Hints from Ruowen Wang
� Keep a small basket filled with joke books, magazines, short stories, books of questions and answers, and books like Ripley�s Believe It or Not in each bathroom of your house.
� Put a map of the solar system, a map of the world, or a map of your local community on the wall. Refer to them often whenever possible, and create map quizzes or games to play with your kids.
� Take your children to the bookstores regularly. Make visiting bookstores your family recreation and eventually part of your �family culture�. Get books on many subjects and make them accessible for your children at all times.
� Secondhand bookstores, Salvation Army stores, Value Villages, yard sales and Book Events are the best places to fine inexpensive books.
� When it comes to teaching some �boring stuff�, like Math, Phonics and Grammar, a car is often the best place. Kids in car seats have nothing better to do than to pay attention and work out abstract lessons.
� Play with words and letters to explore word formation in the English language. Ask children to identify compound words like �playground�, �bathtub�. Or add �dis-� before some words, and �-less� after others to show the function of prefixes and suffixes.
� Always ask questions on a given subject to raise your child�s interest or inspire their curiosity before teaching something new.
� If your child declares that he or she does not want to learn, you can �play� instead. Incorporate your teaching into your play activities or game rules, and let your child win. This will increase their confidence.
Learning involves exploring and risk-taking; it is therefore exciting to a child if presented in the right way. With a good teacher, all children can learn to achieve.
Academic Achievers was founded by Ms. Ruowen Wang, a high school teacher and an English as a Second Language specialist. Ms. Wang taught for both Toronto Board of Education and North York Board of Education from 1988 to 1998, when she switched to a career into business administrations.
In 2001, Ms. Wang decided to become a full-time mother and started part-time home schooling her two young children, Kevin and Robin. Under Ms. Wang�s coaching Kevin�s book reports have earned him a great deal of respect from his English teacher. Robin started reading chapter books independently in Senior Kindergarten. (To read about Kevin and Robin�s academic achievements, please see Kid�s Press and Our Family Story on our web.)
Ms. Wang�s interest in home schooling fueled her plans to open a quality learning center for kids of all ages. Ms. Wang believes strongly in the concept of education as a lifetime investment. Early childhood education sets the stage for life.
Since there is no one-size-fits-all in teaching and learning, each child needs to be assessed as a unique individual. To discover, respect and follow a child�s own interest and learning style makes teaching and learning ten times more effective.