Did you get a chance to check out the TVO program called Empire of the Word? It was a four-part series on the history of the written word (that Oxford Learning sponsored).

To watch all four episodes online visit the TVO website.

From the TVO website:

Eight years in the making, Empire of the Word is a compelling look inside the act of reading and traces its impact on more than five thousand years of human history. Introduced and narrated by one of the world’s great readers, Canadian writer Alberto Manguel, the series traces reading’s origins; examines how we learn to read; exposes censors’ attempts to prevent our reading; and finally, proposes what the future might hold for this most human of creative acts.

Face it…anything worth achieving takes work. A lot of work. It takes sweat, time, commitment, and mental muscles. Whether learning to read or whether completing a really challenging essay, when something that you’ve been working on finally comes together—when the light bulb goes on—it’s really exciting. It’s worth celebrating!

In fact, you might even feel like dancing!

For over twenty-five years, Oxford Learning has been helping students of all ages have get-up-and-dance moments. Our programs help students ditch bad learning habits, develop confidence in their abilities, and get excited about learning.

Want to see it in action?

Find a center near you and help your child have learning experiences worth celebrating.

One of the easiest ways to keep young minds active during breaks from school is by reading.

Reading books—in the old-fashioned, alone and quiet sense—does more than simply help to develop a strong vocabulary. Reading helps today’s media-saturated children learn how to unwind and slow down.

Spending quality time with a good book helps children develop skills that pay off in the classroom. Here’s how:

• Reading helps children learn how to be patient and how to focus. There is ramp-up time involved in reading books—sometimes, it can take two or three chapters to get hooked, which teaches perseverance and patience.
• Regular reading is one of the best-known ways to expand vocabulary and learn how to use words correctly, and in the right context.
• Reading teaches the importance of seeing connections and new meanings, which is vital to active learning.

Getting your child to unplug a video game and read a book isn’t always an easy task, but it can be done! Here are some tips:

• Read together as a family, even if it is a comic book.
• Let your child choose the book.
• Take turns reading paragraphs or chapters out loud.
• Discuss subjects such as characters and setting.
• Ask if children can relate a situation in a book to an experience that they’ve had.

For many students, school breaks are an opportunity to relax, socialize, and sleep in. However, for parents, the time off from school may cause concern about how children will be filling their days.

School breaks can be very disruptive to a family’s schedule—filling the hours is often a source of worry for parents. While most families welcome the holiday breaks as an opportunity to spend quality time together, the disruption to the normal routine can cause children to get off-track. The academic consequences for spending an entire holiday in extreme brain-break mode are not good.

In as little as a couple of weeks, students can lose their learning momentum and slip behind in school. That’s why it’s important for families to incorporate academic-style activities into their holiday break planning.

This doesn’t mean hitting the books for hours on end—it’s the holidays after all! Students of all ages can keep their minds sharp and have fun by participating in a little structured learning time, whether it is to simply by reading or by playing board games.

While some students may not have any assigned work, many students will be assigned some sort of schoolwork over the holidays. Homework can be easily forgotten this during the holiday excitement—that’s why families should plan on having a “learning hour”—one hour a day to chip away at schoolwork, to review notes, and to maintain learning momentum.

The hour set aside for learning doesn’t have to be all about schoolwork—kids can work on special projects such as a holiday scrapbook, or crossword puzzles—anything to keep them mentally engaged. By keeping the learning hour short, sweet, and fun, maintaining academic momentum can become as much a part of holiday break activities as sleeping in and visiting with family.

Looking for board games to play over the holidays that won’t strain your pocket book? “What Did You See?” is a fun game that uses everyday objects from around the house. This game is a lot like Memory, but doesn’t use purchased cards with childish images, so it’s great for all ages. And, you can select objects in the house that match the ages of the players.

As an added bonus, this game develops memory and concentration skills, and it’s fun to boot!

You’ll need:

• A timer
• Paper and pencil for each person playing
• 7-10 small items from around the house that will fit under a tea towel (or other sized towel), such as a pen, a battery, lip balm, a hairbrush, a tree ornament, etc.

