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The Addicted Generation

Statistics say that the generation that’s currently in elementary school and middle school will be one of the safest generations of all times, physically. However, their mental well-being is of great concern—primarily due to their addiction to screens and video games. Will screen time be the downfall of the current generation?

How Did This Happen?

Before we dig into how to help children process and deal with this problem, we must understand how it happened. We must really figure out why some children are susceptible to this type of addiction and why others are less likely to be impacted by it.

Spend any amount of time in front of a video game or a gaming app, and one will see that there is a total sense of control when playing these games. One can become fully absorbed in this sense of control. By using the controller or the phone, one can make the players in the game move faster, move slower, jump higher or any other of a thousand different moves—all dictated by the player. Oftentimes, this type of control is the only sense of freedom and influence a child will have. For many younger children, there is little to no ability to feel like they control anything in the family dynamic, from influencing decisions to simply being responsible for even the smallest of things.

However, in the gaming world, all of this changes. As a child plays the game and begins to practice more consistently, they do better and better. As they advance in the game, they get more rewards, more powerful equipment, build a bigger and better team, and find more and more ways to win. This is by design and lets the child feel incredibly successful, yet at the same time deepening their addiction to the game.

Children can quickly correlate the sense of control and success with their accomplishments in the game. Their relatively easy successes in the game are accomplished through practice, thus creating a strong temptation to continue their play. This becomes even more heightened if a child is limited in their other channels and opportunities for experiencing a sense of control in their actual life. If a child feels they have little to no power in the family dynamic, they will seek it out in other ways. For example, some children are not even allowed to decide what they wear on a daily basis, what to eat, what types of games to play or activities to become involved in, what books to read, and more. A child ends up without having any say in their own daily life and parents are left to guide them in every single decision. The result is that the child has no control and is left with a strong desire for freedom and responsibility. The attraction to their game or app deepens even further.

What Can We Do Now?

As parents, it’s important to set up ground rules for children, allowing them to understand what’s expected of them and at the same time providing them with a high degree of freedom and decision-making. The goal should be to raise a well-rounded, well-adjusted, and responsible adult, not a child that simply obeys orders. Children must have the right to control significant parts of their lives, understanding that their decisions have outcomes while at the same time letting parents support bigger decisions.

When children are allowed to truly engage in their lives, they gain a sense of much more than independence and control. From a very early age, children are looking to fulfill key psychological needs such as trust in themselves, confidence, the ability to master something, and autonomy. Video games are specifically designed to make players feel good and as if they are only a few minutes away from another big win or reward. This makes it nearly impossible to stop playing! It’s a parent’s responsibility to help meet these needs and provide the same type and level of reinforcement in the real world.

Rivers of sweat cascade out of your clammy palms, and droplets embellish your green face. Super glue denies permission for your lips to part, and awfully slimy thickness in your throat blocks desperate words from coming out. And worst of all, the fries and pizza you devoured for lunch today are holding a competition in your poor stomach to determine who is the master of black flips. There is no other feeling as disturbing or as distracting as the fear of public speaking. This fear challenges you and beats you. It is a red light on your road to success, and even more so a trash can that collects all your efforts. You fear because of judgment and you fear because of the high standards you hold for yourself at. You fear the embarrassment and you fear the mistakes you are so very sure are going to occur. And in these moments of pure panic and terror, the one truth is that you are not alone in your fear. The fear of public speaking, or to a more extreme level, glossophobia, is the most common fear, being sprinkled into the lives of 75% of people. And although fear is a ferocious and intimidating monster whom you can’t quite just murder, you are more than capable of managing it and conquering it.

Know your audience and presentation setting. How unwise is it to blindly jump headfirst into mystery waters that you have zero knowledge about? You should thoroughly get a general idea of the ears that will hear your speech: Adults? Peers? Young Children? Businessmen? Artists? Teachers? Critical is an understatement for this step because it’s essential to sculpt your speech and presentation format in a way that brings out the best of your audience. On the mentioning of knowing your setting, you need to know the environment you will be speaking in. For example, if you know the presentation will be taking place outdoors, consider pinning up your hair so that wind won’t cause a ruckus. If possible, a huge factor of help would be practicing beforehand in the location without an audience, just to emerge yourself in what you will have to face. If it’s virtual, test out your video and audio before the presentation, and erase any wifi issues. And if possible, practice giving your speech a few times in the designated location without an audience, just to emerge yourself into the environment. Whether it be with knowing the audience or understanding your setting, you should always be playing the safe card and holding both in your comprehension. If you are thoroughly prepared and you know your plan is foolproof, your fear will diminish.

