By Nathalie Kunin
Everyone’s happy. Your child loves her tutor. They laugh and learn together, the sessions fly by. It all seems to be going well and she even looks forward to the tutoring. But then the scores come back. The teacher’s opinion hasn’t changed. What do you do?

As a parent, getting to the bottom of what isn’t working and why will require strong communication skills between yourself, your child, tutor and teacher. Once you evaluate the situation, you’ll have several options moving forward to ensure that tutoring sessions are both enjoyable and efficient. (more…)

By Diana Goodwin
The weather is warming up and soon we will all be able to spend the summer in the water with our families! Swimming is a relaxing and fun activity, a great exercise, and an important life skill. Make sure to stay safe around the water while you enjoy these many benefits of swimming! (more…)

If we create a rhythm with our children based on negative behavior, such as focusing on the NO’s in life, and the ‘you can’t do that’ and the ‘you’re being a bad boy or girl’ then eventually that combination of thoughts and beliefs will get stored into their subconscious mind.

By Todd Kurpil
In this day and age we are waking up to the idea that how we treat ourselves is how we treat our children. We realize that our attitude and state of mind strongly influence our children’s behavior. We see that however compassionate, kind and loving we are to ourselves will carry over into how we treat our children. We also see how anger, depression and fear can carry over into our children. This is called Parent Suggestion. Our children see us, hear us and feel us when they are around us, and all of this information gets stored in the basket of their subconscious mind. (more…)

By Elizabeth Fraley, M.Ed.
Here are eight excellent strategies proven to motivate your early learner. These strategies can be implemented at home.

TIP 1: Evaluate which part of your home you would like designate as your “literacy center” and supply this area with developmentally appropriate materials and books your child can access independently at their leisure or with your adult guidance. (more…)

By Jill Levin
Camp provides a positive opportunity for growth that should not be underestimated. For this reason, camp can be an integral part of a child’s educational and social development. For the first time, kids leave their homes and deal with peers who may have different values or behaviors. They learn to make choices for themselves and to negotiate and resolve conflict. They learn to deal with stress in a socially acceptable manner. They learn to assess and differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate behavior and in this way ultimately gain a stronger sense of self. And camp provides the backdrop for this personal growth in a safe and secure environment. (more…)

By Nathalie Kunin
As our children will be starting the second semester of the school year, it’s important to get them back in the mode and organized. If their backpacks are overflowing, their work spaces are piled high and their homework gets left behind most mornings, your child may need an organizational overhaul. The following tips are designed for parents to help get things back on track, no matter what your child’s age. (more…)

By Shirin Yadegar
As we approach the end of the year, we rewind our memories to the years triumphs, disappointments and growth. As mothers, we hope that our families have grown together organically to become better human beings, more thoughtful of our surroundings and grateful for all that we have.

Giving birth, watching our children take their first steps, celebrating milestones are beautiful when we push rewind stirring laughter and happy tears. (more…)

By Valerie Lev
Why is it that two students who, let’s say, get 80% of their answers correct on a practice exam wind up with very different scores on the actual exam? One student gets a high score on the real ISEE, and the other student gets a mid-range score. The answer can often be blamed on test anxiety.

Test anxiety, to a degree, is normal and, actually, helpful in getting a student “into the zone.” Excessive anxiety, however, can be paralyzing. Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, says, “When students are anxious about how they’ll do on an exam, their worries use up some of their working memory capacity, leaving less of the cognitive horsepower to apply to the task at hand.” (more…)

By Fran SolomonWhen a baby dies before it is born or soon after birth, parents face a difficult emotional task: they must try to say goodbye to someone they had little chance to know. They must accept that a life has ended, even though it barely began.

Common Feelings
Guilt is a common reaction to loss of a child and can be particularly acute for parents who lose an infant or an unborn baby. Parents of unborn babies who die often mistakenly blame themselves for the death. The mother may believe she harmed her baby. Both parents may tell themselves they should have sensed something was wrong. While this is a normal reaction, eventually one must find compassion for themselves and realize that this was not their fault. They were not responsible. (more…)

Three Things Parent Can do to Help

65312487: This series of numbers would be hard to remember.
12345678: This series of numbers is easy to remember.
Children who have exposure to a wide range of experiences and information are better readers than children who are not. When people have prior knowledge about a subject, they connect to the words on the page they are reading. If they don’t know anything about the subject, the words have very little meaning.

At Learning Encounters, we see a lot of children who are up on the latest news in sports, music, tech devices, and in general pop culture. Many children, however, have limited knowledge about the world outside their inner circle, and there’s a direct correlation between the exposure a child has to the world and a child’s reading comprehension skills. (more…)