SAT PREP for PRESCHOOLERS: WORD BOOK 1
by Lauren Osborne
ABOUT THE NEWEST INKSLINGERS PRESS E-BOOK: Prepare preschoolers for the SAT? Stuff their little minds with tough vocabulary words? Outrageous, you say! Helicopter moms gone wild!
But even if at first the idea may seem over-the-top, think again. Consider that, with SAT PREP for PRESCHOOLERS: WORD BOOK 1 by Lauren Osborne, the main focus is on much more than standardized test performance – though better scores on verbal tests may well result.
This book – which has achieved top-ten bestseller status for "Preschool & Kindergarten" Amazon Kindle books and has been ranked # 1 for Amazon's "Hot New Releases" – is designed to stretch children’s minds generally by using enjoyable strategies to expand vocabulary. Also, as you play word games with your children, you’ll find you are discovering powerful new ways to draw closer to them in loving relationships.
Research shows that it’s important for a child to develop a vocabulary at a young age because a good vocabulary has been linked to better reading comprehension and success in academics. Researchers have concluded that children as young as 12 months old learn on average 10 words per day if they hear many new words used in their environment.
So why not capitalize on this curiosity and eagerness to learn by expanding your child’s vocabulary in a developmentally appropriate way? More specifically, what words would be both fun and helpful to learn?
While pondering these questions, Lauren Osborne, a noted lecturer on early childhood education and former kindergarten teacher, came up with an idea: why not do a series of books to help young children build their vocabularies? Her own toddler loved books, and she was constantly teaching him new words as they read together. Seeing the potential, she decided then and there to write some books with difficult and unfamiliar – but important – words that children would need to know for later school assignments and standardized tests.
The result was SAT PREP for PRESCHOOLERS: WORD BOOK 1, which includes words that have been used on PSAT and SAT tests in the past and/or are likely to be used on future tests. To avoid dry vocabulary memorization, Osborne has illustrated the words she has chosen with interesting pictures. Also, she has devised and field-tested ways to act out the meanings of new words – and has incorporated specific ideas and suggestions from her own parenting and teaching experience.
In the end, she emphasizes, this book is intended to be a fun, educational aid in helping parents develop a closer relationship with their children. As you expose your youngsters to new vocabulary words and allow them to experience language in different ways, you’ll snuggle with them on your lap or sofa. In a loving environment they will learn that the rhythm of the written word is enjoyable, that learning new words is fun, and that reading is going to be a great, lifelong experience.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lauren Osborne is a 2004 graduate of Texas A&M University and the recipient of an Interdisciplinary Studies degree. She earned her Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Science and Math at the University of Texas at Arlington. For six years after graduation, she taught school in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, where she was on Campus and District Level Improvement Committees. She was also solely responsible for developing and writing the kindergarten science curriculum for the district.
In 2008, after undergoing the required training program, Lauren became a Conscious Discipline® Certified Instructor. She has used the brain-based strategies taught by this program in her professional and personal life. Now an independent lecturer, Lauren leads workshops for educators, parents and churches. She utilizes music, movement, small group sharing and video clips in her presentations. Due to current interest in teaching the very young, educators of children under three years of age have attended many of her workshops. Lauren, herself the mother of a young child, is passionate about teaching and serving children of all ages and their families.
CONTACT:
For interviews with Lauren Osborne, send requests by e-mail to ozzylauren@yahoo.com or call (979) 777-7015. For publishing information, contact Inkslingers Press at Info@InkslingersPress.com.
ORDER SAT PREP for PRESCHOOLERS: WORD BOOK 1 AT THESE WEB SITES:
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THE COLLEGE HOOK:
Packaging Yourself to Win the College Admissions Game
Second Edition
by PAM PROCTOR
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GETTING IN
Question: What’s your best bet for admission to the college of your choice?
Answer: THE COLLEGE HOOK, Second Edition, the acclaimed guide by admissions expert Pam Proctor – now updated in e-book format.
