Back to School Tips with


Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Bonnie Terry, America’s Leading Learning Specialist, shares some of her favorite back to school tips on FOX News Morning Show.

Watch here for 3 of Bonnie Terry’s Back to School Tips:

1. Backpack Organization
2. Time Management
3. Secret Tools to Help with Homework: the dreaded word problems and writing assignments

(More tips under the video!)

Don’t forget to sign up for additional step-by-step homework tips to your right.

Back to School Tip 1:

The school year is about to start or has just started. Be sure to let your child know how excited you are about their new school year and that you know they will have a good experience with their new teacher. You may want to meet their new teacher either a few days before school starts or during the second week of school – just to introduce yourself. That effort will let the teacher know that you are an interested committed parent.

Back to School Tip 2:

If last year was a difficult year, your child had a hard time, let them know that you remember how rough it was, but that this is a new year and you want to help them to have a really great experience this year. Ask your child for their suggestions for what they think you might do to help them have a great year.

Back to School Tip 3:

Look at the newspaper ads together, plan what kinds of supplies they may need this year. Take a trip together to get school supplies – notebooks, book covers, pens, pencils, backpack, assignment book, etc. Think ahead of time about the different subjects your child has so you get different colored notebooks, book covers, and folders – one color per subject so that all of their math books & folders are one color, English books another etc. This will help your child keep track of their work and make finding the correct folder easier.

Back to School Tip 4:

Help your child organize their backpack by using color-coded folders and book covers – and you may want to check it the first few weeks to help them keep it organized.

Back to School Tip 5:

Help your child organize their study or homework area so they have the supplies they need in one place. Keep a container filled with the supplies they need. You also want an area that is free of clutter and distractions for them to work in. It can be a desk in their room, in the family room, or even at the kitchen table. You may also want to help them organize their desk (after school) if they have trouble with it on their own.


Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills includes planning calendars and school supply lists for different grade levels. The Writer’s Easy Reference Guide is the ultimate cheat sheet for any writing assignment and the BT Easy Math Guide is the ultimate cheat sheet for any math assignment whether it’s addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, word problems, fractions, decimals, or percents.
My last back to school tip is to remember to enjoy learning, learning should be engaging, interesting, and a bit challenging. For more homework tips, don’t forget to sign up for our 10 free homework tips at the top on the right (above my photo) and start your back to school time with a bang.

Game Time is Here…


Make Your Time Count


With Educational Games Part 2

Engaging in educational games to improve learning is a win-win situation because just the action of playing a game puts your body and mind into a more relaxed state. When you are in a relaxed state, it is easier to learn. Think about this, when you are scared or feel that something is hard, it is. Your mind usually becomes closed to the ideas. Your body tenses up. Sometimes your shoulders even rise. You become in a state of fight or flight rather than in a state of receptivity.
So, one of the best ways to improve learning skills is to do a learning activity that is fun and can be done in a relaxed environment. That is what playing educational games do.

How Do You Choose Educational Games?

When you are looking for educational games, think about the skill set you want to improve. For example if you want to improve sentence writing or grammar, you want to play educational games like The Sentence Zone. On the other hand, if you want to improve reading comprehension, the ability to comprehend and utilize the information you read, you will want a game that teaches you to find the main idea or details while you play. In this case you will want to play the educational games like The Comprehension Zone. Additionally, if your child needs extra practice with math calculation accuracy, The Math Zone is a perfect choice for you.

As you know, there are many educational games to choose from. Remember, you want to be sure the game is fun but will actually teach the skills your child needs extra practice with.

What Parents Have to Say About Educational Games, Specifically The Comprehension Zone

“I absolutely love games that teach. Game playing is more effective, in my opinion, as my kids tend to learn things they enjoy more quickly than things they dislike.” Lori S

“The Comprehension Zone holds the interest of my children. The long-term carry over is there. Every single solitary child improves his comprehension and his note taking and ability to condense things down into meaningful sentences. Every day we play The Comprehension Zone ends with fun and my children get to learn something without feeling like they are learning.” Marcia B

“The Comprehension Zone game has been an answer to prayer, a break-through for our child who has struggled with auditory comprehension for years. We began playing The Comprehension Zone often. The improvement was rapid and dramatic! By the end of the second time playing our child was able to play without my previous modifications and currently it is easy enough for him to pick out facts while listening and know he likes to try reading the card himself. We’ve tried things similar to this in the past, we’ve been focused on this problem for years, but The Comprehension Zone has been the first activity that has been successful.” Kimberly O