How to Play:

• Place all items randomly on a table top
• Cover with a tea towel
• Set timer for one minute and reveal items
• Have a participants study the items intensely
• Cover the items with the towel and have players write down everything that they saw
• When the round is done, discuss what strategies you used to help remember the items
• Take turns choosing the items to reveal
• Whoever remembers the most items wins

Un-Puzzling Puzzles

Puzzles are great activity to undertake over the holidays. Not only are they fun, but they also give a sense of accomplishment when complete. Puzzles help children and parents alike hone their mental abilities.

Here’s why: a puzzle is but a jumble of mixed-up pieces, until a plan of action is developed. Sort the pieces by color groupings, or work on the outside frame first. Whichever way the puzzle is sorted, the puzzler uses organization: moving through chaos to order.

When working on puzzles as a family, discuss the strategies used to sort the pieces—this is the key to developing a solid game strategy. Known as Cognitive Awareness, it’s a learning technique that helps you to become aware of the process that you use to reach a solution, and un-puzzle the puzzle. And, it’s what makes game playing a fun way to keep the brain sharp.

School downtime is often the time when good school habits start to slide. That’s why it’s important that students maintain their academic momentum during school breaks. Students can stay sharp with these five easy tips:

1. Read a book together. Parents can help young children develop better reading comprehension skills by reading and discussing books together.
2. Play board games. Board games can help children learn to be organized, to plan, to be persistent, and to think strategically. Children can also develop problem-solving abilities and memory skills. Games that use money can teach essential mathematical skills like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and even concepts like estimation.
3. Set a work schedule. Agree to a time when everyone can come together to work on projects—school or otherwise. Children are used to following a routine during the school day, so sticking to a routine during vacation time is natural.
4. Hit the Books. Upcoming projects, essays, assignments, and readings can be easily chipped away at during the break. Students should take advantage of the spare time afforded by the break to make some headway into upcoming schoolwork.
5. Avoid the Slip-Slide. Days have a way of blending into one another, especially during school breaks, so students should continue to use a school agenda, calendar, or day planner. Agendas are a great way to practice time management skills and remain focused.

Media watchdogs, educators, and parents alike are concerned about the amount of time that children are spending online, their abundant usage of instant messaging (IM), and how the new technologies can and will affect their educational and social development.

What appears to be the consensus is that children of all ages are very receptive to new technologies—they are the biggest users of IM, either through messaging services or text messaging on cell phones.

These new communication technologies are being touted as the newest evolution in communication: language continually evolves and so does the way we communicate. IM, text messaging, and computer communication are the newest incarnations and deserve recognition as the latest ways that humans communicate.

However, there is some concern that IM use among young children may hamper proper language development—that children should not learn abbreviated forms before they learn essential skills like spelling, grammar usage, and punctuation. The new technologies may present new communication methods, but they can also present new hazards to children while online—spending too much time online may make children (and adults) susceptible to online predation.

Here are 10 tips to help ensure Internet safety for every age.

1. Keep online profiles simple, and don’t reveal too much: first name but last initial, city but not address, grade but not what school attended, etc.
2. Use a screen name instead of a real name—develop a name to use when online, like cat_girl06 or likesfido21.
3. Use kid-friendly search engines or browsers. They have built-in parental controls and cool designs that children like.
4. Install your Internet provider’s parental-control features—this can restrict the sites that can be accessed, and prevents salacious pop-ups.
5. When using an IM, change the preferences to contacts-only or invite-only—this way only get messages from people in the contact list will appear, and no outsiders can make contact.
6. If necessary purchase parental add-ons that can log all online activities.
7. Make your default page a kid-friendly one, such as Yahooligans.
8. When surfing around for fun, only follow links from trusted sites.
9. Limit online time. Agree with all computer users in your house to a set computer schedule.
10. Always act online as though someone might be watching!

Early years—Kindergarten Through Grade Two

From the ages of five onwards, children are learning to adjust to an academic setting. Report cards tend to report on student’s behavioral and social progress, such as how they are getting along with their peers, and whether they can stay focused on a task.

Academically, young children are being introduced to the basic skills that they will use to build all future learning upon. Reading progression is critical during the early years. Students should be continually meeting, if not exceeding, the reading progression standards.

While young students may have their entire academic future ahead of them, poor report cards could mean potential problems in the long run. If issues are cropping up time and again, parents should consider getting extra help for their child so that the issue doesn’t become a major learning roadblock.