Competition for entry to the nation's top colleges is at an all-time high – and intensifies every year. In THE COLLEGE HOOK, Second Edition, nationally recognized independent college consultant and writer Pam Proctor – cited by the media as a “cheerleader extraordinaire” for college-bound teens – reveals the "packaging" secrets that can help any student maximize the odds of admission to his or her favorite college.
This comprehensive, updated guide to college admissions contains the best strategies for mastering complex application requirements; writing essays; employing a résumé; dealing with deferrals and wait lists; reporting SAT and ACT scores; preparing for interviews; and networking with admissions committees. THE COLLEGE HOOK, Second Edition, also includes more than 30 actual college essays that students from every background have used to gain admission to a wide variety of superior colleges.
Most important, the book features the powerful packaging tool called the "Hook" – a special talent or achievement that leaps off the page of a college application and catches the eyes of admissions officers. Students may have excellent grade point averages and high standardized test scores. But without powerful Hooks, they will be at a disadvantage in this competitive admissions environment.
Using real-life anecdotes and examples from winning applications, Proctor provides students with a step-by-step program that will enable them to determine and develop their unique "Hook," and then package and market themselves at every stage of the admissions process. The Bulletin of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) described Pam Proctor and the original edition of THE COLLEGE HOOK this way:
“With her businesslike tenor and candid advice, Pam Proctor presents a user-friendly road map for college applicants, covering everything from Hook development to choosing schools, composing essays, and ‘working’ the wait list … THE COLLEGE HOOK is an excellent resource for prospective students, parents and counselors alike.”
—Julie Vultaggio, NACAC Bulletin, March 4, 2009
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Pam Proctor, president of College Application Consultants, Inc, is a former senior editor/writer for PARADE Magazine and author or coauthor of eleven books. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Claremont Graduate University, she has counseled hundreds of students throughout the United States and in various foreign countries about the best strategies for gaining admission to the colleges of their choice.
She has been quoted as an expert on college admissions in such publications as The New York Times; U.S. News & World Report’s annual college issue, America’s Best Colleges; Newsweek/Kaplan’s How to Get into College; and a wide variety of other print, television and Internet news sources, including Unigo.com and MoneyTalkNews.com.
Her students include athletes, writers, dancers, artists, adventurers, math and science whizzes, and environmentalists. They come from such states as California, Florida, Texas, New York, and Massachusetts, to name a few. Pam’s students also span the globe, with applicants from China, Spain, India, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam.
Her clients have been accepted to such colleges as Harvard, Dartmouth, U Penn, Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, Columbia, Duke, Brown, Middlebury, Vanderbilt, Cornell, Wesleyan, Amherst, Yale, U Florida, Bryn Mawr, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Davidson, Boston College, Northwestern, Wake Forest, Georgetown, NYU, Baylor, U Miami, George Washington U, UNC-Chapel Hill, Wellesley, Wheaton (IL), Emory, Georgia Tech, Barnard, Rhode Island School of Design, SMU, USC’s School of Cinema-TV, Bowdoin, St. Andrews (Scotland), U Virginia, and accelerated medical programs.
For more information on Pam Proctor, her books including THE COLLEGE HOOK, Second Edition, and the college admission services she offers, visit her Web site, www.CollegeHook.com.
CONTACT: For interviews with Pam Proctor, send requests by e-mail to PamProctor@Bellsouth.net or call (772) 231-2221. For publishing information, contact Inkslingers Press at Info@InkslingersPress.com.
ORDER THE COLLEGE HOOK, Second Edition AT THESE WEB SITES:
If you lack an e-reader or application, get free Kindle and Nook apps at these links:
Amazon Kindle free app download for the PC
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GRAB A TIGER BY THE TOE: STRESS-PROOF YOUR CHILD
By MARILYN WILCHER
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Stress is indeed a “tiger” in the lives of many children, a threatening presence that causes or exacerbates multiple pediatric health problems, interferes with mental discipline and concentration, and undercuts creativity and academic performance.