“The Comprehension Zone builds life-long skills for learning success. It carries over to all of their learning. I am so impressed. My children love playing and I love that they are learning at the same time!” Leslie K

“The Comprehension Zone game, it was fun playing but the results of playing were amazing. My son could finally pick out main ideas and details from what he read. He was excited because work that he struggled with was now easy. All from playing a game. Thanks Bonnie!” Karen M

Add The Comprehension Zone to your supply of educational games today and see your child’s reading and listening comprehension improve daily!

Game Time is Here…


Make Your Time Count


With Educational Games Part 1

Often during the school year we are so busy with school and homework and sports that we don’t either have the time to play educational games or take the time to play educational games. In fact, game playing often doesn’t enter your mind because life is just too busy. But, now it’s summer. It’s breathing time. It’s time to take a break from the routine. It’s the perfect time to play educational games.

Benefits of Educational Games

When you play games with others you learn how to get along with others. When you play games with others you learn from watching others take their turns and they learn from you taking your turn. That is what is called reciprocal teaching and reciprocal learning.

Now, what if you were to play that were educational games that taught specific skills? You would get even more benefit from educational games. You would have the opportunity to have fun and improve your skills at the same time. Your reading comprehension would improve, your writing skills and English grammar skills would improve. Even your math skills would improve. And, you would have fun with others at the same time. When you play educational games you also build learning skills.

All Educational Games Are Not Created Equal

There are many choices you have when choosing educational games. There are several very important things to consider when purchasing an educational game:

1.      Is the game fun

2.      Does it have real learning involved?

3.      What do families that have played it say about it?

“I like that The Sentence Zone can be used with any English program and does not require special equipment or supplies. The Sentence Zone is a good one and could benefit many students.”  Tina R

“Our family loves The Sentence Zone. As we were putting the game away, my children began brainstorming ideas for fun variations of it. They want to play it again with the silliest sentence receiving bonus points. They’d like to do a round where you must only use the cards on top of the deck. Another idea was to try and create the saddest sentence. There are so many ways you be creative with this game and learn while having fun. It’s a simple game but I’m impressed with how well it worked with my family.”  Lori S

“The Sentence Zone game is a relaxed, fun loving game that the family can and will enjoy. It is slow paced, so everyone can truly think their way through each level and have the enjoyment of success! After all, that is what the game is all about!” Mary P

See The Sentence Zone in action:  Children 1st through 4th grades and then 9th grade playing

Poetry Through the Colors

SAT Prep

Add The Sentence Zone game to your set of educational games today!

Improve Writing Skills


and English Grammar


by Improving Sentence Writing

There are some easy ways to teach you child how to improve their writing and English grammar by improving sentence writing. I know that may sound a bit daunting, but it is easier than you think. When you use the Sentence Zone for this activity, your children really understand how to improve their sentences, and they actually have fun doing it.

The activity is one of expanded sentences. Bonnie walks you step-by-step how to start with a basic sentence and then expand it, one word at a time to make it more interesting. Once your children see exactly how to do this and actually do it themselves with the color-coded cards of the Sentence Zone Game, they will have improved writing skills and improved English grammar skills too.

Use of Color Improves Writing Skills and Sentence Writing

Writing skills improve dramatically with this expanded sentence activity as well as just playing The Sentence Zone due to the color-coded cards. When you use color-coding in learning content, your retention rates go up to 25%. Use of color directly impacts learning.

Improve Writing Skills: Sentence Writing Becomes Interesting and You Improve English Grammar at the Same Time

So, how do you learn how to write good interesting sentences that are different types? An easy way to learn about the different types of sentences we have in the English language is to play the game The Sentence Zone. While playing the game you actually learn the 6 basic sentence types we have as well as how to punctuate them.

Be sure to watch the family playing The Sentence Zone to see how you can use it in other ways to improve writing skills.

One of the really neat things about it is the different ways it can be played. For instance, 1st graders can play it to learn how to write a sentence. Middle school students can play it to start learning more complex sentence writing and grammar such as the difference between a direct object and a predicate nominative. High school students can play it to prepare for the grammar portion of the SAT test. (It includes advanced vocabulary for older students.)

