Restore Your Relationship.

Tired of fighting over school? One of our main roles is to offer mediation between parents and students, as well as the students and school. We can help reduce the conflict in the home by taking over the management of a student. We will encourage them, hold them accountable, and also teach them how to advocate at school. This allows many families to get their relationships back with their children, and leave the worry and stress of school to us.

If you are looking for this kind of help for your student, please contact us today at: http://www.lindereducationalcoaching.com/

Did you know? Linder Educational Coaching's Flagship Academic Success Program

Did you know that here at Linder we offer private coaching with our Flagship Academic Success Program? Most students are bombarded with readings, powerpoints, lectures, homework, tests, and projects, yet have never been taught the strategies to succeed in managing these things. Very rarely do teachers in school have the time or ability to focus on one student and understand the struggles and problems with that student’s learning method. Sadly, there is no required class in study skills for school and, even if there was, there is no system that works for everyone. Each person learns differently and needs to find a way to use his/her natural abilities in school.

With private coaching we work with students intensively, at least a few hours a week at first, to analyze what their current strategies are and how we can improve on them. Each student goes step-by-step through the following aspects of our program:

Evaluate Executive Skills

Executive skills are what allows any individual, student or adult, to envision, plan, and execute tasks, as well as evaluate their performance and learn from mistakes.  Many children have weaknesses in certain areas, and children with ADD/ADHD are strongly deficient in multiple areas. As stated by Dr. Guare, “Executive skills have recently been identifies as the foundation that all children need to negotiate the demands of childhood, and these brain-based skills become more and more critical as children venture into the world with decreasing supervision and guidance. Ultimately, they are essential to successful management of adult life.” Executive Skills are broken down as follows:

• Response inhibition: The capacity to think before you act—this ability to resist the urge to say or do something allows your child the time to evaluate a situation and how his or her behaviour might impact it. For example, a young child can wait for a short period without being disruptive. An adolescent can accept a referee’s call without an argument.
• Working Memory: The ability to hold information in memory while performing complex tasks. It incorporates the ability to draw on past learning or experience to apply to the situation at hand or project into the future. For example, a middle school child can remember the carrying expectations of multiple teachers.
• Emotional Control: The ability to manage emotions to achieve goals, complete tasks, or control and direct behaviour.
• Sustained Attention: The capacity to keep paying attention to a situation or task in spite of distractibility, fatigue, or boredom. For example, a teenage child can pay attention to homework, with short breaks, for 1-2 hours.
• Task initiation:  The ability to begin projects without undue procrastination, in an efficient or timely fashion.
• Planning/Prioritization: The ability to create a roadmap to reach a goal or to complete a task. It also involves being able to make decisions about what’s important to focus on and what’s not important.
• Organization: The ability to create and maintain systems to keep track of information and materials.
• Time Management: The capacity to estimate how much time one has, how to allocate it, and how to stay within time limits and deadlines. It also involves a sense that time is important.
• Goal-Directed Persistence: The capacity to have a goal, follow through to the completion of the goal, and not be put off by or distracted by competing interests.
• Flexibility: The ability to revise plans in the face of obstacles, setbacks, new information, or mistakes. It relates to adaptability to changing conditions.
• Metacognition: The ability to stand back and take a bird’s-eye view of yourself in a situation, to observe how you problem solve. It also includes self-monitoring and self-evaluative skills (“How am I doing?”). For example, a young child can change behaviour in response to feedback from an adult. A teenage can monitor and critique his performance and improve it by observing others who are more skilled.

Create a Goal List with Students and Parents

Using the information from our evaluation, we discuss the primary areas of concern with the family. We then decide on the skills we will focus on first, and create a goal list for each quarter.

Implement a System

We work with the students to teach them effective systems and strategies for them to be successful in school, foster executive function development, and create a harmonious home environment. Parents and teachers work with us to help support and implement the student’s system.

