Academic Coaching -- Focus on Process

Successful learning is a process that requires a set of skills and attitudes that crosses the boundaries of subject areas. Students need understanding of task analysis, organization, planning, prioritizing, note-taking, exam and test preparation, and reading comprehension to make the most of the classroom experience offered by their teachers.

Underachievement in school is a complex concern that involves elements of confidence, motivation, and attitude as well as the students' natural abilities. Many classroom behavior issues can be traced to underachievement in academics.

Academic Coaching maximizes learning potential by teaching and reinforcing skills for life-long learning success--planning, organization, and time management; development of reading and note-taking skills; improving written expression; and learning how to prepare for the testing examinations which have become such a large part of student assessment and evaluation today.

Does My Child Need Academic Coaching?

There are many reasons why you might be thinking about academic coaching for your child:

• Nightly "fights" and tension about grades and/or school?

• Resisting completion of homework assignments?

• Grades dropping?

• Self-esteem getting lower?

• Apathy about school and learning?

• Reluctance to go to school?

• Anxiety or stress before tests?

• Difficulty understanding teacher expectations or teaching styles?

• Frequently running late or missing deadlines?

• Teacher or school counselor has recommended tutoring or extra assistance?

If your child is experiencing any of these sorts of difficulties at school or at home, you should be giving serious consideration to academic coaching. Academic Coaching will help your child learn HOW to learn and how to make the most of his or her school experience. Coaching maximizes academic potential.

Benefits of Academic Coaching

Academic Coaching is designed to address academic and study skills including (but not limited to) task analysis, homework organization and completion, project planning and completion, prioritizing and time management, note-taking, test and exam preparation, reading comprehension, writing and grammar skills development, school-home-friends balance, decision-making, and goal setting and achievement.

With commitment to the coaching process, your child will experience:

• Improved study skills and better use of study time.

• Personalized attention, with praise, feedback and encouragement.

• Higher levels of learning and self-directed learning.

• Increased motivation to succeed with progress at an individualized pace.

• Improved grades with increased knowledge and understanding of subjects.

• Improved self-esteem and confidence and reduced inappropriate competitiveness.

• Opportunity to review skills or "fill in the gaps" of skills learned in school, but not mastered.

Academic coaching employs communication techniques such as discussion, questions, requests and accountability exercises, as well as coaching plans and monitoring of implementation of action plans and goal achievement. The student is responsible for his or her own success; coaching cannot promise success where responsibility on the part of the student is not accepted.

What MY COACH Believes about Academic Coaching

Academic Coaching is as necessary to educational success as sports coaching is to winning a championship. Take the next step to ensure success in today's challenging world.

Students who work with me find encouragement, commitment, and an emotional cheerleader who guides and supports them through the challenges of juggling school, home, friends, and extra-curricular activities. Students who work with me gain independence, self-confidence, self-discipline, and direction necessary to enter higher levels of education and eventual adulthood with energy and ambition.

My commitment to those with whom I work is to help them target their strengths, to apply those strengths and to focus those qualities and characteristics on achieving not just academic success, but also on creating and growing attitudes for life's successes.

I believe that within each person there is a capacity for greatness in this life. The challenge lies in finding the foundation upon which to successfully build that greatness. Each of us possesses qualities of character, strengths and weaknesses of skill, and the energies and ambitions to move us forward. But in the rough and tumble of day-to-day life, the distractions and demands placed on us by external influences, and the pressures to conform and to perform to societal norms, we easily lose the focus of our efforts. Coaching helps us keep our focus and maximize our potential for greatness.