Connected Parenting

Let’s talk about tests.  We want our kids to do well on tests.  Yesterday, I had two conversations that I didn’t think were related, but were.  One was with a mother who has a son in third grade and test prep has been coming up in his school. He goes to a really high-performing school […]

[Read a previous post on: Coby’s Story During The Resilient Reader Program] I’ve been doing a lot of reading about attention lately. How to keep it, how to use it, how to stop checking if I got a new text while I’m typing this blog..  In my reading, I learned a term for something we […]

[Read a previous post on: Why NOT to teach your child the ABC’s (do this instead] Often, one of the first things I hear from parents coming to me is, “my child refuses to read to me.”  Their kid has a hard day at school, and they know that when they get home they have […]

[Read a previous post on: Reading is more than an Academic Subject] You may have seen this recent New York Times article, or this New Yorker article, on the literacy crisis in this country. Currently, only 37% of 4th graders are reading at or above grade level. 63% of fourth graders are below grade level […]

[Read a previous post on: Turning Reluctant Readers into Resilient Readers] This is me as a kid. And, I have a secret to tell you… I was a bad student. I was the kind of student who constantly got calls home with well-meaning declarations from teachers: “she has much potential” but “she just needs to […]

[Read a similar post on: Normalizing Mistakes] The other day, a parent said to me “I know it’s my fault that my daughter is such a perfectionist.” I could tell that she was feeling so guilty. Like all of us feel when we see characteristics we don’t love in ourselves show up in the tiny humans […]

[Read a similar post on: Meaningful, Fun, Celebration] I’ve been thinking about taking pride in the small stuff. Not waiting until a big accomplishment, but noticing the small wins along the way.  For our kids who are struggling with a subject in school, particularly in reading, it can feel like until everything is right, nothing […]

[Read the previous post on: Reading is More Than an Academic Subject] I have been talking to a lot of people about how to help our kids with the transition into school. Yes, we’re getting ready to go back to school. It’s going to be September before we know it, and we do want to […]

[Read a similar post on Celebrating Hard Work and Healthy Risk-Taking in Children with Jennifer Hill.] What if all the horrible things we think might happen, probably won’t?  I’ve been saying that to myself often. Every time I look at my baby and see a potential disease, developmental delay, bee sting. I keep reminding myself […]

To learn more about this, read my previous post on Systematic Ways of Teaching Reading. Something that I hear a lot is:  “I just want him to feel confident in reading like I did”  or  “I just want him to love books and cuddle up next to a book, like I did when I was […]