But this tiger can be tamed – in effect, its “toe” can be “grabbed” and controlled – by those adults and children in their care who learn and apply the practical strategies described so lucidly by Marilyn Wilcher and her colleagues. In GRAB A TIGER BY THE TOE: STRESS-PROOF YOUR CHILD, Wilcher shows clearly:
-How children from the pre-school through high school years can overcome the negative impact of stress on learning and creativity;
-How children in this age range can guard against the harmful health effects of stress; and
-How parents and teachers can help children manage stress.
In many ways, GRAB A TIGER BY THE TOE reaffirms a basic concept about health and well-being that Herbert Benson. M.D. – Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and author of the foreword for this book – has been advocating for more than four decades. Specifically, this approach can be summarized by the image of a three-legged stool. The first two legs of this stool focus on two traditional medical tools, drugs and surgery.
But too often, the third leg of the stool – which encompasses self-care and self-empowerment strategies such as stress management, preventive medicine and performance enhancement – may be ignored. Although it has been established that 60-90 percent of all visits to physicians have a significant stress component, few physicians or patients understand the powerful stress management techniques that constitute the dominant factor in the third, self-care leg of healthcare. GRAB A TIGER BY THE TOE highlights the importance of stress-reduction in enhancing the health and well-being of our children.
In addition to impairing health, stress also plays a major role in limiting the ability of young people to learn effectively and perform at maximum levels in the classroom. In this book, Marilyn Wilcher refers to this problem by citing the Yerkes-Dodson Law, first formulated in 1908 by two Harvard scientists. According to that law, the stress that accompanies hard work always improves performance up to a certain point. But beyond that certain point, excessive stress begins to impede performance significantly.
The best strategy to counter this excessive stress – and the cornerstone of the kind of self-care and self-empowerment described and advocated for young people in this book – involves eliciting the “relaxation response.” The relaxation response is an innate physiologic phenomenon that Dr. Benson identified more than forty years ago and popularized through his book The Relaxation Response. The relaxation response is the polar opposite of the stress – or “fight-or-flight” – response, which has been associated with anxiety, depression, pain and an array of cardiovascular problems and other diseases.
But not until the publication of GRAB A TIGER BY THE TOE has the exact link become clear between the relaxation response and the kind of stress management for children that can enhance their academic performance, not to mention their physical and emotional well-being. In fact, the principles and strategies that you will learn in this book have been formulated, tested and used successfully in real-school situations throughout the country by the Education Initiative of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital – where Dr. Benson is Director Emeritus and Marilyn Wilcher is Senior Director.
In short, by learning and applying the approach presented so clearly in these pages, you will learn not only how to increase your child’s ability to learn but also, in the process, how to reduce the childhood stress that can be such a threat to good health. Marilyn Wilcher’s goal and yours are the same – to nurture a smarter, calmer and healthier child.ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Marilyn Wilcher, Senior Director of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital (BHI) is a graduate of Wellesley College. She did graduate work at the University of Washington, where she also taught French.
A founding trustee of the Mind Body Medical Institute (now BHI) in 1989, she has been instrumental in its growth and success. Although she has been responsible for many areas of the Institute’s activities, including financial, marketing, fundraising, E.I. research and program development, one of her primary goals has been to help students through the Education Initiative. As a former teacher, a parent and now a grandparent, she is acutely aware of stress in young people and is passionate about offering them life management skills to enable them to maximize their potential.
She and her team have worked diligently all over the United States and in other nations to help young people and their teachers and families understand and take control of the stress they regularly encounter. This work has been well-received in diverse ethnic and socio-economic environments, ranging the gamut from urban to independent schools
In addition to her work at BHI, Marilyn and co-owner Debbie Goodman have run a successful catering firm for over 40 years.
ORDER GRAB A TIGER BY THE TOE: STRESS-PROOF YOUR CHILD AT THESE WEB SITES:
If you lack an e-reader or application, get free Kindle and Nook apps at these links:
Amazon Kindle free app download for the PC
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