Creating High Interest Reading Programs on a Budget

Creating High Interest Reading Using Magazines

I am that one Language Arts teacher that does not assign a reading list over breaks.  I think that students need to sharpen their saws over break just as much as I need to (Coveny, 2005).  I firmly believe that winter, spring and summer breaks should truly be breaks from school.  However, there are always parents who are asking what should their child be reading over the summer and how many books should they be reading over the summer.  I give the statistic “it is critical to include 20 minutes of reading in your child’s daily schedule” (http://www.k12reader.com).   I tell them to let the child pick the book, even if it seems to easy or if he/she has already read it. I usually get that weird look - you know the one from those parents - let my child do something on his/her own?  Surely you jest!!  But I also get one of the two follow up question “But Sally doesn’t like to read books.  What should I do?” or “Brendan isn’t interesting in anything.  What should I do?”  I identify with these parents more because my youngest was a reluctant reader who refused to read any fiction from kindergarten until middle school.  My answer to these parents - find a magazine.

How many of us have googled “High Interest Low Vocabulary” and gotten lists of books to buy? Who has that kind of time to shift through all of that information to figure out which are the best books to buy? Who has that kind of money? Magazines are a cheaper option.  Many public libraries have a healthy selection of magazines. Anyone can go in and see what he/she find interesting.   My daughter was fascinated with dogs and cats. She loved Dog Fancy and Cat Fancy. So my mother-in-law, who is a reading expert, bought my daughter subscriptions to both magazines. Even though these magazines were of a much higher reading level, we couldn’t get her to put them down.  My daughter would look forward to the arrival of the magazines, which is the first key to a successful reader - motivation.  Even if the kids just flip through and look at the pictures at first, they are still using great pre-reading strategies - looking at the titles and examining the graphics.  They are making inferences and drawing conclusions - mostly answering the question do I want to read this?  Also, by having the option to not read something, they are learning that their opinions matter.  

There are two other advantages that magazines have over novels are that magazines have short articles packed with jargon.  The short articles are ideal for students with difficulties in reading and keeping  their attention focused. According to Read Write Act, a student coalition for action in literacy education, “By nature children are wiggly and fidgety and have difficulties in sustaining attention for long periods of time.” (2014).  Because magazine articles are shorter than novels, we teachers and parents can capitalize on the impact of reading and still not horribly exceed the average attention span of the student that a novel does.  Also, students are more willing to read magazine article because of that high interest.

Because magazines are content based reading, students can work on building their ability to understand jargon.  “Jargon is a type of language that is used in a particular context and may not be well understood outside of it” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jargon).  Think back to your content area classes from high school.  How many of us still use all of the terms from biology (with the exception of biology teachers!!).  But we had to have the skills to understand that jargon to understand the concepts of the class.  Magazine articles help to teach these content area reading skills - understanding jargon, reading to learn, and using graphics while reading- without over taxing the attention span and still tapping into the high interest reading.  

We all know the importance of reading. “There is a strong correlation between a child’s ability to read and her academic performance. Because so much of our schooling relies on our abilities to read, children must have strong reading skills to succeed and thrive in school.” (www.k12reader.com). And novels are a vital part of reading.  We also know that for students to want to read, they need to be interested in the material presented, which is not always possible in school.  Magazines will not replace the textbooks at school or the novels for literature.  However, they can be another tool in toolbox of reading materials.  

"Behavior Management Important Facts." Attention Span for Learning = Chronological Age + 1

(2014): n. pag. Behavior Management Important Facts. Read Write Teach, July 2004.

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<http://readwriteact.org/files/2014/07/BehaviorManagement-ImportantFacts.pdf>.

Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. London: Simon & Schuster, 2005.

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Covey, Stephen R. The Leader in Me: How Extraordinary, Everyday Schools Are Inspiring

Greatness, One Child at a Time. New York: Free, 2008. Print

"Jargon." Jargon. Wikipedia, n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jargon>.

"Why Read 20 Minutes a Day?" Www.k12reader.com. K12 Reader: Reading Instruction

Resources, n.d. Web. 4 Mar. 2017.

<http://www.k12reader.com/why-read-20-minutes-a-day/>.

Tonight's line-up Arts vs. Core ~ Why is there a fight?