Practice until you physically can’t anymore. Practice is crowned as the absolute most important when it comes down to public speaking. Without practicing your speech, you can consider it a failure before even starting because you have failed to play your assigned role of preparing. Practice in your head, practice out loud, practice to stuffed animals, practice to an imaginary friend, practice to a parent, practice, practice, practice. The more your practice, the more confident and set in stone you will be. At a certain point, the words of your speech will be imprinted as a photocopy inside your brain. They will be as smooth as butter on your lips. They will be assimilated into you. They will be natural to you. And that is the exact stage you want to stand on. When you practice past abundance, you are less prone to making mistakes in your speech, and more prone to giving a marvelous one.

Break out of your shell and engage the audience. Jump through the hurdles of fear and open yourself willingly to the audience. A popularly effective way to instantly engage the audience is to delight them with some humor. When you draw the audience into your speech and give them part in your presentation, they will give you reassuring reactions. Eye contact, laughter, tears. Once you hear that they’re laughing, you will instantly feel validated. You will have proof they are paying attention. And that is something worthy of pride and something that can elevate your confidence to a soaring level.

Get your blood flowing. Before your moment to shine, light exercise and movement can be the greatest helping hand to you if you are abnormally nervous and jittery. Ideal ideas would include perhaps a short walk or a couple of knee bends. Simple movements like these circulate your blood and send oxygen to your brain. If you are speaking on a spacious stage or area, consider maybe even walking around while presenting the speech to release nerves. It’s infinitely times better than tapping your foot or pulling on your shirt while presenting as a much too noticeable effort to release nerves.

Write a speech that you genuinely care about. When the topic or contents of the speech isn’t aligned with your interests and personality, your mouth can be delivering the vain words, but your heart won’t be in it. Your nerves will climb higher and higher. Consider this for a moment… if you barely even care about what you’re saying, how can you expect the audience to? When you speak on something you are truly passionate about, it’s like bursting a dam open. Words, emotions, hand gestures, and facial expressions will lusciously flow out of your mouth in a perfectly passionate way that the audience will acknowledge. You’ll focus less on your fears because it will simply be replaced with the burning and crackling spark within you.

How to Improve Students’ Writing Skills

From essays and short stories to emails and college application essays, writing forms an elemental part of a student’s life. It’s how a student shows what he or she knows and if he or she can effectively apply that knowledge. And yet, writing is a difficult skill to learn and to master. Many students struggle to articulate and organize their thoughts on paper, easily becoming frustrated and discouraged by writing.

But fear not — through daily practice and extensive exposure, students can and will write clearly and expressively. Below, we’ve compiled several methods emphasized in VSA Future’s own writing classes that will provide students with a comprehensive approach to becoming good writers.

Get a Good Grip on Grammar

Grammar sits at the core of effective communication. It enables a student to express his or herself fully, clearly, and subtly. Even if a writer has great ideas, improper grammar can garble his or her writing’s meaning and reduce its credibility, losing the reader’s attention. At VSA Future, we lay the foundation for strong grammar and phonics skills as early as kindergarten. We start by introducing basic concepts about sentence structure and parts of speech before transitioning to more advanced concepts like complex sentences and avoiding the passive voice for older students all while using student learning outcomes. We also teach students how to utilize figurative language such as synonyms and personification to add flavor to their writing.

Build a Strong Vocabulary

A strong vocabulary is critical for success in all areas of communication, from reading and writing to listening and speaking. Studies have shown strong links between having an extensive vocabulary and achieving school success. When it comes to writing, a strong vocabulary enables students to choose more descriptive words to illustrate their ideas to a reader and use the appropriate words to write more formally.

There are a couple ways to build vocabulary. The easiest and arguably most fun way is to read! New vocabulary can be picked up from anywhere: across literary genres (realistic fiction, fantasy, biographies, science fiction, etc.) and across different media (newspapers, magazines, blogs). A few recommendations include Time Magazine, the Harry Potter series, and anything by William Shakespeare.

