, the fact that the delegations were arranged in Cyrillic alphabetical order only added to the appearance of our parental ineptitude. I say “appearance” of ineptitude; my children may have a different opinion. While it may be a little late, there are still several more… Read More