Children are changing greatly during the early years, and what was a problem today, may not be a problem tomorrow. Even if a particular area might be of concern, parents should watch for incremental improvement from one report card to the next. Always discuss report cards with the teacher, who can give a better picture of a child’s progress.

Each report card marks a milestone of achievement. Just because a child is underperforming on one report card, does not mean that there won’t be significant improvement by the next report card.

Middle years—Grades Three to Eight

The middle years of school are all about progress markers. While the early years focus on behavior and development, the middle years are very important academically. Children are introduced to increasingly difficult academic skills and their ability to learn these foundational skills is very much the focus of report cards.

Low grades on report card, while problematic, are not as much of a cause for concern as grades that are dropping. Consistency is key on report cards during the middle years; children should not be going down in grade points.

At this stage, the emotional impact of report cards becomes an issue. Worry about grades can cause stress among children and parents alike. Parents can offer incentives to students to help increase their study time, or learn to ask for help in order to maintain grades.

When poor grades are present on multiple report cards, parents should consider it a red flag and seek help before the problem becomes a major issue.

Teen Years—High School

In high school, report cards are the biggest indicator of academic performance and progression. The first report of the school year is a warning flag—if there are issues, students should get help as soon as possible. There is plenty of time for students to improve grades before the second and final report cards.

In high school, students’ grades should reflect their short and long-term goals in life. Students need to consider the long-term outcomes of what their grades will mean to them based on what their future goals are.

The pressure is on; students are moving quickly on the fast track towards higher education, and every grade counts. Students should seek extra help as soon as they realize that they need extra support, whether in a particular subject, or in study or homework skills. The sooner that students get the support that they need, the less stressful that report cards become.

Whether you are pleasantly surprised or very disappointed with the first report card, you’ll want to have a discussion about the results, both with your child and with the teacher. The report card postmortem is part of a larger support strategy that makes you an active participant in your child’s education.

Make the most out of your report card chat. Here are some guidelines to ensure that it goes as smoothly as possible, especially if you are in the very disappointed category.

1. Sit down together. Don’t talk about the report card in the garage while your child is lacing up his rollerblades.
2. Remove distractions and focus on each other—TV off, no Game Boy or iPod!
3. Make a statement of intent. Tell your child up front that you need to have a talk about the report card.
4. Start by saying something positive. You can get off on the right foot by highlighting something positive about the report card, no matter how trivial.
5. Review learning strengths. Say something like, “You are still doing great in math, which is awesome.”
6. Recognize the struggle (1). Listen to your child, and include his or her thoughts, comments, and worries in the discussion.
7. Recognize the struggle (2). Say something like, “I see that you’re still having trouble with spelling.”
8. Listen to the complaints. Children who have the most issues are usually the most vocal.
9. End with optimism. Make a comment like this: “There’s still plenty of time for improvement, and we’ll work together to make the necessary changes.”
10. End with a plan. Identify the following before you leave the table: your role in helping with school, your child’s role, and what the next steps are.

Your child’s first report card will be arriving soon. Whatever the results, and whatever your reactions, remember that the first report card of the year is not the final word on school achievement.

Chances are, your child will have some marks to cheer about and others that will cause concern or frustration. That’s fine, because this report card is like a check-up—it will tell you how your child is progressing, how new material is being handled, and whether there are advances or declines from last year.

Even if there are some not-so-nice surprises, there’s plenty of time to make adjustments.

Poor grades? Five Tips to Keep in mind:

1. There’s still lot’s of time to make a difference. Don’t become disheartened.
2. A low grade today is a red flag, highlighting an area that needs attention. With time and support, your child can improve.
3. Read the teacher’s comments, because they reveal much more than the actual mark. They can often provide insight into any obstacles to your child’s academic success.
4. All children have potential to change, adapt, unlearn, or re-lean. Through cognitive development, children have the potential to change the way they think about a subject…and grow smarter. In fact, this process of cognitive development is Oxford Learning’s founding philosophy.
5. Take note and then take action! With the right plan, great improvements can occur—no matter how fast the year flies by. It’s your child’s potential (what he or she is capable of achieving) that really matters, not what has been achieved so far.