Get involved in your child’s education

The most important tool you can give your child is education. If you want your child to succeed in school, effective studying methodologies and skills should be adapted by teacher, parent, and student. The parent and teacher play a huge role in developing good skills and study habits. In the midst of all this, homework comes into the picture – and it can often seem overwhelming. Plan out a schedule with your child so that you have ample time to help him/her with the writing work and foster other responsibilities. You, as the parent need to strengthen the core competencies of your child’s education, so that the basics are strong and study skills progress with every grade. If you feel that your child finds it difficult to cope, you could enroll him/her for extra school tutoring.

Help for school work

Pinecone Active Learning provides tutoring service in the California Bay Area. This Center for Active Learning gives children an opportunity to learn in a friendly environment where classes are conducted for math tutoring, reading fluency, homework help and grammar concepts on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-7 pm. Students also do daily Pinecone homework. If a specific subject seems to be a problem, you can talk with the tutors and get firsthand information on which program will be useful in the long term development of your child’s education. Apart from home studying, getting a little bit of extra help will increase your child’s confidence and improve concentration and performance in school.

To contact Pinecone Active Learning, call (408) 270-4548 or pay a visit directly to 5988 Silver Creek Valley Rd. #60 San Jose, CA 95138 to observe an ongoing classroom. You can meet with one of the tutors to discuss your child’s requirements.

Developing Reading skills

Does your child have reading fluency, or is there a problem with recognizing new words and identifying sounds/pronunciations? Reading does not come naturally to any child. It must be developed, and mistakes should be corrected at the base level so that the child can develop vocabulary and fluency in every passing grade. The earlier that parents and teachers correct miscomprehension, the faster children can learn to read with confidence and enthusiasm. With every passing grade, a child has to learn and understand a whole set of new words which primarily come through reading and comprehension. However many children with learning disabilities, find it difficult to keep up with learning and understanding new vocabulary. If you think your child needs some additional school tutoring that could help him/her overcome reading disabilities, you could enroll them in Pinecone Active Learning.

Teaching kids to read the right way

Pinecone Active Learning offers reading programs for preschoolers and elementary grades for a monthly tuition fee of $160. This school tutoring center was started by Vivian Hobbs and is located in San Jose, California. With caring tutoring assistants in a world-class friendly environment, strong emphasis is laid on mastery of foundation skills to simplify concepts and improve and strengthen basic language skills. Weekly Booklets are tailored to each student with a step-by-step reading program that enables them to combine phonetic sounds and decode words, improve fluency, vocabulary, sentence construction, and comprehension.

There is a discount of $50, for students who enroll in both math and reading together this month. To enroll, call: (408) 270-4548 for an appointment. You may also visit the Center’s corporate website at http://www.pineconelearning.com/ for more information.

Tapping into your child’s potential

Parent’s basic desire is to provide the best for their children. By catering to the needs of their child’s education, they feel that a good education has the potential to make their child responsible and successful adults. However, many make the mistake of misjudging their child’s true potential. If a child has the ability to grasp concepts and problem solving techniques quickly, they are termed as intelligent. If they posses some kind of learning disability, then they are termed as slow learners. The truth is, every child has the potential to excel in academics, provided he/she is given proper school tutoring or other methods of coaching to develop and improve their learning curve. This is where a parent should take responsibility in providing some kind of homework help or extra tutoring.

Homework Help

Pinecone Active Learning Center is a tutoring service center based in the California Bay Area. This Active Learning Center offers sequential programs, expert guidance and assistance from caring tutors in a friendly atmosphere. Daily work is tailored to each student, so the basics are strengthened, and there is immediate improvement in concentration, focus and aptitude. Tutoring services are explained and placement testing is provided for free so the parent can get an opportunity to observe the classroom, talk to the instructor/director and see the program firsthand.

Pinecone Active Learning Center is located at 5988 Silver Creek Valley Rd. #60, San Jose, California, 95138. Class hours are between 3-7 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays (drop-in basis). Call (408) 270-4548 for more information.

Improving your child’s academic progress

Teaching concepts can be hard, especially for the teacher and the student. A parent’s role in his/her child’s education is with the intention to provide the best, in terms of resources and guidance in their child’s school work. However, perspectives and expectations may vary between the teacher and the parent when it comes to the child’s progress. Additional variables which should be taken into consideration are the child’s interest, goals and aspirations towards the subjects he/she likes. In contrast, importance should be given to developing the learning curve and minimizing or eliminating learning disabilities during the early stages. If a child requires additional coaching or homework help in the subjects he/she finds difficult, then it’s best to enroll him/her in a school tutoring center.

