Prepare your children for exams

Most school systems are exam based, and it is therefore important to help your child learn how to prepare for the tests that they will face. At the end of the day, results do matter. When children are selected for further studies results are compared. How many units you have achieved helps decide which course you get into and at which university. Yes, extra curricular activities do help in the all around development of a child, but an ability to do well in examinations is also important. Sending your child to a tuition center could go a long way in helping them get ready where studies are concerned. A good tuition center has qualified teachers and provides holistic training. They give attention to every child’s unique needs. The teaching at a good tutoring center should be consistent and graded. Pinecone Learning Center, a tutoring center in San Jose has all these excellent qualities and has helped many children in San José. They are now planning to extend their expertise to the children in Los Gatos where they have opened their new learning center. It is located at 987 University Ave., #20, Los Gatos, CA 95032 Call (408) 270-4548 for more details on the programs that Pinecone Learning Center has created. You can visit their websites at http://www.pineconelearning.com/ and http://www.pineconelearning.com/reading_program.html .

The Difficulty in understanding Math

Why do some children detest math? Is it because they feel bored of the number system with various formulas and concepts that needs constant practice? Children can take to Math just like “Ducks to water” if given proper coaching and encouragement to solve problems practically rather than just focusing on the theoretical part. For many parents, Math can cause a sense of fear and anxiety, as kids lose confidence with their ability to solve problems and grades seem to drop in every test. This can change for the better! If you feel that your child needs some Math homework help after school hours, check into Pinecone Active Learning Center.

Make numbers fun for your child

It’s difficult sometimes for a parent to teach a child, and that’s when a professional tutor comes into the picture. Not only are qualified professionals trained to teach in an effective, comprehensive manner, but they know how to make school assignments manageable and open new avenues to better knowledge and understanding of the subject. Fewer errors in calculations, sharpening math skills, neater writing and better understanding of concepts will lead to better grades, test scores and a happier child. Pinecone Active Learning Center is run by Vivian Hobbs who has remained involved with children's education and research on best methods for learning and teaching. This tutoring center in San Jose offers daily practice and mastery of materials, developing better study skills and increasing confidence.

To enroll your child in a math program, call 408 270-4548 or pay a visit directly to 5988 Silver Creek Valley Rd. #60 San Jose, CA 95138.

Excelling in reading comprehension

A large part of our life is spent reading, if we just stop and think about. We read through kindergarten, school, college and work. The basis of reading and understanding vocabulary is strengthened at the grass root level. My daughter Shea needed some coaching during the early part of her school years, so that she could excel in reading comprehension and other subjects at school. Reading is not just meant for understanding the English language but is used as an active mode for teaching concepts and general knowledge in other subjects like math, science and history to name a few. So I decided to enroll her in a reading program that helped her improve her vocabulary and understand grammar concepts.

Improve with grades with tutoring

Pinecone Active Learning Center in San Jose was the place Shea joined when she needed some extra homework help after school. She is now a straight “A” student and is a star in reading comprehension at the 6^th/7^th grade level. Her writing is winning her recognition from the school principal and she has been chosen with a couple of other 4th grade students to a higher math level in school. Thanks to the efforts of her teacher and mentor Vivian Hobbs from Pinecone Active Learning Center, Shea and I are grateful that the reading program is impacting her school life in such a positive way.

If you have kids and would like them to learn how to read the right way and not just as part of a curriculum, don’t hesitate to enroll them in this school tutoring center. They can be contacted at (408) 270 4548. You can also visit http://www.pineconelearning.com for more information on admission procedures and class timings.

Overcoming child challenges

Every child faces some challenges in school and my daughter Claire was one of them. She suffered a massive stroke in which she had lost function in 2/3rds of her left hemisphere. The biggest challenge we faced was getting Claire into the general education kindergarten. Claire had trouble writing words and numbers, with difficulty in even writing her name. That is when we decided to enroll her in an Active Learning Center for Kids where special emphasis was given to Math and Reading Programs. Pinecone Active Learning Center in San Jose was the answer to our prayers.

Tuition Center for math and reading

Vivian Hobbs the founder of this wonderful tuition center played an important part in helping her develop skills in reading, writing and being able to understand pronunciations and numbers independently. With a lot of hard work put in by other professional tutors, Claire had developed her fine motor skills and cognitive reasoning. This was pretty impressive coming from a child with this kind of diagnosis. From joining the Math and Reading program, she continues to improve each day. Vivian was the main reason for her success and this goes to show that she is a wonderful advocate for kids and parents. I as a parent can seriously say that kids who find it difficult keeping up with their school work or need extra coaching with Math and Reading can enroll in Pinecone Active Learning Center. The results will speak for itself.

To know more about this tuition center in San Jose, visit their corporate website at http://www.pineconelearning.com/ or call (408) 270-4548 to fix an appointment and discuss your child’s needs and requirements.

Worksheets and Daily Practice – the only way to Master the Basics

The U.S. is falling behind the world in math. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, "We are lagging the rest of the world, and we are lagging it in pretty substantial ways."

A special analysis put out by the National Center for Education Statistics found that the math performance of U.S. high schoolers was in the bottom quarter of the countries that participated in the most recent Program for International Student Assessment.

Results of the 2009 ACT and SAT show that U.S. students are no better in math this year than they were last year. Math performance has improved in other countries while it has remained stagnant in the U.S.