Mr. Holland is Right

Mr. Holland Opus is my all-time favorite teacher movie.  If you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend taking a rainy Saturday afternoon, when you aren’t grading papers, curl up with a warm blanket and watch this movie.  Then come back to this blog, as there is a spoiler alert now!

Mr. Holland was a reluctant music teacher who took a teaching job to supplement his income as a composer.  Thirty years later, he is forced into retirement because the music and art programs are being cut from the school.  There is an argument between the vice principal and Mr. Holland about programs being cut.

“Vice Principal Wolters: I care about these kids just as much as you do. And if I'm forced to choose between Mozart and reading and writing and long division, I choose long division.

Glenn Holland: Well, I guess you can cut the arts as much as you want, Gene. Sooner or later, these kids aren't going to have anything to read or write about.”(2007).

The arts are so important to a school’s curriculum.  There are no other classes where students can express themselves without having to worry about conventions and sentence structure.  Students can use their imaginations and be free to think, explore, make critical decisions.  “Perhaps the most fundamental element to education one should consider is the manner in which we perceive and make sense of the world in which we live” (Bryant).  Student need art and music. These classes should not be considered to be “extra” classes.  

However, too many times, when the test scores for reading and math are low in a school, the reaction from the higher ups is to cut art and music.  Now there is no denying that kids have to be able read and be able to do math.  But how we accomplish the teaching of reading and math is not limited to worksheets and readers.  “The arts have the capacity to engage everyone. All levels of American society can and do participate in the fine arts. There are no barriers of race, religion, culture, geography, or socioeconomic levels” (Bryant).  We need need to incorporate the arts into our reading and math instruction.  

This needs to be done at lower income schools even more so.   According to Tim Walker, “High-poverty schools across the nation have been forced to narrow the curriculum much more drastically than wealthier schools—with worse consequences for low-income students. While their more affluent peers may routinely visit museums or other cultural resources, many poor urban and rural students rely on their teachers to expose them to the kind of background knowledge that is essential to subject mastery” (2014). It seems as if the students that need the arts the most have the least accessibility to them.  

I remember being in elementary school music and art in the 1970’s.  The music teacher was a World War II vet with limited hearing (which was probably to his advantage!!).  We got music twice a week.  We all looked forward because we always got to play different percussion instruments while he played and we were supposed to be singing.  We would laugh and still be talking about music during recess.  In art, we would be allowed to sculpt and paint.  The art teacher, who was a wonderful hippie, thought everything we did was wonderful.  We came out of that class feeling we could make anything.  We would always have to write about our projects.

“Our schools [were] once vigorous and dynamic centers for learning” (Walker 2013).  We need bring these dynamic centers back by being mindful of where our educational dollars and balance the reading and math instruction with art and music.  Give the students something to read and write about - like what Mr. Holland was advocating for.  

Bryant, Bob. "Katy Independent School District." The Importance of Fine Arts Education. Kay

Independent School District, n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2017. <http://www.katyisd.org/dept/finearts/Pages/The-Importance-of-Fine-Arts-Education-.aspx>.

Broussard, Meredith. "Why Poor Schools Can't Win at Standardized Testing." The Atlantic.

Atlantic Media Company, 15 July 2014. Web. 22 Feb. 2017. <https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/07/why-poor-schools-cant-win-at-standardized-testing/374287/>.

Long, Cindy. "The High-Stakes Testing Culture: How We Got Here, How We Get Out." NEA

Today. NEAToday, 10 Nov. 2014. Web. 21 Feb. 2017. <http://neatoday.org/2014/06/17/the-high-stakes-testing-culture-how-we-got-here-how-we-get-out/>.

Mr. Holland's Opus. Dir. Stephan Herek. Perf. Richard Dryfuss and Glenne Headly. 20th Century

Fox, 2007. DVD.

Walker, Tim. "The Testing Obsession and the Disappearing Curriculum." NEA Today. NEAToday,

02 Jan. 2017. Web. 22 Feb. 2017. <http://neatoday.org/2014/09/02/the-testing-obsession-and-the-disappearing-curriculum-2/>.

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"The Biggest Loser" and Education

I have been watching reruns The Biggest Loser on Hulu.  I don’t know why I like this show, but I love it. However, there is an unsettling theme in the show. Each week, the goal is the maximum weight loss, not working as hard as they can, eating healthy, getting enough sleep, or getting healthy. Maximum pounds lost is the only measurement of success.    