Another fun way is to play word games like Scrabble and crossword puzzles. Students should make an effort to write down any new words and to look up definitions. They can turn them into flashcards (digital flashcard apps like Quizlet are a convenient way) as a handy way to study vocabulary on the go. Most importantly, students should put their newfound vocabulary into practice by using them in conversations and their writing. Even if they use a word incorrectly, through trial-and-error they’ll hone their understanding of each word. After all, the goal is not to use every fancy vocabulary word one knows, but rather to develop good judgement for which words are right for the sentence one is writing.

Our English classes enforce a strong grasp of vocabulary by also offering “Word Studies” which teach students about root words, prefixes, and suffixes to help them deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words in the future.

Read to Discover Different Genres and Voices

Through reading, students learn from the best. By reading the work of writers who have mastered their craft, students gain an understanding of more nuanced and complex topics like usage, tone, and wordplay.

In our classes, we focus on boosting students’ reading comprehension by reading and discussing a range of fiction and nonfiction works. We teach students how to sift for the main idea and analyze characterization, plot, and setting so that students know how to utilize these features in their own writing.

Get Comfortable with the Writing Process

Great writing doesn’t just plop out from a writer’s head. Rather, it takes time and repeated revision. Brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing are all part of the writing process. We work with students every step of the way to ensure they are confident enough to put their ideas onto paper and to write multiple drafts until they are satisfied with the phrasing and structure of their final product.

Students receive feedback on every essay they write via an online interactive platform that allows teachers to view and comment on a student’s writing in real-time. This platform also provides students with graphic organizers to organize their thoughts efficiently and plan their arguments if they are writing a persuasive or informative essay.

We want to stress that being a good writer means being an equally good editor. We teach students how to review their writing for sentence flow and clarity of thought, as well as for typos and grammatical errors. They’re also taught tips like reading their revised draft aloud to spot any errors.

Write Daily

Writing doesn’t just have to be for school. Given the fact we use writing in so many parts of our lives, there are plenty of opportunities for students to practice. Students can write thank you letters to teachers, letters to friends and relatives, and even emails to a pen pal. One of the best ways is to keep a journal, which also offers a good outlet for venting feelings and moments for self-reflection.

Adopt a Growth Mindset

A growth mindset is when students understand that their abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. This is opposed to a fixed mindset, in which students assume their abilities can’t be changed. Becoming a better writer can’t be achieved overnight but students shouldn’t let failure tell them it can never be achieved. Rather, they should view failure as an opportunity to grow and understand that their efforts and attitude determine their abilities.

To develop a growth mindset, students should:

Value the process over the end result

Place effort before talent

Acknowledge and embrace imperfections

Portray feedback as a way to help them grow

Take risks in the company of their peers

These steps are part of the writing process as much as drafting and revision are. Parents also, remember to encourage and support your child on the path to becoming a better writer without becoming impatient, as that is be the best way to give your child confidence and determination.

About the SAT

The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is an entrance exam used by most colleges and universities as a gauge to assess whether the student should be admitted to their  college or not. The SAT is a multiple-choice test created and administered by the College Board.

The SAT is an essential tool for a college to evaluate the student’s scholastic aptitude and readiness for college when compared against their peers across the country. While the GPA represents a student’s academic standing within their own school and shows the average of the student’s overall process, given each school’s different standards and grading, it is hard to use GPA as an absolute value to compare students across different schools. This is why SAT is the go-to assessment tool of colleges when it comes to student admission to their campus.

Since SAT is standardized, it provides colleges with one common data point that can be used to compare all applicants across different schools. College admissions officers will review standardized test scores alongside your high school GPA, the courses you took in high school, letters of recommendation from teachers or mentors, extracurricular activities, admissions interviews, as well as personal essays. Needless to say, SAT scores are vital in the college application process.

In general, the higher you score on the SAT, the more options you would have in choosing the college that you can apply to.

Things You Need to Know About the SAT

A. SAT Format

READING TEST

This portion consists of 52 questions that could be answered in the span of 65 minutes. This is then followed by a 10-minute break.

WRITING & LANGUAGE TEST

This combined test comprises of 44 questions with 35 minutes time allotment.

MATH TEST

This test is divided into two sessions: One wherein the use of calculators is not allowed, and another wherein calculators are allowed.

During the first session, students are given 20 questions that should be answered within 25 minutes without the use of calculators. After a 5-minute break, the second session of the math test will proceed. The students will be given 38 questions with a time allotment of 55 minutes. They will be allowed to use a calculator in answering this set of questions.

