- Read aloud to your child 15-20 minutes a day.
- Make a library habit.  Librarians are expert at picking out the right books for your child – introduce yourself and ask!
- Listen to books-on-tape at home or in the car.
- Watch documentaries with your child:  “Eyes on the Prize,” “Jazz,” “The Civil War,” etc.
- Watch only select shows on TV.  Watch one program a week with your child and talk about it afterwards.
- Replace soda with water. (You can flavor it with soda.)
- Talk with your child about how both of you experience the world around you.
- Ensure that physical exercise is a priority: walking, bicycling, swimming, yoga, individual or team sports.
- Make sure your child gets good “brain fat” – Omega 3.  It’s found in salmon, mackerel, flax seed oil, avocados, and cod liver oil (cherry, mint, or orange-flavored at your local health food store).

At Home Study Skills
- Get both sides of your brain working together.  Open a newspaper and draw on it a large infinity sign.  Trace it three times each with a marker in your left, then your right, then with both hands.
- Before reading the chapter in your textbook, read all the titles and subtitles, captions, and the questions at the end of the chapter.
- Before you read, tell yourself what you already know about the subject and what you want to know.
- Don’t just look at flash cards or notes:  do something with them.  Illustrate them.  Make a double set and play "Concentration" by turning them face down and making pairs of related or identical information.  Pretend you’re teaching your own class with them. 
- Work in short chunks of half-hour or forty-five minutes divided by 10-15 minute breaks in which you move your body.
- Re-energize by drinking a glass of water, eating protein, or lifting your chair up and down ten times.

Homework Tips
- Timer:  Instead of controlling your child’s time, depersonalize timekeeping and build self-initiative by encouraging the use of a timer for starting tasks, taking breaks, and starting again.
- Same time, same place, same tools.  If your child works best with a strong routine, start homework at the same time every day in the same place with the same set of tools. 
- Same place, same tools, varied time.  If your child likes variation, keep the pace and tools, but vary the starting time.
- Reward with activities.  Example:  “Do as much as you can for half an hour, until the timer rings, then you can shoot baskets for 15 minutes before you start again for another half hour.”
- Pre-write exercises.  If your child has trouble writing his ideas, have him draw a picture first or speak his or her ideas into a tape recorder or into a voice sensitive computer. 
- Edit later. Separate writing the draft of ideas and content from the editing of punctuation, spelling, punctuation, grammar.
- Organize essays.  For expository writing, write only one fact or idea on a single 3 X 5 card. Categorize the cards and put them in logical order.  Now write the first draft.