I see the same thing in education.  Instead of pounds lost, however, the goal is great test scores. Test scores mean everything just like the number on the scale - the final product.   Administrators live and die by scores numbers which makes teachers have to live and die by the product - test scores. But how much of our time is consumed by these numbers?  According to Cindy Long, author of "The High-Stakes Testing Culture: How We Got Here, How We Get Out," “No one knows for sure the average time students spend on test prep. A recent survey of the Colorado Education Association found that teachers spend 30 percent of their time on prep and testing”  (2014).   We teachers give practice tests and scour our data of how the students are scoring on the test:  Who is scoring what?  Who needs to be scoring higher.  Who do we need to workout more? Who needs that “last chance workout”  before the ultimate weigh-in for education - the state standardized test.

There is no doubt that there is a time and place for testing.  According to Melissa Lazarin, author of Testing Overload in America's Schools,” “three out of four parents think that it is important to regularly assess whether their children are on track to meet state academic goals, according to a poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Support for regular assessment is even higher among Latino and black parents.” (2014).  There is parental support for testing.  Plus, there is validity in testing.  “Proponents [of testing] say standardized tests are the best objective tool to hold teachers and schools accountable” (Strauss, 2006).  Numbers are the easiest way to answer questions:  Is there overall improvement in the school?  How school A is doing compared to school B?  Did student X gain this year from last year? But the bigger question is how much testing to do we need to be doing in order to get these numbers?

However, there is a cost to all of this testing.  Obviously it costs money to test.  But there is a bigger cost.  We are losing sight of the process of education.  Things that can’t be measured by a test are being lost  - how to learn, working hard, positive attitude, motivation,  and learning in the moment.   “Testing . . . eliminates the richness of the curriculum, eliminating subjects like art, music, even social studies, are cut so that more time can be spent on drills in reading and math.” (Long, 2014).  There is also a personal cost. “But it is important to acknowledge that for some children, testing exacts an emotional toll in the form of anxiety and stress.” (Lazarin, 2014).   Students feed off the stress teachers unknowingly exude. Students feed off the stress the parents put on them.  More than once I have heard parents say something to the effect “You better do well on this.”   Except for the money, most of the costs of testing can’t be shown with the numbers.

So, should our students be evaluated like the contestants on The Biggest Loser? Sometimes yes.  There really isn’t an efficient and equitable way to assess millions of students once a year for comparative scores.  Should our classrooms look like and feel like the pressure cooker that is the The Biggest Loser?  Absolutely not!  We need to balance the tests with the other aspects of education that can’t be tested - creativity, motivation, perseverance, inquisitiveness.   How do we get this balance?  In the classroom, we can work on creating a learning environment instead of a testing classroom.  We can encourage learning through other activities like music and art instead of using skill sheets.   We teachers need to advocate for change as we are the only ones that can bring change to our classrooms. We need to help the state school boards what is in the child’s best interest, not just the district’s best interesting.  It all depends on what the state school boards and legislators want for their students in the classroom- the pressure cooker or the learning classroom

Lazarín, Melissa. "Testing Overload in America's Schools." Center for American Progress.

Center for American Progress, 16 Oct. 2014. Web. 21 Feb. 2017. <https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/reports/2014/10/16/99073/testing-overload-in-americas-schools/>.

Long, Cindy. "The High-Stakes Testing Culture: How We Got Here, How We Get Out." NEA

Today. NEAToday, 10 Nov. 2014. Web. 21 Feb. 2017. <http://neatoday.org/2014/06/17/the-high-stakes-testing-culture-how-we-got-here-how-we-get-out/>.

Strauss, Valerie. "The Rise of the Testing Culture." The Washington Post. WP Company, 10 Oct.

2006. Web. 21 Feb. 2017. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100900925.html>.

The Biggest Loser, NBC. (2004-Current).

Where are the boys?

Before I start this blog, let it be known to all that I am the mother to two daughter and no sons.  I am very proud of my daughters as they are very accomplished.  That being said, I have noticed that there have been a lack of boys in leadership positions at school, 4H, and church.  What has happened to the boys? Where did they go?