TOTAL

In total, the students will have to answer 154 questions in just 180 minutes. Needless to say, excellent time management is vital to accomplish the test as fast and as accurately as possible.

B. Changes to SAT

As of  June 2021, the following changes were made in the SAT:

Combined reading and writing language scores. The two test domains would no longer be separate.

No penalty for guessing has been eliminated. Hence, the students cannot randomly guess the answer as there will be deductions for every question you answered wrong.

No more essay writing.

C. SAT Test Dates in 2021-2022

November 6, 2021

December 4, 2021

March 12, 2022

May 7, 2022

June 4, 2022

VSA Future’s Educational Seminar on SAT Preparedness

Last Saturday, October 2, 2021, VSA Future launched an educational seminar that tackles why the acing the SAT matters and how preparing for it could aid in children’s lifelong learning. During this session, the esteemed lecturers at VSA Future–Julia Guo, Patryk Zielonka, and Phoebe Rose–shared insights on the best learning habits, study strategies, as well as brilliant tips and tricks that would aid students in getting high SAT scores.

Common struggles of students when it comes to SAT:

Running out of time.

Completing the reading passages with enough time left.

Not being able to choose between two choices on the reading comprehension questions.

Struggling with drawing extra lines to answer geometry questions.

Practicing on their own.

The Logical SAT Approach: Passage Ownership and Copyediting in English

Patryk Zielonka–a state-certified English teacher with 8 years of experience–shared his insights on how to ace the Reading and Writing part of the SAT.

For Patryk, the best strategy to answer the test is to reconceptualize the questions into your own words. That way, you are taking charge of the material, and you are making sure that you have a better grasp and understanding of the material. When it comes to the writing part, he emphasizes the importance of concision, precision, and consistency in writing.

The Reading Section in the SAT tests the students’ comprehension as well as their ability to infer and synthesize data from reading passages from US or world literature (1), history and social studies (2), and science (2). The students would be asked to read five (5) passages and answer 52 questions in 65 minutes. That leaves the student with around 13 minutes per passage. There may be charts and graphs that the students will have to understand the question.

Patryk’s Technique (Reading Section):

Put notes in the margins.

Use your own symbol system to isolate key information for faster accessibility in case you need to go back and take a look at it when answering the questions. This technique saves time in looking for the relevant information.

Simultaneous learning and mastery to apply directly to the questions. Learn to filter out unnecessary information.

When browsing the questions, identify leading words and line references.

In the process of elimination, find a reason to expel the choice from the pool of choices, not to keep an answer a choice.

Isolate the key verbs to understand what is being asked.

Knock out paired questions at the same time.

When the correct answer emerges, pick it and move on quickly to save time.

Patryk’s Technique (Writing Section):

Be precise, concise, and consistent when writing.

Understand how “less is more” in communication.

Fill in grammar holes for a more confident foundation of knowledge.

Pay close attention to conjunctions, adverbs, and transitional phrases.

Pay attention to subject-verb agreement, dependent and independent clauses, as well as punctuations for enhancing clarity.

The Logical SAT Approach: Nurturing Unique Mathematical Minds

Phoebe Rose–a Mathematical Olympiad Winner and Mathematics coach–shared her techniques in acing the mathematical section of the SAT.

The SAT math test covers a range of math practices with emphasis on problem solving, modeling, using tools strategically, and using the algebraic structure. These three areas of math will play the biggest role in the wide range of college majors and careers:

Algebra: Focuses on mastery of linear equations and systems

Problem solving and data analysis: Ask for fluency in quantitative skills

Advanced Math: Requires manipulation of complex equations

The way Phoebe likes to teach math is through intuitive learning modules that emphasizes investigation and discovery. This way, the students will become experienced in extracting information and developing intuition for math. At VSA Future, we strike a balance between deductive and inductive methods of teaching.

The SAT Math Test

One of the most common mistakes students do when answering this portion of the exam is losing too much time doing math the  formal way and making careless mistakes. Remember, you have to work as fast and as accurately as possible because you are allotted only 75 seconds per question.

In VSA Future’s SAT preparation program, we teach students proper time management and strategies on how to avoid careless mistakes, quickly know the answer, avoid trap choices, and study efficiently.  We also provide them with self-tracking tips and exercises to practice on with difficulties ranging from easy to hard.

Ace Your SAT and Have the Freedom to Choose the School You Want!