TOP STUDENTS
TOP PARENTS
WHAT'S INSIDE
Table of Contents and Chapter Summaries
Laying The Foundation for Success - Infancy and Above
PART 1:
CHAPTER 1:
LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS
The Harvard Preschool Project
Meaningful Differences in Everyday Experiences
Rethinking the Brain: New Insights into Early Development
How Kids Get Smart: The Surprising News
Your Child’s Brain
You Can Raise Your Child’s I.Q.
This chapter contains summaries and conclusions of several research projects conducted by child development specialists. Each project is accompanied by the authors’ names and the titles of their reports. Many recommendations in this book are based on the results of these studies. It is very important that the parents read this chapter in its entirety in order to fully understand the importance of their role in their children’s education and future success.
CHAPTER 2:
DANGERS OF ELECTRONIC ENTERTAINMENT
Research – Negative Conclusions
Health Issues
Psychological Problems
Unacceptable Behavior
Materialism and Low Self-Esteem
Television and computers are robbing children of the benefits they used to get through physical activity. They’re wonderful babysitters for the parents, but what’s really sad is that they don’t realize the danger to their child when they allow them to have their eyes glued to the TV and computer screens for hours. They don’t move or think and don’t even hear someone talking to them…their minds and bodies shut down and stop developing. It’s called brain downtime.
CHAPTER 3:
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Speak Proper English/ No Baby Talk
Repetition
Nursery Rhymes
Curiosity
Research indicates that the amount of language spoken directly to children during their first three years is critical to their intellectual development and ability to learn and will significantly increase their I.Q. This chapter is devoted to teaching parents how to help their child’s language develop to its full potential through communicating and carrying on conversations, stimulating the child to give descriptions and explanations, as well as speaking proper English, all just through daily parent/child contact.
CHAPTER 4:
THE BODY-BRAIN CONNECTION
Gross/ Fine Motor Coordination
Importance of Play
Unstructured Play and Suggestions
Structured Play and Suggestions
Hobbies and Extra Curricular Activities for Older Children
Gross motor coordination correlates with a healthy brain. Scientists report that physically fit children show overall better school performance. Eye-hand coordination has been connected with high achievement in math, science and reading, and is correlated with children’s readiness for school. Scientists even report that advanced fine motor skills are an early prediction of school success. There are numerous ideas in this chapter to help parents help their children develop their coordination.
CHAPTER 5:
THE HOME ENVIRONMENT CONDUCIVE TO LEARNING
Television – The Downfall of Education and Family Life
Unrestricted Smartphones
Educational Materials/Books in the Home
Money-Making Projects
Family Discussions
Vocabulary Enrichment
Library/Right-To-Read
Family Garden
Family Entertainment/Dancing
Children model what they see their parents do and hear them say. The most important place for children to develop into high quality educated human beings is in an enriched home environment where they learn good character development, socializing, the art of conversation and communication, vocabulary development, organization, reading skills, having fun together. This chapter shows parents how to be excellent role models just through plain healthy living and growing. Fortunate are the children who are born into these types of environments
CHAPTER 6:
RESPONSIBILITY - THE KEY INGREDIENT OF SUCCESS
Personal Responsibility – From Infancy Up
Family Responsibilities
Positive/Negative Consequences
The first and most important quality of Top Students is responsibility. Teaching children to be responsible for their personal belongings, and to participate in the maintenance and upkeep of their home is a continuing challenge and source of frustration to parents. This chapter offers suggestions and activities that will teach parents ways they can help their children achieve their utmost potential which must begin with personal responsibility.
CHAPTER 7:
BELIEF IS A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY
Our level of self-esteem determines how much we like and respect ourselves, our beliefs in who we are, and how capable we are. Liking ourselves and being capable go together. The more we like ourselves, the better we are at everything we do. Parents have the most significant influence on the beliefs children have about themselves. This chapter will teach parents how to help their child develop the self-esteem and confidence that will lead them to a life time of success and happiness.
