It used to be that excused absences for missing school focused solely on the visible: a broken bone, a severe illness, the death of a family member. But even before the pandemic started throwing up warning signs about students’ poor mental health, governments and school districts alike were making time for mental health days, citing … Continue reading “Excused Absences for Mental Health”
Category: General
AceReader Wins 2021 Homeschooling Award
We’re delighted and honored to announce that AceReader has won the Best Middle & High School Homeschool Curriculum & Resources award from How To Homeschool. With hundreds of nominations and rigorous criteria to win, we’re deeply grateful for this recognition and remain committed to the schools, homeschoolers, and individual consumers. For more information about … Continue reading “AceReader Wins 2021 Homeschooling Award”
Study Skills — The Series
Over the last several months, we’ve talked a lot about study skills. You may have missed a part or two, or maybe you just want a refresher. Whatever the reason, here’s the entire list so you can see the series as it developed. Study Skills Part — 1: How to Develop Your Listening Skills Study Skills … Continue reading “Study Skills — The Series”
Study Skills — Becoming an Effective Learner
Effective learners, whether they’re in school or out in the world, are those who discover how to study smarter, not harder. For the purposes of this blog, we’re going to be focusing on classroom learning, and in that environment, studying smarter is key to managing your time efficiently, getting good grades, building upon what you’ve … Continue reading “Study Skills — Becoming an Effective Learner”
Communicating in a Word Desert
[Editor’s note: The content of this blog is the opinion of the author, writer Miriam Ruff, and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of AceReader, Inc. or its employees.] The word “communication” comes from the Latin noun communicatio, which meant a sharing or imparting having to do with an exchange or goods possessed by more than one … Continue reading “Communicating in a Word Desert”
Artificial Intelligence and Reading Comprehension
If you believe the sensational headlines from January 2018, both Microsoft and Alibaba have developed computer programs that outperform humans on reading comprehension. Can this be correct? Well, it really depends on how you define “comprehension.” Let’s first start with the claims. The test given to the programs is actually a dataset compiled by a … Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence and Reading Comprehension”
Authors, Developing Words — John Grisham
[Editor’s note: This post is part of a continuing series on how writers craft words to express their ideas and to connect with readers.] “I seriously doubt I would ever have written the first story had I not been a lawyer. I never dreamed of being a writer. I wrote only after witnessing a trial,” … Continue reading “Authors, Developing Words — John Grisham”
Does Learning Music Help Students Learn to Read?
If it’s to be believed, a 2018 study from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicates that students who receive music lessons — specifically piano instruction — have an advantage over their non-musical peers when it comes to learning to read, and that … Continue reading “Does Learning Music Help Students Learn to Read?”
Are Humans Hard-Wired for Reading?
A while ago we posted a blog describing how humans are hard-wired for speech and language, but not for reading and writing, which is why the former can be passively learned while the latter must be expressly taught. Now, however, researchers out of Ohio State University have concluded that humans are hard-wired for reading, as our … Continue reading “Are Humans Hard-Wired for Reading?”
Has the Coronavirus Created a Generational Gap in Education?
The coronavirus pandemic has impacted our lives in numerous ways, from limiting social gatherings to seeing businesses close and even fold from the loss of income. One of the biggest ways it’s impacted us as a society, though, is one that has even greater implications for the future — the movement of education to strictly … Continue reading “Has the Coronavirus Created a Generational Gap in Education?”