The Sentence Zone is a grammar game that can be played at multiple levels as your children grow, so it never just sits ‘on the shelf’.

You can also use the game at older levels to prepare for taking the SAT or ACT college entrance exams. English grammar skills improve dramatically – including SAT test scores.

So, improve your sentence writing skills today by playing The Sentence Zone and you’ll improve writing skills as well as English grammar at the same time!

It’s the almost middle of Summer Vacation and as you know, it is the perfect time to give your child a boost in their learning skills, but you still want to have fun…

Join Bonnie Terry’s call and find out what you can do in just 20 minutes a day to boost your child’s reading, writing, and math skills and have fun at the same time.

I’m hosting a FREE Live Teleseminar on Wednesday July 14th at 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Central, 6 pm Mountain, and 5 pm Pacific. Upon registering you will receive a FREE Handbook on the 5 steps you can take to help your child over the summer even if they have a learning problem, LD, dyslexia. The activities and steps are for all age students – kindergarten through adults.

Those that attend the Live Teleseminar will also receive a surprise FREE gift. And, of course, if you can’t make it live on the call, you will get access to the recording!

Mid-Summer Training Call
FREE Live Teleseminar on Wednesday July 14th at 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Central, 6 pm Mountain, and 5 pm Pacific.
Space is limited. You can attend via phone or via internet!

Reserve your space for the Teleseminar now at:

Title: Searching for Summer Activities to Improve Your Child’s Learning Skills and Still Have Fun?
Time: Wednesday, July 14th at 5pm Pacific, 6 pm Mountain, 7 pm Central, 8 pm Eastern.
Listening method: Phone + Web Simulcast

To register, visit:
Mid-Summer Training Call

Learn About:
1. How to improve your child’s reading, writing, and math skills in just 20 minutes a day
2. 5 steps you can take to help your child
3. Activities to do at home, in the yard, or in your neighborhood

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Summer stretches out before you. Your kids are excited about being out of school. However, it doesn’t take too long before your kids are claiming they are bored. So, to keep your kids interested over the summer, one of the easiest things to do is to provide fun learning games for your kids.

Research has shown that when kids are not involved with learning activities over the summer, their skills don’t just stay where they were at the end of the school year. Instead, your kids lose ground and retention of what they learned over the prior school year. So, one thing you can do to prevent this learning slide, is to play learning games over the summer.
Here is a Review of Bonnie Terry’s learning grammar game The Sentence Zone written by Lori Seaborg of http://www.FreelyEducate.com:

We are having a great time learning grammar.

“What?!” you say, “You’re having great time in grammar class?”

Why, yes. That’s exactly what I meant. Thanks to The Sentence Zone, a grammar game designed by Bonnie Terry Learning, grammar can not only be bright and colorful, but as much fun as a game of Monopoly. Here is how it works, as described by Bonnie Terry:

If you’re looking for a fun way to improve writing and grammar skills, this game is for you! For 2 to 6 players, grades 1st and up. Rules are easily mastered. The Sentence Zone can be played at six levels – from Level 1 in which the player builds a subject and verb sentence, to Level 6 in which the player builds complex sentences with independent and dependent clauses. With over 500 color coded cards, students are sure to be unique and entertaining every time. A great reinforcing individual activity where a player keeps track of his score from day to day, trying to top his previous score, or a great group activity where competition drives creativity and learning.

It took me a little while to figure out The Sentence Zone. It wasn’t a game that we could play right out of the box. But after reading the directions, and realizing the many directions the game could go, we got started learning our grammar and – enjoying – it! Since enjoyment leads the way to a love of learning, The Sentence Zone is a success in our home.

____________________

So, do yourself a favor, check out The Sentence Zone and Bonnie Terry’s other reading game and math game too!

Can you do your own summer learning program?

Should you do your own summer learning program?

Fact: More than half of the achievement gap present in 9th grade between lower- and higher-income children can be explained by summer learning loss.

Make Learning Stick with learning games and reading fluency training over the summer. There are many things you can do at home to bridge that summer learning gap.