I have also noticed the difference in success with education between girls and boys.  Girls are doing great.  They are the majority of college degree holders. According to Anne Fisher, author of “Boys vs. Girls:  What’s Behind the College Grad Gender Gap?,”   “Female grads now account for about 60% of U.S. bachelor’s degree holders.” (2013). This is great news because educated women give their own children a huge advantage.  However, where are the boys? Why are boys not more successful in education?  

Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens, authors of “With Boys and Girls in Mind,” posed this question: “Is contemporary education maliciously set against either males or females?” (2004) The answer is NO!! No one actually believes that the education system is engaged in active gender warfare with boys being intentionally sabotaged.  But there has been changes in education based on gender which has not been done by educators.   According to Gurian and Stevens,  “For a number of decades, most of our cultural sensitivity to issues of gender and learning came from advocacy groups that pointed out ways in which girls struggled in school.“ (2004).  This means that people not in education are making policy and procedure for education.

However, the question is still there:  Why are the boys not as successful in education as the girls are? Ron Coniglio, author of “Why Gender Matters in the Classroom,” states:  “I feel that as classroom teachers whether or not it is nature or nurture that creates these differences is not all that relevant to us. What is relevant is that we see gender differences in the students in our classrooms” (2017).  However, these difference exist, regardless of the origins of the difference.  How we teachers react to these difference are important.  According to Coniglio, “80% of high school dropouts are boys, 80% of all classroom discipline problems are boys, 70% of students with learning disabilities are boys, 80% of students who are behaviorally disordered are boys, 80% of students on medication for ADHD and ADD are boys” (2017).  These numbers are shocking.  We can make the leap that the boys that are dropping out are the ones that are having learning issues which can result in discipline issues as a result of frustration.  However, the question is - why?  Why is this happening? Why are boys struggling in the current education environment?

Anne Fisher offers some advice on how to prevent these numbers.  “First, the most important predictor of boys’ achievement is the extent to which the school culture expects and rewards academic effort,” School need to set high expectations and recognize each student as an individual, not a cell in a spreadsheet.”Second, the authors write, their research shows that “boys have less understanding than girls about how their future success in college and work is directly linked to their academic effort in middle school and high school.”  (Fisher, 2013).  Boys need more help in understanding the connection between education and success outside of school.  

How do we teachers do this?  We need to make connections to the “real” world from the classroom.  We need more hands-on classes.  We also need to bring back other options than college for after high school.  Popular entertainer and “blue collar” advocate, Mike Rowe has put the spotlight on successful trade jobs that allow for good careers in the article “11 High Paying Blue Collar Jobs with Mike Rowe.”   “Rowe said, [that it]] is the attitude of many Americans that the trades are merely a last-ditch alternative when college doesn't work out.” (Dugar 2017).  We teachers need to change this attitude amongst all of our students but especially amongst boys.  We need to create learning environments that play to boys’ strengths - like hands-on activities that promote building, problem solving, and critical thinking skills.  We need to encourage the  Industrial Arts, FFA, and other programs that promote hands-on learning. We need to have our boys be successful in classroom so that they can be successful outside classroom, which is the majority of their lives.

Conigilo, Ron. "Why Gender Matters in the Classroom: The Differences Between Boys and

Girls." Why Gender Matters in the Classroom: The Differences Between Boys and Girls.

TeacherHub.com, n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2017.

<http://www.teachhub.com/why-gender-matters-classroom>.

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Dugan, Dawn. "11 High-Paying Blue Collar Jobs with Mike Rowe." 11 High-Paying Blue Collar

Jobs with Mike Rowe. Salary.com, n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2017.

<http://www.salary.com/11-high-paying-blue-collar-jobs-with-mike-rowe/>.

Gurian, Michael, and Kathy Stevens. "With Boys and Girls in Mind." Educational Leadership.

ASCD, Nov. 2004. Web. 19 Feb. 2017. <With Boys and Girls in Mind>.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov04/vol62/num03/With-Boys-and-Girls-in-Mind.aspx

Fisher, Anne. "Boys vs. Girls: What’s behind the College Grad Gender Gap?" Boys vs. Girls:

What’s behind the College Grad Gender Gap? Fortune, 27 Mar. 2013. Web. 18 Feb.