Assess Learning Style
No two people learn and understand information in the same way. We discern the clear tendencies of each child’s learning style, and then work closely with the student to try different methods of studying tailored to their learning style.  We try to provide each student with a set of study skills that is both efficient and effective for them now and throughout their life.
Develop academic skill sets: Evaluate the reading comprehension, math and writing ability of the student and discuss shortcomings with the parents. The goal is to have the student solidly at his grade level and prepared to handle the progressions of future grades. We like to build an ability in the student to handle constructive criticism and work through struggles, and encourage every student to seek recognition for his work.

• Reading & Writing Skills: Build reading skills beyond the basic comprehension and into the realm of synthesis and analysis. Develop writing skills for essays, exams, and SATs. Stress the importance of grammar and organization. We teach strategies for active and engaged reading. We also teach students the analytical skills necessary for academic pursuits. We work with students on vocabulary learning methods to aid in their reading comprehension and writing abilities.
• Study Skills: work with each student as an individual to gauge what their learning style is and show them how to capitalize on their natural learning preferences. Go through an intensive study skills method that is applicable for all their learning endeavors, now and in the future. We focus on memory techniques, active reading strategies, and building a study system.
• Test-taking skills: work with students (and their teachers) to analyze their test-taking skills. Work with the student on how to handle the stress of a testing environment and the different types of tests, as well as build an ability to recall the information from the study sessions.
• Independence: build confidence and knowledge in how to find answers, balance multiple projects, and engage in the learning process. We are very big on a student carrying his own weight. We are here to help, but know when to make them stand on their own. We expect a lot from our students, but they find that working hard on specific tasks and gaining results is much more satisfying than wading through unhappily on their own. We give them the tools to succeed, which is normally all that is missing.
• Mentoring: So much of what we do is provide a role model for the children. Each associate I have hired is exceptional in a variety of ways and each has a different advantage in working with children. As a whole, my program focuses on putting someone in the child’s life they can comfortably ask questions to or seek advice from. As a group, we have a junior Olympic medal, Magna Cum Laude graduations, Non-Profit founders, Teaching Award Winners, and many other magnificent achievements.

Our system is not an overnight fix or a simple subject clarification; it is truly a system of learning skills that take time and dedication to conquer. We hope to make their weekly study time decrease but their productivity increase, which is as much a relief for them as the parents.

Subject Tutoring

While we like to go beyond just basic subject tutoring, we are happy to work with any of the students on specific issues they have with comprehension in any subject. The difference between us and a normal subject tutor: We would rather teach them how to work out a problem themselves, find the answer, or be ok discussing issues with their full-time teacher. We want our students to be resourceful, not reliant.

If you want to set up an appointment for your child today to receive private coaching, please visit: http://www.lindereducationalcoaching.com/

1 Tutor + 1 Student = Better Math Scores, Less Fear

1 Tutor + 1 Student = Better Math Scores, Less Fear

By Patti Neighmond for NPR.org 

Math can be as scary as spiders and snakes, at least in the brain of an 8-year-old child. And that early anxiety about dealing with numbers can put a child at a significant disadvantage, not only in school but in negotiating life and a career. Fortunately, a study of third-graders, published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggests an intervention that can help. One-on-one tutoring does more than teach kids, the researchers say. It calms the fear circuitry in the brain.

"The most exciting aspect of our findings is that cognitive tutoring not only improves performance, but is also anxiety-reducing," says neuroscientist Vinod Menon, the study's senior author and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University.

Menon and his colleagues knew from their earlier research using MRI scans of the brain that math anxiety activates much the same network of cells that some other common phobias activate — fear of snakes or spiders or heights, for example. And they knew that a behavioral treatment known as exposure therapy helps some people resolve the anxiety of those other phobias. Could the same thing be happening with math tutoring?