Definitions of Good and Poor Self-Esteem
Leading Causes of Poor Self-Esteem Learned from Home
Good Character Leads to Good Self-Esteem
Success Leads to Good Self-Esteem
Mistakes are O.K. That’s How We Learn
CHAPTER 8:
THE POWER OF THE MIND
Parents have the major role of influence upon their children. If they are negative thinkers and have poor self-esteem, their children will be just like them. Parents cause severe and irreparable damage to the mental development of their children when they make negative statements about themselves or to their children while disciplining and correcting them. This chapter helps parents identify negative aspects of their relationship with their children and shows them ways they can correct them.
Positive vs. Negative Thoughts
Infancy to Kindergarten
School-Age Children
Role of Parents
“I AM” Affirmations for Children
School Performance Affirmations
Family Positivity/ Counting Blessings/Doing For Others
CHAPTER 9:
THE SHY CHILD
Shyness can be a personality trait or caused by a child’s parents or others in his home or school environment. It can be mild and will be naturally overcome with age, or severe enough to cause the child great anguish throughout his adult life.. Parents are the key to preventing extreme shyness in their child, or helping him deal with it. This chapter goes over causes and treatments of shyness.
Causes of Debilitating Shyness
Symptoms of Shyness in All Age Groups
Socializing Activities
Teacher’s Support
Outgoing Activities
Parent/Child Relationship
Severe Aspects of Shyness in Middle School Children
CHAPTER 10:
SOCIALIZING SKILLS
Social skills are ways of behaving that are vital for children to learn in order to have positive interactions with others. They learn these skills through experiences with other children, modeling their parents, and instruction from their parents and teachers. In this chapter parents are taught ways they can begin teaching these skills during the child’s preschool years and continue through high school.
When to Begin Correcting Inappropriate Behavior
Kindness/Sharing/Taking Turns/Emotions
Basic “Getting-To-Know You Skills
Manners and Other Social Skills
CHAPTER 11:
PRAISE AND REWARDS
Everyone Needs Rewards
Reward Guidelines
Preschoolers’ Behavior
Examples of Verbal Praise
Behavior of School-Age Children
Suggested Rewards
Praise and rewards are tools that can help parents get their children to behave properly and to study hard in school. Yet when to reward, how often, and the type of reward to give can be overwhelming to the confused parents who are trying to do a good job raising their children. Through the wise and strategically aimed praise and rewards Kathleen shows parents in this chapter, they can mold their children’s behavior and send them spiraling toward a healthy self-esteem and self-confidence.
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CHAPTER 12:
GETTING READY FOR KINDERGARTEN
Age Differences and Redshirting
Retaining the Child in Kindergarten
The Difference a Year Can Make
Skills Children Should Have to Enter Kindergarten
Games and Art to Help Teach The Alphabet
This chapter makes parents aware of the skills their child should have upon entering kindergarten, as well as the effect the child’s age may have upon her when she’s ready to start. Kathleen also lists numerous games and activities that will help parents prepare their children for success in their first year of formal teaching, which will be the foundation for the following 12 years of schooling.
PART 2 READING AND WRITING
CHAPTER 13:
TEACHING WHILE READING
This chapter goes into detail with instructions on how parents can help their child learn to read and to apply the acquired reading skills to their school assignments when the child is beginning to read independently. Begins during preschool years and continues up to age 14.
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The Bedtime Story
26 Reading skills
Infancy to Fourteen-Year-Olds
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This chapter goes into detail with instructions on how parents can help their child learn to read and to apply the acquired reading skills to their school assignments when the child is beginning to read independently.
From Mother to Teacher's Aide
Helping the Child Select His Own Books
The Three Word Rule
CHAPTER 14:
HELPING THE CHILD READ
CHAPTER 15:
LEARNING SIGHT WORDS
Look and Say Method
Memorization
Dr. Fry Instant Sight Words
Half the success at learning to read fluently is from memorizing words by sight. This chapter delves into the many ways parents can help children learn to read words before they are ready to learn to sound them out phoenetically
CHAPTER 16:
ABSTRACT WORDS
Look and Say Method
Memorization Method
Dr. Fry Instant Sight Words
Many words do not name objects, so children have no way of learning their meaning except from others. There are thousands of these words. Some the children don't learn until they're in high school which hinders their comprehension when they come upon them while reading. This chapter is filled with games, art and fun activities that teach them these words beginning during preschool age.