A different kind of tutoring service

Pinecone Active Learning Center offers tutoring services for kids who need help in Math, English Grammar and Reading. This is an ideal ground where tutors, parents and children can develop a friendly rapport and destroy misconceptions about how education takes place. A progressive view on teaching, self-learning, independence and mastery can be replaced, so that kids feel more confident and comfortable in school.

Pinecone Active Learning Center was started with the sole purpose of introducing new methods and ideals in children’s education. Whether a child needs math homework help, reading help or learning grammar concepts, this tutoring center has developed a friendly, learning environment that helps children improve their grades and attitudes towards school work. Call (408) 270-4548 or visit www.pineconelearning.com for more information.

Hone your child’s math skills

Math is a subject that needs to be understood based on conceptualization and practical implementation of problem solving skills. When it comes to teaching your child math, the basics need to be mastered instead of undertaking mindless memorization of rules and cramming numbers and facts. The key is to provide help when you child needs it. To assist in math homework help, you can help out your child or ask your teacher to do it. Considerable practice is imperative as it helps your child grab the concepts quickly, hone their math skills and develop confidence in problem solving. But some children require more tutoring in math than what they normally get in school. For those kids who need some extra tutoring, you can enroll them in Pinecone Active Learning Center.

About the founder

Pinecone Active Learning Center was started by Vivian Hobbs, who has held research and math-related positions in Silicon Valley for the last 30 years. She is an enterprising figure who has operated two businesses of her own, including a well known supplemental education franchise. She is involved with the development of children’s education and has spent years studying and researching best methods for learning and teaching school children. So when you enroll your child in this Active Learning Center, you know he/she is in good hands.

For those requiring immediate tutoring in math, reading, grammar and vocabulary, sign up today by calling (408) 270-4548. You can avail a special discount of $200 per month if you enroll your child in math and reading together before Feb 15^th. So hurry and sign up today.

Helping your child learn to read

Teaching your child to read plays a key role in building character and self-confidence that motivates him/her to excel in school and set high expectations in life. Reading does not come automatically. There are certain stages a child must undergo in order to gain fluency and the independency to read without others’ help. The processes of “decoding” and “recoding”, for example, must be step-by-step, and the best time to help your child is at the pre-school level, when he/she can most readily absorb and develop these reading skills. Helping kids learn to read is not just about coaxing them to read each and every book, but sitting down and reading with them as children are good listeners. It is at this early pre-school stage that parents may discover a visual, processing or other learning disability which can be assessed and addressed to assure smoother progress for the child.

Learning Center for kids

If your child has some difficulty in recognizing letters or in pronouncing words, you can enroll him/her in Pinecone Active Learning Center, a tutoring service founded by Vivian Hobbs. The Pinecone Reading program, in addition to its solid pre-school program, is designed to promote reading with meaning, by providing comprehension booklets that help in developing reading fluency and vocabulary. Pinecone Active Learning Center is located in the California Bay Area and has other special programs to aid students in math and grammar homework. By offering tutoring service in all these subjects, the students can benefit from great variety in subject matter for each curriculum.

Call (408) 270-4548 for an appointment or pay a visit directly to 5988 Silver Creek Valley Rd. #60 San Jose, CA 95138. You can visit their corporate website at www.pineconelearning.com for more information.

The Quiet Crisis

A 1995 study by Lynch School of Education at Boston College showed 4th graders above the international average in math and science – but by the time they reached their final year in high school, they had fallen well below that average. Follow-ups in 1999/2003 showed only modest improvements. (www.timss.bc.edu). Alan Greenspan asked, “What do we do to [our student] learning processes that requires business recruiters to dismiss vast numbers of ‘educated’ applicants for modestly skilled jobs because they cannot write coherent sentences or add a column of numbers?” Greenspan went on to state, “One of the skills too many high school graduates lack is proficiency in math. It is that skill more than any other that is required to achieve skilled job status.”

The National Mathematics Advisory Panel, appointed by the President in 2006 has published its 2008 report. They found that the sharp falloff in mathematics achievement in the U.S. begins as students reach late middle school, where, for more and more students, algebra course work begins. Research shows that completion of Algebra II correlates significantly with success in college and earnings from employment. In fact, students who complete Algebra II are more than twice as likely to graduate from college compared to students with less mathematical preparation.

During most of the 20th century as the Panel describes, the United States possessed peerless mathematical prowess—not just as measured by the depth and number of the mathematical specialists who practiced here but also by the scale and quality of its engineering, science, and financial leadership, and even by the extent of mathematical education in its broad population. But without substantial and sustained changes to its educational system, the United States will relinquish its leadership in the 21st century.