To find out, the scientists recruited 46 third-graders who answered questions about math worries and were also tested on simple addition problems while having their brains scanned via functional MRI. Based on their answers, scans and scores in each of the tests, the children were divided into two groups: one deemed to have higher levels of math anxiety and one with lower levels.

Afterward, both groups received eight weeks of one-on-one tutoring in basic arithmetic, a few sessions a week.

Both groups did better in math at the end of the tutoring, Menon says. But most importantly, he says, the kids who had been anxious about math were 20 percent less anxious at the end of the eight weeks — a finding their brain scans confirmed.

The tutoring was highly personalized, says Menon — if a child got stuck on a particular concept, the tutor would work with the student to "get beyond the bottleneck in a non-negative, encouraging way."

He hopes to next study whether computerized tutoring can produce similar benefits and brain circuit changes, and whether the reduction in math anxiety persists as the children advance to more complex problem-solving skills.

48 College Scholarships & Contests! (Be sure to check this one out!)

Attending college can be quite expensive for students and their families. Luckily, there are many college scholarships and contests available to help pay for a college education. Students should seek out and apply for scholarships in which they meet the eligibility requirements. Below are 48 college scholarships and contests with October 2015 deadlines. Only brief information about each scholarship is listed. Therefore, students are encouraged to visit the scholarship websites to get further details about eligibility and requirements.

For more details click here: http://jlvcollegecounseling.com/2015/08/25/scholarships-with-october-2015-deadlines/

A Prudent College Path

Good Morning,

Today we are sharing an article for all of those fresh high school seniors that just started their final year! This article highlights promoting honors colleges for some students as a good life path choice for them financially, and academically. Needless to say, this does not mean that the Ivy League colleges are any less important but merely that there are several honors colleges out there which can be viable options for some students. 

A Prudent College Path

Frank Bruni

EVERY year the frenzy to get into highly selective colleges seems to intensify, and every year the news media finds and fawns over the rare students offered admission to all eight Ivy League schools. This year Ronald Nelson, from the Memphis area, was one of those who sopped up that adulation.

But his story had a fresh wrinkle. Nelson turned down Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the rest of them and chose instead to stay in the South, at the University of Alabama, where he’ll begin his studies later this month.

The lower price tag of Alabama, which is giving him a bounty of aid, was one reason. He also cited another: He’ll be taking classes at its honors college, which promises him an environment of especially dedicated, high-achieving students within a larger, more diverse community of more than 30,000 undergraduates.

Nelson’s decision taps into a striking development in higher education. More and more public schools are starting, expanding, refining and successfully promoting honors programs, and particularly honors colleges, that give students some of the virtues and perks of private schools without some of the drawbacks, such as exorbitant tuition and an enclave of extreme privilege.

The honors college at Alabama has been around only since 2003 and has grown steadily since then. It now includes more than 6,500 students. In a neighboring state, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga recently put the finishing touches on its own ambitious honors college.

There are dozens more honors colleges like these across the country, and while they’re hardly secrets, they don’t get quite the attention from college applicants — most notably from those fixated on the Ivy League and its ilk — that they deserve. Over the next few months, as accomplished high school seniors finalize the lists of where they’ll apply, they’d do well to consider the honors colleges at Alabama, at U.T.-Chattanooga or at other public universities.

And they’d be wise to consult a website and book that, surprisingly, fly somewhat under the radar in an era when applicants and their parents are hungrier than ever for any college-admissions resource that might help.

The book could use a title snappier and sexier than the one it has, “A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs.” It was first published in 2012 and updated last year. It’s linked to publicuniversityhonors.com, which began in 2011 and, like the book, provides thorough appraisals of individual honors colleges and programs and intelligent thoughts on how they fit into the higher-education landscape.

One recent post explores “College Value: Public Honors vs. Private Elites.” Another, “Honors and Career Success,” explains why a state university honors college or program might be the smartest of all options for some students.