2017. <http://fortune.com/2013/03/27/boys-vs-girls-whats-behind-the-college-grad-gender-gap/>.

Power of Positive Reinforcement

We all love to hear how great we are. It does not matter if we are 5 or 95. Unfortunately, positive feedback seems to be a forgotten tool in education.   “Positive feedback is so powerful and yet so rare. People crave it and when they receive it, it can change their performance and their life.” (McCarthy, 2017).  Students are no different. And it is easy to tell good students that they are going job. However it is really difficult to give difficult students positive feedback. And as every teacher knows that it is the difficult child that needs the most positive reinforcement.

I work for a virtual school, which means I do not see my students. Our middle school program has instituted ABC calls to make sure that every student gets a call from a teacher each week. ABC calls means that we split up the alphabet amongst the teachers and make calls from those students with the last name. For example, if I am assigned A-C, then I call all of the students with the last names that starts with A-C.  The math teacher would call D-G the same week, so the students with those last names would be call.  The science teacher may call H-K students.  The history teacher L- N students.  The art teacher O-S students.  And the music teacher call T-Z.   Make no mistake- this takes time. And in a time when teachers are already overwhelmed with practically EVERYTHING, it is difficult to make time for ONE MORE thing.  But since we rotate the alphabet among the teachers, we are able to attempt to make the personal contact to each student every week.   But we try to focus on at least one thing that the student is doing well.

Even though it can be very difficult, we try to find at least one positive aspect for each student to focus on. And students and parents like it. For example, I had a low performing student that I called one day. When his mom answered the phone and I identified myself, her response was literally “what did he do now?”  I told her that he did a great job participating in class. I also told her that I was calling to thank him for his help with another student. There was silence for a minute and then she started crying. She said that she had never had a good report from any teacher about her student. Now the next time I called and had to talk about grades, she was much less defensive and more willing to work with me and her student.  Although this is an extreme example, most of the time I get a similar response - “I wasn’t expecting to hear good news from school” - from the difficult or struggling students and their parents.  

As previously stated, the difficult child is the most difficult to give positive feedback.  However, there are other aspects of the students than academics.  We teachers sometimes spend more time with our students than their parents do.  It is our responsibility to find something good in every child.  “Perhaps you recognize a kind deed or word they offered to someone . . .Or maybe you’re touched by their kind smile or a helpful comment they made.”  (Amodeo, 2014). Sometimes the positive feedback is only “I noticed you tried really hard on this assignment. I appreciate your hard work” or “I see that you logged into class this week.  Thank-you for coming to class.”  

One of the teachers at our program shared that she spends 15 minutes a week giving only positive feedback to students.  I try to do this as well.  I do my positive feedback via email on Fridays.  I have a form letter that I send that just says “Hi.  You did an outstanding job this week in Language Arts.  I appreciate how hard you are working.  Keep up the great work.”  I don’t think is anything special, just an acknowledgement of the work the student is doing.  It is really interesting on the responses back.  Most students and parents don’t even respond.  But I usually get one or two students or parents that do respond.  Mostly it is a thank-you.  Last week, I got a response from a student who stated that he struggled in Language Arts, never really liked Language Arts, but really appreciated the encouragement. It was one of the best emails I got that day.  Never underestimate the power of positive reinforcement.

Amodeo, John, PhD. "The Power of Positive Feedback." Psychology Today. Psychology Today,

19 July 1994. Web. 10 Feb.

2017.https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intimacy-path-toward-spirituality/201407/th

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16, 2016. A Review of Educational R Esearch, 1 Mar. 2007. Web. 14 Feb. 2017.

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McCarthy, Thomas. "The Power of Positive Feedback." The Peak Performer. Thomas McCarthy

& Associates, n.d. Web. 4 Feb. 2017.

<http://tommccarthy.com/the-peak-performer-issue-22/>.

All that Data

“It is a capital mistake to theorise before you have all data.” Sherlock Holmes “An Adventure in Scandal” (Doyle, 2013).

Sherlock Holmes is the epitome of using data. He looks at seemingly random pieces of a puzzle, analyzes what he has gathered, and then draws a conclusion based on his perception of the data. Everyone is impressed with the conclusion. His data is qualitative not quantitative, which makes his conclusions even more amazing.