There are consequences, they warn, to a weakening of American independence and leadership in mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. We risk our ability to adapt to change. We risk technological surprise to our economic viability and to the foundations of our country’s security. National policy must ensure the healthy development of a domestic technical workforce of adequate scale with top-level skills.
But the concerns of national policy relating to mathematics education go far beyond those in our society who will become scientists or engineers. The national workforce of future years will surely have to handle quantitative concepts more fully and more deftly than at present. So will the citizens and policy leaders who deal with the public interest in positions of civic leadership. Sound education in mathematics across the population is a national interest.

Among their recommendations: “A focused, coherent progression of mathematics learning, with an emphasis on proficiency with key topics, should become the norm in elementary and middle school mathematics curricula. Any approach that continually revisits topics year after year without closure is to be avoided.” They state further, “Computational proficiency with whole number operations is dependent on sufficient and appropriate practice to develop automatic recall of addition and related subtraction facts, and of multiplication and related division facts. It also requires fluency with the standard algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

“Use should be made of what is clearly known from rigorous research about how children learn, especially by recognizing a) the advantages for children in having a strong start; b) the mutually reinforcing benefits of conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and automatic (i.e., quick and effortless) recall of facts; and c) that effort, not just inherent talent, counts in mathematical achievement.

“A major goal for K–8 mathematics education should be proficiency with fractions (including decimals, percents, and negative fractions), for such proficiency is foundational for algebra and, at the present time, seems to be severely underdeveloped.

“Children’s goals and beliefs about learning are related to their mathematics performance. Experimental studies have demonstrated that changing children’s beliefs from focus on ability to a focus on effort increases their engagement in mathematics learning, which in turn improves mathematics outcomes: When children believe that their efforts to learn make them “smarter”, they show greater persistence in mathematics learning.

Thomas Friedman noted the looming crisis: “There has always been a certain American confidence that whatever America lacks in preparing its kids with strong fundamentals in math and science, it makes up for by encouraging its best students to be independent creative thinkers. That may be about to change as emerging countries like China who are confident that their best K-12 students will usually outperform America’s on the fundamentals of math and science, they are now focusing on how to unleash more creativity and innovation among their youth.”

It takes 15 years to train an engineer or scientist starting with when (if) they get hooked on math in elementary school. We do not have time to fill the ever-widening gap that will be left by retiring baby-boomers and the continually decreasing numbers of graduating engineers and scientists from American Universities and Colleges. We may need to rely on foreign talent at least until we can repair our lower education system. But we also can employ immediate measures to fill the education gap on an individual basis. This will require supplemental education aimed specifically at remediation and mastery of basic concepts in math, reading and writing.

Pinecone Active Learning offers this program.

Stages of Learning - Unconscious Incompetence to Unconscious Competence.

The conscious competence model explains the process and stages of learning a new skill (or behavior, ability, technique, etc.) It is most commonly known as the 'conscious competence learning model', but is sometimes called 'conscious competence ladder' or 'conscious competence matrix'. Whatever you call it, the 'conscious competence' model is a simple explanation of how we learn.

Stage 1 - 'unconscious incompetence'; that is when you don't even know what you don't know and can't do.

Stage 2 - 'conscious incompetence'; this is when you are aware of what to do and how to do it, but you just can't do it, or you are not very good at it

Stage 3 - 'conscious competence'; this is when you know how to do something and you can do very well but you still have to think about what you are doing.

Stage 4 - 'unconscious competence'; this is when you have developed a skill to the point that you can do it without even thinking about it.
At Pinecone Active Learning, we take students as young as three, and they are typically in Stage 1. Everything is new to them and they have certainly not developed any bad habits or ideas that they can’t achieve something. While these young ones may take lots of patience and repetition in the beginning, most move through Stage 2 to Stage 3 fairly quickly.

The majority of our incoming students start in Stage 2, and that is why they are coming to Pinecone – they know they need to improve their skills. Our individually tailored programs provide the daily practice at just the right points for each of these students to move from Stage 2 to Stage 3 and then to Stage 4. Students are not allowed to progress, in fact, until they have mastered the concepts and are able to perform “automatically – without even thinking about it.

”Once a student has achieved Stage 4, progress becomes faster and more motivating. It is fun to really understand how to do something quickly and easily and even help others. This self-confidence “greases the wheels” for further learning and progress. At Pinecone we like to say: “The further you go, the faster you go further!” The sky is the limit!