“Because of the broader student body at a public university, there’s a lot more reach in terms of the type of people you’re going to encounter,” John Willingham, the author of the book and the architect of the website, told me.

And it’s likely that at a public university’s honors college, there will be a smaller percentage of students from extremely wealthy families than at one of the most highly selective private schools.

“They’re not all elite,” Willingham said, referring to honors college students, “though most are capable. There’s a more egalitarian quality.”

The honors colleges and programs to which he gives highest praise include the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University, which is widely considered the gold standard; Schreyer Honors College at Penn State; the South Carolina Honors College at the University of South Carolina; and the honors program at the University of Kansas.

Generally speaking, honors programs give students who’ve distinguished themselves through their SAT scores, ACT scores or grade-point averages access to, and dibs on, small classes filled with other honors students. Honors colleges are essentially more formal, larger versions of honors programs, and there are often extra resources, even designated buildings and residences, for their students.

In some instances, students are invited to step onto the honors track, based on the strength of their application to the wider university. In others, they must take it upon themselves to go through the extra paces and specific process of admission to an honors college.

There are a few reasons not to applaud these honors tracks. Some universities lavish disproportionate energy on them, eager for bragging rights and trying to draw students whose profiles may bolster the university’s stature and rankings, and they use financial aid money that could go to needier cases for honors college recruits. (Then again, private colleges intent on moving up in the rankings similarly use merit aid to compete for top students.)

Grace August 9, 2015
Ronald Nelson's determination to attend his local university's honors program instead of Harvard, Yale or Princeton was a stupid decision,...
thereminion August 9, 2015
The annual cost for an instate resident at the University of Alabama is a bit over $25,000 a year. $12,591.00 per semester.http://www.ua...
LS August 9, 2015
I could not agree with this writer more! As a parent of a recent University of Alabama Honors grad It was the best decision my daughter...


ADDITIONALLY, honors colleges in some ways replicate, within a public school, the kind of stratified, status-conscious dynamic at play in the hierarchy of private schools.

But as Willingham rightly noted, the honors college cocoon isn’t as gilded as that of the most highly selective private colleges, which draw heavily from prep schools and affluent suburbs. And it’s part of a public university with considerable socioeconomic diversity.

Jonathan Fink, a vice president at Portland State University who successfully pushed for its honors program to become a full-fledged honors college, told me, “The students that P.S.U. draws are so different from the ones that my sister teaches at Mount Holyoke or that my other sister teaches at Sweet Briar.”

As a result, he said, P.S.U. arguably illuminates “more about the real world, which is the world you’ll ultimately be immersed in.”

“It gets you exposed to reality more,” he said, referring to the diversity that honors students at P.S.U. encounter. “The role that a place like P.S.U. plays is increasingly important as society becomes more economically split.”

Fink’s daughter graduated last year from Barrett at Arizona State. Its dean, Mark Jacobs, previously taught at a small private college in the Northeast. Fink noted that Jacobs “often talks about having been at Swarthmore and wishing he could have had Penn State next door — at A.S.U., he more or less got that.” Barrett combines the intimacy and academically distinguished student body of a Swarthmore with the scale, eclecticism and sprawling resources of a huge university. It’s two experiences in one.

Perhaps most important, honors colleges provide a supportive, challenging haven to some gifted young men and women who don’t make the cut at private schools with plunging acceptance rates or who aren’t prepared, for financial and other reasons, to pursue higher education far from their homes.

Robert Fisher, for example. A factory worker’s son who was the football captain and student body president at his high school in Clarksville, Tenn., he applied to a variety of schools in the state, including Vanderbilt, which rejected him. He ended up at U.T.-Chattanooga, on its honors track, which was his gateway to special summer internships in Washington for talented African-American students and to a 10-day cultural seminar in London. The seminar, he told me, was his first time out of the country.

He graduated last spring and will be back in England this fall — at Oxford University, as a Rhodes scholar.

To view the original article click here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-a-prudent-college-path.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0