Get your middle school student ready for college...RIGHT NOW

We work with students in grades 2-12 (and beyond), and trust me, it's never too early to start preparing them for college.  Washington Post writer, Jay Matthews, offers "8 subtle ways to prepare middle schoolers for college" below.  To read the entire article, including full descriptions and anecdotes that accompany each tip, click here.

1. Notice what they enjoy doing, and help them do more of it.
2. Make sure your child knows that B’s are fine in middle school and that fun is important.
3. Enroll them in Algebra I in the eighth grade.
4. Insist they develop some practical housework skills.
5. Flavor family trips with a bit of college atmosphere.
6. Encourage children who are curious about the world to take a foreign language.
8. Do everything you can to encourage reading.

[Source: washingtonpost.com]

Tips for Successful Math Students

Organization and good note-taking are both important to being a successful math student.  As an IST tutor and a math teacher at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, I have noticed a few simple things that help students improve their performance.

The better students have a very organized binder or notebook dedicated only to math. I have seen sub-sections dedicated to warm-up, classwork, homework, tests & quizzes.

Successful students also take diligent notes during class and make comments and note of errors or misconceptions in the margins (i.e. "watch out for negatives," "when you raise a power to a power you multiply the exponents" etc).

It is also good to see students write down the question, steps and answer for any math problem (especially if the homework is from a textbook).