Curiosity: A Key to Your Child’s Potential
Recent scrutiny of gifted and talented education can leave parents and educators feeling as though we can’t do anything right. However, the broader conversation can be taken as a sign that things are moving in the right direction. Parents have a lot more options when it comes to tapping into their children’s potential and accessing […]
Math Practice & Drilling: A Much-Needed STEM Tool
There’s been some well-publicized debate recently over the role of practice and drilling in math education. Some teaching experts say drilling could be the antidote to achievement gaps, while others warn it could stifle curiosity. For decades, we’ve been trying to decide whether teacher-directed instruction or student-centered activities are more helpful for students’ understanding of […]
Learning Loss: A Summer Opportunity
It’s a perplexing problem; American students have the longest summer break of any industrialized country. Summertime parental stress is on the rise while kids’ learning retention is decreasing. Studies show that students lose the knowledge equivalent of one month of instruction per year because of summer learning loss. Yet large-scale solutions evade American schools, teachers, and […]
Multiple Intelligences Theory at FasTracKids
At FasTracKids®, we believe in developing the WHOLE child. It’s not IF your child is smart; it’s HOW your child is smart! This simple statement guides everything we do at FasTracKids, but we can’t take credit for the idea. Our approach to learning has been influenced in significant ways by Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple […]
Gifted Education for a New Generation
The Wonders of Research (aka “hindsight”) There’s nothing like the collection of data over time to call our best efforts into question. Such is the case with giftedness education. Thanks to the childrearing of previous generations, we can now assess actual outcomes for kids who received the accelerated programming and “gifted” designations of the 80’s […]
Education Predictions for 2018
On the SmartBrief blog, prolific education blogger and author Fred Ende has graciously presented three predictions related to education in New York for the coming year. While we can only anticipate so much in this fast-paced field, our experience at FasTracKids gives us every reason to believe that Mr. Ende is on to something. What […]
Teaching Science Takes Confidence
As the parent of a preschooler, you might expect all the core subject areas to get equal instruction time in the classroom. New research out of Michigan State University, however, reveals that reading, writing, and arithmetic are getting a lot more attention than science. More importantly, researchers have found the quality and quantity of science […]
How to Develop the 5 Essential Mathematical Concepts During Early Childhood
Did you know that children start using math throughout their daily routines and activities during early childhood without actually realizing it? This doesn’t mean that they can comprehend mathematical concepts and consciously apply them, but rather means that they can understand the basic concepts of numbers, quantities and shapes through every day activities such as […]
Math Still Matters, America!
To write The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way, Amanda Ripley followed three American students as they embarked on far-flung educational experiences around the world. She set out with the aim of determining how kids in different countries learn to think and thrive in the modern economy. The resulting book […]
Supporting Success for Gifted Students
Would you call your child a “mathematically precocious youth”? Whether your youngster’s strength is in math, music, or public speaking, you’re likely wondering how to turn that natural gift into future success. We now know that it takes more than a “gifted” designation to predict a lifetime of positive outcomes and that school districts aren’t […]