These findings are disturbing in an increasingly global economy where careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are becoming progressively more important for nations to compete internationally.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the proportion of students obtaining STEM degrees from U.S. universities has dropped from 32 percent to 27 percent over the past decade. At the same time, the percentage of non-U.S. students earning these degrees from U.S. universities has increased dramatically.

In The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Friedman argues that getting more Americans to pursue careers in STEM fields is critical to the future of our nation's economy. Friedman is not alone in his opinion.

The National Science Foundation reports that non-U.S. graduates from U.S. universities accounted for more than half of the doctorate recipients in physics (58 percent), computer sciences (65 percent), engineering (68 percent), and mathematics (57 percent). The most numerous of these non-U.S. graduates were from China, India, and South Korea. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that over 40 percent of non-U.S. doctoral degree recipients intended to leave the U.S.

Not only are we losing ground to non-U.S. citizens at our own universities, but we're also falling behind other nations. The U.S. is no longer the leader in STEM education. In absolute numbers, Japan and China are producing more graduates. Our rate of STEM to non-STEM graduates is roughly 17 percent while the international average is nearly 26 percent. We're not even keeping pace with some developing countries.

In the U.S., we used to focus on basic computation skills when we taught students traditional math. Ever since the U.S. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics developed standards for school math in 1989, many U.S. schools starting teaching reform math.

But Japan and Taiwan are teaching math the way we used to teach it; they're focusing on basic computation skills. Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea--all top performers in math--are also focusing on the basics. Even the cram schools, which are prevalent in Asia, focus on the basics.

Traditional math emphasizes basic computation skills and algorithms that lead to the correct answer while reform math places more value on the thinking process that leads to any answer.

Both of these skills are needed. However, the major problem with reform math is that it puts the cart before the horse by trying to teach students abstract concepts of math before they have built strong foundational skills. With traditional math, students often work individually on worksheets. With reform math, they often work in groups cutting, pasting, and coloring.

Sure, worksheets and algorithms are boring compared to gluing stuff and explaining how you came up with an answer that may not even be correct, but which method will better prepare our students to compete in an increasingly global economy?
America, let's get back to worksheets.

Pinecone Active Learning provides daily worksheet practice at just the right level for your child. This daily practice leads to mastery and real understanding. There is just no substitute. Please visit http://pineconelearning.com/ for more info.

In the past couple of decades, innovation, especially Internet-related, has been moving faster than we can educate ourselves to apply advancing technologies. Thus, the shortfall of the supply of advanced skills relative to the demand for them is pressing the wages of the less skilled. The insights that advance cutting-edge technologies emerge from a very small part of the workforce.

While low-skilled jobs are being automated and replaced with computer programs, corporate managers persistently identify the lack of skilled workers as one of today’s greatest ongoing problems and are willing to bid up pay packages to acquire them.

While globalization and technology are causing increased disparities of wealth concentration in many countries, the U.S. seems to have a disproportionate disparity. In his book, The Age of Turbulence, Greenspan attributes this disparity to our “dysfunctional elementary and secondary education”. Up until about 4th grade, our students fare pretty well in comparison to other leading nations, but by the time they are seniors in high school they have fallen well below average. Greenspan asks the question: “What do we do to (these students’) learning process 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 accurately?”

So, our needs for highly skilled technicians and upper-level management are multiplying much faster than our graduating students can fill them – we must import increasing numbers of qualified and educated people from other countries. Greenspan further notes that our biggest educational weakness is in math and we need to consider alternatives to how we hire and pay our teachers as well as whom we allow to come to our schools and teach….

Here is what Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat has to say:

“The dot com boom left too many people with the impression that they could get rich without investing in hard work. All it took was an MBA and a quick IPO, or one NBA contract and you were set for life. Who needed an education? Who needed to sweat over an engineering degree? But while we were admiring the flat world we had created, a lot of people in India, China and Eastern Europe were busy figuring out how to take advantage of it. Lucky for us, we were the only economy standing after World War II, and we had no serious competition for forty years. That gave us a huge head of steam, but gradually bred a sense of entitlement and a culture of complacency.”

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.
Please visit http://pineconelearning.com for more info.

The importance of getting good grades in school

Any good parent would like their child to excel in the things they do, whether it’s in academics, playing a sport they love or pursuing an active hobby. But just wishing and praying for them to excel is not good enough, as the world today has become so competitive in every field. Some children are born intelligent and studying comes easily for them. Most are not so fortunate and have to buckle down and study hard in order to earn a good grade. The importance of obtaining exceptional grades and cultivating good study habits is given the utmost importance in today’s society. If you feel that your child is lagging behind and needs some sort of push and encouragement to excel, consider enrolling him or her in Pinecone Learning Center, which offers the right service in school tutoring and children’s education.

Better grades and a happier child

Pinecone Learning Center based in San Jose, California offers tutoring services for reading, comprehension, math and grammar. Your child will feel a positive change and difference in confidence and self-esteem. The supportive and caring tutors will provide expert guidance and sequential programs, tailored for each child’s requirements. The friendly environment is what your child needs to achieve better test scores and grades. Tutoring services are free for the first week, giving each parent a chance to review the class and their child in particular. School tutoring and children’s education will be taken to the next level, with help from Learning Centers such as these. Call (408) 270-4548 or visit www.pineconelearning.com for more information.

Classes are conducted on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-7 p.m. on a drop-in basis (with daily homework assignments). There is a special discount for students who enroll in math and reading together. Its just $200 per month ($100 discount from the normal $140 for math and $160 for reading). This offer ends Feb. 15, 2010. Enroll your child today!