Teachers have had to become more like Sherlock Holmes. We are expected to take pieces of data, some of it is seemingly random, analyze it, and then draw conclusions about students. Most of our data is qualitative, just like Sherlock Holmes’s data. The difference is that we teachers have a lot more data about a lot more people (students, not murder victims) and are expected to take this qualitative data and squash it into quantitative results. This is really hard because. , it is really difficult to implement the use of student data in a systematic way. It is also very difficult to implement data when there are so many directions that the data can be used.  “How [data is]  used depends on a variety of factors in each school and in each teacher’s classroom. Some teachers are embracing student data to inform their teaching, while others believe there’s a risk of an over-reliance on hard numbers that doesn’t take into account the human factor.” (https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/02/is-all-this-student-data-changing-the-way-teachers-teach/)  

Now I am not saying that we should not be collecting and analyzing data about student performance. This is very important. However, I feel that people outside of the classroom  are trying to make teaching strictly a science instead of  appreciating the art that is involved. When people are reduced to numbers, then individuality is lost. Any great teacher knows why Johnny can't read - the test just shows that he can't - the teacher knows about Johnny and his situation, which does not fit into quantitative result sheet.

We need to find a balance. According to Ronald S. Thomas “We don’t need ‘data driven’ schools. We desperately need ‘knowledge driven’ schools.” (2016).  We teachers need figure out how to use the data to create knowledge driven schools in which all students can succeed.  To do this we need teacher leaders to help find the balance between the student on the spreadsheet and the student in the classroom.  

We obviously can't throw out all data and go back to teacher intuition. That makes no sense. On the other hand, we can't spend all of our time consumed in making children into neat numbers that fit into spreadsheets. Somewhere in the middle is where we need to be - the knowledge driven program. I believe that even Sherlock Holmes would agree with that deduction.

By. "Is All This Student Data Changing the Way Teachers Teach?" MindShift. KQED News, 2

June 2014. Web. 12 Feb. 2017.

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Race Point, 2013. Print.

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What?:Why Teachers Must Be Data Experts. Ascd, Dec.-Jan. 2009-10. Web. 12 Feb. 2017.<http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec08/vol66/num04/Why-Teachers-Must-Be-Data-Experts.aspx>.

Thomas, Ronald S. "My Nine 'Truths' of Data Analysis." Education Week. N.p., 06 Oct. 2016.

Web. 12 Feb. 2017. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/06/15/35thomas.h30.html

Virtual Education Success: Organization is the Key

I have been in virtual education since 2009. I have been both a virtual teacher and a virtual student. Virtual education is the “new” platform in education. It is being touted as a great alternative to the brick and mortar programs. And for some, it can be, but only if they have one key skill - organization.

In order to be successful in a virtual program, students need to be organized. Most middle school students are not capable to organize their time and space. Students need a schedule that the family can adhere to and mostly respect.  Time needs to be designated for lessons, study, project, and breaks.  Students need a space to call their own that is designated for learning that is not in a bedroom or a dining room table.

As a homeroom teacher for a virtual educational program, I on-board new students to our program very frequently.  My first few questions I ask a new family are about their organization for both time and space. If a family has figured out a schedule for the student and a space for the student to work, then most of the time, the student will thrive in the virtual environment. These parents understand how education will be their primary focus for their student, and they have organized their time and space for this education. They have taken into consideration the importance of a schedule that includes breaks as well as work time.

However, when I hear from a new family that no time or space had been discussed or that the student will be doing it on his/her own, then the student is most likely doomed.  Most of these parents lack the understanding of how much time they need to invest into organization because they have always relied on the brick and mortar programs to organize time and space.  These parents never had to arrange a learning space or schedule in a lunch time. These parents don’t understand that virtual education is not an extended homework time.  Virtual education is a replacement for the brick and mortar education.  These parents need a lot of help with organization of time and space. Unfortunately, very few are able to commit to such a daunting task due to a variety of reasons.

In order to be successful in a virtual educational environment, the parent and the student need to be able to organize their time in such a way that there is adequate time for school and for other activities.  The parent and the student need to be able to organize space, so that the student has a place of his/her own for supervised work.  With a little work in organization, most people can be very successful in a virtual educational environment.   

Auman, Maureen E. Step up to Writing. Longmont, CO: Sopris West, 2003. Print.

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