CHAPTER 17:
READING COMPREHENSION
Decoding
Main Idea
Vocabulary
Sequence
Drawing Concusions
Many young readers can read words but they don't know what they are reading. The most important wa children can be helped to comprehend what they read is through one-on-one instruction. When the teacher has 20 to 30 students in her classroom, it's very difficult to give them each the individual attention they need. Here is where paents' help is invaluable. Kathleen shows parents how.
CHAPTER 18:
FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS
Most Children drive parents crazy because they don’t pay attention when the parents are telling them to do or how to do something. This chapter has valuable skills parents can learn to apply when they want their child to pay attention that will keep them from having to repeat their directions several times.
Paying Attention
Comprehension
Memory
Games
Opposites
Words Ending in ER and EST
KitchenTable Practice
Fun Ways to Teach
CHAPTER 19:
READING INCENTIVES
Learning to read is very tedious. It takes students years of struggling to learn the alphabet, decode words, and comprehend well enough to be an independent reader. They won’t get better until they read a lot, usually until they’re ready to graduate from high school. This chapter is filled with delightful incentives to cause the young child to want to read, thus increasing her reading ability far in advance.. Incentives such as book chains, hole punchers, book worms, fish tanks, and many more will turn the child on to non-stop reading.
Motivating incentives
Art Activities
CHAPTER 20:
HOME WRITING ACTIVITIES
The Cursive Controversy
Preschool Print Awareness
Homemade Books
Obstacles to Writing
Simple Writing Procedure
Journals
story starters
Writing skills take a long time to develop…so long that many children reach adulthood never having learned to write. Its never too early to start your child at home beginning with scribbles and captioned drawing, graduating to independent journals, lists and delightful stories he can write and then read to the family. This chapter shows parents how to begin the child writing at home, so he’ll have a great start when he begins school.
PART 3 SCHOOL SUCCESS
CHAPTER 21:
SCHOOL BASICS
This chapter teaches parents how to begin teaching their child to be 100% responsible for themselves and everything that affects them based on the writings of Jack Canfield's best selling book, The Success Principles.
Sleep and Physical Activity
Routines
Backpacks
Positive Incentives
Negative Consequences
CHAPTER 22:
HOME-SCHOOL COMMUNICATION
Parent/Administration
Parent/Child/School
Student Assignments
Not knowing what and how their child is doing and if she needs any help in school until parent-teacher conferences is a major source of frustration for parents. Kathleen shows parents ways to find these things out by teaching their child how to be the “middle” person who carries information between home and school.
CHAPTER 23:
VIEWING CORRECTED ASSIGNMENTS
Getting Your Child to Bring His Graded Papers Home
Viewing Your Child’s Graded Assignments
Dealing With and Learning From Mistakes
Displaying Papers
Much can be learned about how your child is doing in school by viewing her corrected assignments. This chapter shows parents valuable lessons about how to praise the child for work well done and how to teach the child to learn from her mistakes
CHAPTER 24:
HOMEWORK
Children don’t automatically have the self-discipline to make themselves sit down and do their homework without interruption. It really won’t be a nightly hassle if parents know how to set up a consistent time, teach the rules and procedure, and then make their child adhere to them. Not only that, but this time can be an even more valuable learning situation than actual school time with the teacher and 25 other students because the parent can observe how the child does her work, see to it that she understands it, and then teach her to proofread it herself and learn from her mistakes.
Atmosphere/Time/Place
Parental Involvement
Child’s Responsibility
CHAPTER 25:
SOCIAL PROBLEMS
What Makes A Bully?
Teach Kindness and Empathy
Bedwetting
Physical Defects
Personality Defects
​Obese Children
Dealing with bullies is a very severe problem for many children and may begin as early as preschool and becomes more advanced in grade school and severe in high school. The effects can be very harmful and long lasting. Children need help from the parents and teachers to prevent harmful effects. Kathleen recommends ways parents can become involved and make their child comfortable about confiding in them when they are the object of bullyingAdd Text Here
CHAPTER 26:
EDUCATIONAL FUN
This chapter is an on going source of educational fun activities that will stimulate the advanced children to learn and will also help motivate the children who are struggling to learn. Ages from preschool to advanced elementary school and are guaranteed to make television obsolete.
colors
categorizing
sequencing
alphabet
vocabulary
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Bibliography
Recommended Reading - Infancy to Grade Six
Dinosaur Jokes