Tag Archives: novastarprepblogs

I’ve taken a lot of tests—not as many as some, thanks to my liberal arts undergraduate education, but nonetheless, standardized testing has been a feature for over half of my life. I’ve done the PSAT, SAT, several SAT subject tests, GRE, GRE subject tests, the LSAT, and public school tests whose acronyms I no longer… Continue reading →

Unfortunately most middle and high school students don’t understand the importance of knowing their audience when giving a speech.  Students on speech and debate teams across the country fall into the bad habit of speaking the same way about the same topics to virtually all audiences.  Sure, in a perfect world we could all speak the same… Continue reading →

Bully, disruptive, unmotivated, and the list grows exponentially.  Many speculate and wonder about children described this way but those well-intended speculations are misguided.  Behavior is a form of communication and solution makers will focus on the function of behavior.   What needs aren’t being met? Building relationships is vital in establishing trust and working with… Continue reading →

Special education is a very special area of education that not only takes the teacher to help the student, but a whole team of educational professionals.   Within a collaborative effort, the whole educational team can come together and focus on certain aspects that will help the student thrive not only in the classroom, but in… Continue reading →

Positive reinforcement has been shown to be the most effective strategy to use when trying to evoke behavior change. Essentially, positive reinforcement means adding something to a situation to increase the likelihood of a behavior occurring again in the future. Here’s an example: Mrs. Smith gives Katie a gold star for turning in her math… Continue reading →

There are many myths out there about both people with autism. While below is an attempt to clear up some of those myths, it is important to remember that each person with autism is unique and there is no such thing as a “one size fits all” approach. Myth 1: • People with autism think… Continue reading →

  “Thanks for returning our call, Mrs. Merchant. Yesterday, Ryan let out an ear-piercing scream after slamming her books on the floor. This behavior is unacceptable…she was only asked to present her show and tell item in class. She will surely lose recess for the next three days. Hopefully, Ryan will simply obey the next… Continue reading →

Building confidence is something that starts at a young age. Now that I have had the opportunity to “live a little,” I wanted to write a letter to myself in elementary school.  I was a shy and quiet kid, but I always had supportive parents, extended family and teachers along the way to guide me. … Continue reading →

“You got a C?…are you kidding me!  I didn’t know you were struggling in this class!”   Parents, too often, you find yourselves in this position—my child is struggling and I didn’t even know it. You may have studied your child’s progress on the school website, cancelled plans for extensive homework assignments, even called in… Continue reading →

Our confidence rises when we achieve success in something.  However, success is not always easy to measure.  An effective approach for building confidence is by developing challenging goals that are easier to measure.  For example, a goal could be to learn a particular skill.  This can further be broken into segments with measurable outcomes, i.e.… Continue reading →