For most families, the arrival of the mid-term report provides a great opportunity for parents and children to reflect on the past and plan for a successful conclusion to the school year. Here are a few ways you can help your child look forward to the end of the year.

Take stock of progress so far

Your child’s report card is a reflection of past performance, indicating your child’s strengths and weaknesses. It is an opportunity to celebrate the strengths and determine what additional steps can be taken to strengthen the weaknesses.

Assess study habits and home environment

Many parents start the school year with strict schedules for homework. By mid-year, extracurricular and family activities make these schedules difficult to follow. This is a good time for children and their parents to take a good look at how, where, and when homework is being done. Is enough time being spent on homework or is it squeezed in between other activities? Is it a priority or an afterthought? Parents need to consider their role in homework completion. Are you helping to maintain a quiet environment? Have you made sure your child has an adequate workspace and the tools to work with? Does your child have the necessary study skills to be successful?

Help your child set goals

Like adults, children feel successful when they achieve their goals. Sit with your child and read the report card together. Celebrate successes with your child. Listen to your child’s comments about the weaker areas. Ask about what he or she would like to see on the next report card. Then, help your child to set some clear, achievable, short term goals. Make sure the goals are specific. For example, getting an A in English or Math is too vague, too far away and possibly not reasonable. Encourage your child to work in small steps. Improving paragraph writing for the next assignment or mastering three more multiplication tables are examples of short term goals. Once the goals are determined, the next step is making a plan to achieve them. An important part of this step is talking to the teacher. Schedule a meeting with you, your child and the teacher. Ask for specific details. For example, “What skills does my child need to develop in order to write better paragraphs? Are there any academic skill gaps that need to be addressed? Can you suggest a strategy we can work on together to improve success.” Make sure your child is a part of this conversation.

Remember the power of praise

Parents should be their child’s greatest cheerleader. Make sure your child knows that you believe in him or her. Acknowledge all of the special skills and qualities that make your child unique. Find ways to honestly praise your child for things both great and small. Small steps are the beginning of big gains. “I really liked your positive attitude when you edited your story.” “Thank you for helping to clear the table.” “Your handwriting is really improving!” “I like the way created a schedule to share the computer with your brother.”

A good report card doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s a team effort involving parents, children and teachers. Working as a team allows your child to strive for the best he or she can do without undue pressure or fear of failing.

They go to bed late, then drag themselves out of bed. Teen sleep patterns cause a lot of friction in many homes. What may surprise you is that there are biological reasons for these sleep habits which teens can’t control.

As our eyes register the onset of darkness, melatonin is produced by a pea-sized structure at the centre of the brain. This hormone helps trigger sleepiness. Research shows that in teens, the production of melatonin doesn’t usually begin until one or two hours later than it does for younger or older people. This explains the difficulty they have going to bed at a time that would ensure sufficient sleep. Most parents would like their teens to be in bed by 10 pm to get the nine hours of sleep they require. But, because of the melatonin delay in the teenage brain, they aren’t sleepy at this time and they fight going to bed.

Since teens stay up later than they should, waking up becomes difficult. Teens are rarely able to get up when first called. It usually takes them three or four tries to get out of bed. Most parents know the frustration of calling their teen for the third time only to be met with a muffled “humph, just a few more minutes!” The usual response is, “If you’d just go to bed earlier, you could get up easier!” While this may be true, it’s not possible for most teens.

A worrisome result of these sleep patterns is sleep deprivation. Teens rarely get the nine hours of sleep per night they need, so they head into the weekend sleep deprived. This causes them to sleep until at least noon, which not only makes parents think they’re lazy, it also tells the brain that nighttime lasts until noon and further throws off the sleeping cycle.

The ritual morning tug-of-war can be made easier by realizing that you can’t fight Mother Nature. Here are some additional tips that may also help to ’turn down the heat’:

• Remember, teens aren’t doing this deliberately.
• Start wake-up calls early.
• Try to keep a regular schedule, even on weekends.
• Avoid bright lights close to bedtime – that includes TV and computer screens.
• Encourage teens to sleep a little later on weekends but make up most of their sleep by napping.

Your teenager is headed to college soon with the aim of getting a high test score on the SAT or the ACT. But which test will provide your son or daughter with the best opportunity to be admitted to the best schools?

Historically, geography plays a major role in whether students take the SAT or the ACT. Students who live in the midwestern U.S. normally take the ACT. Students who live on the east and west coasts usually write the SAT.

That said, it’s important to note, that regardless of where an applicant lives, many colleges accept scores from both the ACT and the SAT. In addition, there is a current trend for students from SAT-dominant areas to take the ACT (and vice versa). Some students are hedging their bets by choosing to take both tests.

Which test a student should take really depends on his or her strengths. You and your teen should remember that the SAT is considered to be a “reasoning” test. It measures a student’s critical reading, math, and writing skills, while not requiring that student to draw upon specific content from his or her high school courses.

Conversely, the ACT is an “assessment” test. It measures your student’s academic readiness for college with test sections on English, math, reading, and science.

Differences also exist in the way the SAT and the ACT test math. While the new SAT includes more challenging math, it still only tests up to Algebra II. The ACT has always included trigonometry.

Additional differences exist in regards to the ways the SAT and the ACT are scored and how the scores get reported to colleges.

To help you decide which test your teen should take, find out the details of each test and which test is required by the schools being applied to. You should also discuss the tests with with a guidance counselor.

Whichever test your teen takes, the key thing is to make sure he or she has everything needed to prepare for the tests. If your child needs help preparing for the SAT or ACT, remember that Oxford Learning can help.

To find out more about our innovative SAT Plus program that prepares every student to get the highest test score, plus teaches advanced learning and study skills to succeed in college, please click here.