1. Reading Fluency using Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills…and Yes…it only takes 5 minutes to do. Sally Shawitz, author of Overcoming Dyslexia states, “I urge parents to make fluency training their number one priority.”
2. Take a weekly trip …to the zoo, a local park, the pool, the river, a local factory…and afterwards as a family write down what you did and what your favorite part was…using the fill-in-the-blank forms from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills and create a booklet to keep for all of your weekly trips.
3. Do some nature activities such as listening to outdoor sounds, nature rubbings, shape hike, incher hikes … again use the fill-in-the-blank forms from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills to describe what you found or did.
4. Activities to do at home like making puppets and putting on a puppet show. Bake cookies together, have a backwards day where you eat dinner in the morning and breakfast in the evening, do add-on-stories. Again write down your favorite things or worse things about the activity.
5. Have a Game Night or a Game Day…choose learning games…they are fun as well as work on skills. Some great ones are The Sentence Zone (play & learn sentence building and grammar while having fun) , The Comprehension Zone (play & learn reading comprehension and listening comprehension), or the Math Zone (play & math calculation practice).
6. Read books together…and write a review or report on it, or have a review night where you all act as book reviewers of the book you read.

Check out the books, games, and guides here:

Reading

Writing

Math

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Summer is quickly approaching and as you know, it is the perfect time to give your child a boost in their learning skills, but you also want to have fun…

Join Bonnie’s call and find out what you can do in just 20 minutes a day to boost your child’s reading, writing, and math skills and have fun at the same time.

I’m hosting a FREE Live Teleseminar on Wednesday June 2nd at 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Central, 6 pm Mountain, and 5 pm Pacific.

Upon registering you will receive a FREE Handbook on the 5 things you can do to help your child over the summer.

Those that attend the Live Teleseminar will also receive a surprise FREE gift. And, of course, if you can’t make it live on the call, you will get access to the recording!

http://www.dyslexiahelpnow.com/summer-training-call/

FREE Live Teleseminar on Wednesday June 2nd at 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Central, 6 pm Mountain, and 5 pm Pacific.
Space is limited. You can attend via phone or via internet!

Reserve your space for the Teleseminar now at:

Title: Searching for Summer Activities to Improve Your Child’s Skills and Still Have Fun?
Time: Wednesday, June 2nd at 5pm Pacific, 6 pm Mountain, 7 pm Central, 8 pm Eastern.
Listening method: Phone + Web Simulcast

To register, visit:
http://www.dyslexiahelpnow.com/summer-training-call/

Learn:
1. How to improve your child’s reading, writing, and math skills in just 20 minutes a day
2. 5 things you can do to help your child
3. Activities to do at home, in the yard, or in your neighborhood

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Our kids often get assignments where they have to write a poem, and they often struggle with it. Poetry writing is not always the easiest thing to do, especially when you have LD, dyslexia, or ADHD. Even gifted kids can struggle with poetry writing. It doesn’t matter if you are homeschooling or in a public school, poetry writing can be difficult for anyone.

However, writing poetry doesn’t have to be so-o-o hard! There are many different types of poems, and I’ve found one of the easiest types of poetry to teach my kids is the Haiku, specifically the Cinquain type of Haiku Poem. Learn how to use the Sentence Zone for writing poems.  This is made really easy using The Sentence Zone game because you can write the poem with colors.

Using The Sentence Zone game makes writing poetry easy for kids with LD, dyslexia, ADHD, or even gifted.

Hope this is helpful! Don’t forget to sign up for the FREE teaching and homework tips!

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

Many of you already know that I created The Sentence Zone a number of years ago to help my students with sentence writing as well as grammar. I play it with my younger students to help them write interesting sentences instead of the 3 to 4 word sentences they usually write. I play it with my middle school students to help them out with their English grammar lessons. So my focus has always been on sentence writing, language building, and grammar.

I have always told everyone that it was used at multiple ages, because it is, but I didn’t think of using the game for SAT prep until Patricia Lara stopped by my office a few weeks ago. She was telling me how useful the game was in her work with SAT prep with her juniors and seniors in high school.

In addition to helping them with the grammar portion of the exam, she told me how it really ‘broke up’ the prep sessions. Her students were able to get a break from the intensity of preparing for the exam but still learn at the same time. So, I asked her to show me how she was using the game. I think you’ll enjoy this additional use. Watch and see for yourself how easy it is to learn with The Sentence Zone. It is a great test prep tool for tutors, families, homeschoolers, and teachers. 

Hope this has been helpful. Don’t forget to sign up for the FREE Teaching and Homework Tips! And, PLEASE, Pass this post along to others!

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET