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How to improve comprehension skills in students?

How to improve comprehension skills in students?

by | May 27, 2021 | Blog

Have you ever been reading something and felt that you had no idea about what you had read? It has not only happened to you. Many are facing this issue while reading. Incredibly, every student will lack at some point while reading.

Are you looking for a better way to improve comprehension skills for your kid? Then this blog is for you.

In this article, we’ve listed some of the Key comprehension skills to improve. Here we go with them:

Key comprehensive skills to improve

1. Raise questions

One of the best comprehension skills is: raising questions while reading.

This comprehension skill helps the students to think about what they read. Alongside, it will help the students to enhance their sense of curiosity.

How to improve comprehension skills

Additionally, raising questions will stimulate their thinking skills. As well, it will engage them to go close with the text.

But how to teach the students with this comprehension skill?

All you need to do is, teach them to question themselves before and after reading a text. It will lead your students to focus on their reading. Students can raise questions for understanding characters, to get a precise meaning, etc.

2. Activate prior knowledge

A good reader tries to figure out what they read by picturizing it with their prior experience. Activating prior knowledge will be more meaningful. That is, the more prior knowledge, the better you’ll comprehend what you read.

How to improve comprehension skills

But how to make kids learn this strategy? Teach your kid to preview the book to examine what they view. Please discuss with the kids to know what they think about what they’ve observed from the book.

3. Monitoring

Monitoring is nothing but the process of analyzing the understanding ability of a reader. This strategy will help the students to pay attention to the text while learning. Alongside this skill will enhance the metacognition (think about thinking) skill in students.

how to improve comprehension skills

Do you know how to teach monitoring strategies to your kid? The simple way to teach your kid is, read aloud with them. This technique will enable the kids or readers to think about their reading comprehension. Also, teach them to identify what they do understand and what they do not understand. It will help them to find the solution for the issue in reading comprehension.

4. Visualization

While reading, visualization is an essential skill for kids because it enables them to imagine or illustrate the concepts and characters in a text.

Students who adept at this comprehension strategy will not only imagine pictures in their minds. It includes smells, tastes, sounds, and feelings in their imaging when reading the text.

how to improve comprehension skills

How to teach visualizing skills? The best way to teach this strategy is, make them read aloud. Reading aloud will make the students enhance their imagination and creativity skills in their minds.

If you’ve given insight into the kids’ thought process, make them read one or two-sentence to understand. Most importantly, one should continue this manner until the completion of a passage. By doing this, you’ll empathize with what you are reading.

5. Inferring

Inferring is a great comprehension strategy that leads the students to detect the text. With this strategy, students can identify the concepts that are not made explicit in the text. Instead of relying on the writer’s text, inferring can help the students look for clues hidden behind the text.

how to improve comprehension skills

So, how to teach Inferring strategy to a reader? Choose a section and read with the kid aloud. At some point, press pause and ask them about their thoughts about the text. Then, the teacher should provide a clear conclusion about the text to the readers.

6. Predicting

This comprehension strategy helps the readers to get meaning from the text. Usually, a good reader predicts everything to connect the new data with the existing knowledge. For instance, if they know about the author before, they may guess what the text is.

how to improve comprehension skills

Even the title of the content may lead you to predict what the text is about. Also, it will tend the reader to evaluate the text to understand the concept.

7. Determining the importance

how to improve comprehension skills

In this strategy, you should demand the students to pay attention to all the text elements. It tends them to analyze everything from headings to the end of the chapter. One of the simple ways to practice this strategy is, teach students to take notes. Taking notes is a great technique to sort the information from the text based on its importance.

8. Summarizing

how to improve comprehension skills

Summarizing is not a big deal. After reading, the student should retell the story’s concept in their own words. By doing this, they can pull out the main points and express things in their way. So, teach them to sum up a concept when reading a text.

Final thoughts

It’s time to wrap up. The strategies mentioned above are some of the key comprehension strategies to teach.

Teaching these reading strategies will ensure that students have a grip when reading. If one method fails, they can make use of the other until they understand a text.

Practice to teach these strategies, make a proficient reader with better skills! Good luck:)

How Public speaking helps in your career growth?

How Public speaking helps in your career growth?

by | Apr 5, 2021 | Blog

Public Speaking – Tips to help you overcome the fear, make you more confident, captivating, and charming.

Do you aim for a good position in your career or take a step forward in life with your speech?

Whatever the case, Public speaking is a compelling skill needed for both professional and personal life. To articulate, connect and persuade are all skills needed for career growth. When you address a group on a common platform, a lot of people recognize your talent.

Not everyone is born with great communication skills. But with practice and time, one masters the same. Many are us dread the idea of speaking in front of an audience. It puts you in a spotlight where it demands a lot of attention and courage. Some might feel nervous, others might fear messing things up. Whatever the reason, Public speaking has a powerful impact on you and your career.

Let us explore ways in expanding these skills for career and business growth.

1. Ways to be comfortable in front of an audience

To do professionally well, one has to be good at talking effectively. Speaking in front of an audience doesn’t have to be always intimidating. Being nervous is part of human nature that can be controlled. Some feel more, some less. It doesn’t matter as long as we don’t let it overpower us. The key is to trust yourself and feel comfortable.

Audience comfortabel 1

One has to delicately prepare notes and write things down before speaking. It will help you in preparing better presentations. The key is to believe in yourself and build confidence as you go up. Because at some point, you will need to get out of your comfort zones. Especially in a working environment, where you make people listen to you.

2. How to be an engaging speaker

The ultimate goal to capture people’s attention and engage them is to have a conversational tone. It is very important to prepare charts, presentations, and slides to convey. This prep will help you put your points across much better. The conversation should be a free-flowing talk that’s not too structured. I have seen people deliver friendly talking.

confident

Some people shed that weight off and talk light. It should seem more of a casual talk rather than a formal one. Your audience will soon lose out on your talk if it is vaguely familiar or less understood. Choosing accessible talk will create fewer bridges and more spaces that include everyone. You can also convey through stories to keep them engaged. The better we can explain, the better appreciation.

3. Perfecting your skills of communication

Communication skills are needed to succeed in your workplace and otherwise. It tops the list of basic fundamental skills needed to survive in the workplace. This generation, where social media has taken over the world, may not know its importance. The act of talking or exchanging words has become casual—especially the younger generation, who think that it is cool to thrive on texting.

communication

Using your body language to convey also is an important aspect of communication. To talk effectively, one has to listen and think before talking. Also, putting your points across in a brief note yet realistic and specific is crucial too. With strong ideas, you will impress the people around you and maintain a positive attitude with them.

4. Being confident can make you go a long way

Being confident is always very attractive. It breeds charisma and attracts people. The more confident you are, the better. When a confident speaker talks, we get driven with their speech, and it creates an influence. They grab our attention, and we listen to them in detail. To be confident, one has to work hard, know the agenda and be prepared. If you are not sure of yourself, then how can people be! You don’t have to be perfect; you have to be YOU.

Third point

Public speaking is not easy. Not everyone is comfortable standing in front of a crowd and conveying. Nevertheless, the ones who try to speak should be themselves. Never try to put up an act. Keep a smiling face and accept challenges with an open heart. Don’t feel bad if someone shows or points a mistake. Connect with the audience and clear doubts. Learn, correct, and grow. A positive and confident mind helps you to concentrate and stay calm.

Final thoughts

People remember and praise your ideas in a convincing conversation in a group. If you master the art of conveying your ideas convincingly, then you are moving forward. Moreover, if you incorporate a great story in your speech, you can win hearts.

conclusion

Confident public speaking comes in handy both in private and professional life. It truly is a gift and something we can imply in our daily lives. You can learn how to speak in public create an unforgettable impression.

When you can stand out, why delay?

Maybe a hike in your career is just around the corner?!!

Innovative and Smart learning techniques to develop new ideas

Innovative and Smart learning techniques to develop new ideas

by | Mar 1, 2021 | Blog

Looking for innovative or smart learning techniques to grab good grades? Then you are at the right spot. In this blog, we’ve provided few clever learning techniques for you. Implement these techniques into your learning process and enhance your life brighter.

We know you are burdened by too many home tasks, assignments, and tests now and then. You are not the only one who finds 24 hours less to manage your studies and the daily routine. Relax! You are not alone. Many students are in the same position as you.

Did you know? Twenty-four hours is good enough to manage your learning along with your personal life. All you need to do is, follow the below techniques.

Innovative and Smart Learning Techniques:

1. Meditate every morning

innovative and smart learning techniques

Meditating in the early morning will improve concentration and refresh your brain. This will enable you with better learning skills. Alongside, it will reduce your anxiety and make you feel relaxed.

2. Don’t Stuff

Dont Stuff 1

The first thing that you should do is, say goodbye to stuffing. The habit of stuffing the content in your mind will jam at some point. Instead, make a proper schedule and stick to it accordingly. If you are learning the night before your exam, then instead of stuffing, try to revise.

While learning, take a short break for around 10 to 15 minutes every one hour. This will lead you to focus on your studies and relieve yourself from stress.

3. Review

innovative and smart learning techniques

Before you begin with the new topic, always review the  topics that you’ve learned before. This will help you to remember the concepts.

4. Revise before bedtime

read before bedtime

Research has stated that sleeping will boost a person’s brainpower. Hence, before going to bed, revise the topics that you’ve covered while learning. This will significantly benefit you by improving your memory power and intense your recall ability.

5. Take a good nap

good sleep

A sound sleep is a proven existence that helps maintain a healthier life, both mentally and physically. On that note, you’d know that an uncomfortable night’s sleep can make you feel unrefreshed the whole next day.

Further, If you don’t have enough sleep, your mind will not hold much data for a longer time. Hence, a person should sleep at least seven hours to allow the brain to rest and promotes creativity.

6. Learn smaller portion

learn smaller portions

Whenever you learn a lengthy topic, you don’t need to absorb all the details at once. Split the issues into smaller sessions and learn. Once you’ve gone through it, move on to the next session. Learning in this way will be more convenient to remember the subjects.

7. Take Notes

Take Notes

Practical notes enable you to master your syllabus.

While learning, make a habit of note-taking. This will lead you to focus better by organizing information with a simple structure.

8. Try Visual learning

visual learning

Want to study in a short time? Try visual learning. Visual learning will improve your concentration power and memory retention. Also, it increases the thinking skill and enables you to learn better.

9. Study out louder

Read louder

Instead of stuffing, learning loudly is one of the useful smart learning tricks. In a study, it is stated that studying aloud will help you memorize what you’re pronouncing.

10. Plan Ahead

Plan Ahead 1

Studying at the last moment can stress you out. Hence, write down your study goals for the upcoming day every night. This won’t let you run out of time. Also, you can understand every concept clearly.

11. Set your goal

set goal

One of the crucial techniques to learn more brilliant is: setting the right goals that are not on the overboard.

12. Drink enough amount of Water

drink water

Research states that drinking Water while learning will improve your focus and boost your mental health by increasing your blood’s oxygen supply. By drinking Water while learning will improve memory and balance your mood.

13. Study with your friends

study in a group

Try to study in a group once a week. This may benefit you with a better understanding of topics by discussing with friends.

14. Test Your ability

test your ability

Once you’ve revised the topics, practice tests, puzzle yourself after completing each issue. This will help you to map your learning progress.

15. Don’t rush

dont rush while reading

Always don’t rush yourself beyond your limits. Try to achieve your practical goals little by little peacefully. Everyone has a different learning style and pace. Hence, don’t force yourself.

Final Words

Now that you know what are the innovative learning techniques to enhance your education in a better way. Remember to practice these techniques while learning in your life. Implement these techniques one or two at a time. Once you’re comfortable with it, try other methods. This will gradually lead you as a competent learner in this educative world.

So, Why still waiting. Go on and grab your grade by learning smarter! We wish you the best!

Reading strategies for Students with Learning Disabilities

Reading strategies for Students with Learning Disabilities

by | Mar 1, 2021 | Blog

Learning Disabilities refer to a group of disorders. These disorders stop us from learning, reading, or writing better in our daily life. A learning disability does not mean that they can’t learn. A student with this disability has average intelligence. Students who have a reading disability will need direct teaching methods. Since they know a bit differently, the teachers can straightforwardly teach them. 

Students with reading disabilities have the potential to be successful. Most students with reading disabilities improve through strategic reading, writing, and viewing. Provided they get help from the teachers the right way. Teachers, when intervened early, can offer intensive support to the students. Despite these efforts, many struggle to read.  They have difficulty reading unfamiliar and challenging words. Students cannot connect ideas and decode words.

Reading Strategies

Proficient Reading skills are essential for students to succeed. If students are not competent readers, they may be at risk. There are different types of learning disabilities. Today, we are here to address reading disabilities. Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein are all thought to have had a Learning disability.

Let’s start by looking at what the research says about reading strategies:

What is Reading Strategies?

The Ultimate goal of reading is to extract meaning from what you read. The older students with Learning disabilities need increasing instructional responses. So, when the students read, they have a lot going around in their heads. They use the power of sounds/symbols relationship in phonics to decode the words they don’t know.

Reading strategies

In the case of a young student reading- they decode many or most words in the text as they build their vocabulary. They begin to rely less and less on sounding words. As their language grows, so does fluency. Fluency is nothing but the accuracy of reading the text steadily with an accurate tone.

Finally, the student understands what they read or comprehend. There are different comprehension strategies we use to know what we are reading. We make new images in our minds, connect to the text or use reasoning. The following are some ways we can help students with Learning disabilities.

Let us start with the basic:

Decoding Words and Letters:

Communication is a result of sentences that we use every day. Sentences are from words and words from sounds. Children, at first, play with new stories and create new language patterns. They develop phonemic awareness by singing songs, chanting rhymes and reading books. Students learn new words every day. They make an understanding of how oral language works in many ways.

Beginning readers develop their concepts of letters. By recognizing letters in print, name, singing, students begin to understand this relationship. For some children, teachers also have to provide small-group instructions. Teachers have to be open, systematic, and supportive than they usually are. This way they can develop a direct relationship with phonics. 

Reading strategies

Phonics helps students develop a sound-letter relationship which allows them to decode better. Think about solving the word ‘fish,’ and you need to hear first, understand terms, and put them into effect. 

The following are some ways the teachers can help students to learn how to decode:

  • Breaking down of big tasks into smaller tasks
  • Helping students organize the information in a systematic manner
  • Following a predictable pattern 
  • It helps them build a word study pattern 

Having Fluency:

Reading Strategies

Reading fluency is the ability to grasp and read texts fluently quickly. Fluent readers do not have to decode words with difficulty. They learn from developing good reading proficiency. Since fluent readers have a useful vocabulary, they make connections between different texts.

Students with Learning Disabilities tend to read calmly, laboring over the text structures. Sometimes the text may be too challenging to read. A lack of fluent reading means that the students lack confidence. If they encourage students to read more, they can become fluent readers. It also gives them improved reading skills.

Fluency comes with oral readings. Fluency is targeted through many other factors like:

  • Reading the same words again and again
  • When the reading is shared repeatedly
  • Self-Identifying reading errors
  • Visualization

Developing Vocabulary:

Reading Strategies

Students need to develop word awareness, to help them recognize words automatically. Children with learning disabilities think and understand differently. Understanding what they read and remember is the central act of learning. During the reading process, the students have to know what they read. They also have to figure out the different strategies that work. Students develop recognition of most words they hear, see and write.

Vocabulary has to be developed, expanded, and taught. Extending the language and expanding it requires exposure to words and their meanings. They must be taught to use various strategies which enhance their word strength.

Some of the effective vocabulary strategies occur when:

  • Activity-based methods
  • Computer-assisted methods
  • Exposure to new words
  • Interaction with the same terms to process deeply
  • Making connections between old and new words

Final Notes:

Prevention and early intervention provided by well-trained teachers can improve reading methods. It can change from a poor reader to a good reader. If we delay intervention, approximately 75% of the children continue to have reading disabilities.

Why Python is better than other languages?

Why Python is better than other languages?

by | Feb 18, 2021 | Python

Are you a beginner who is interested in learning code? Then, Python will be a great place for you to get started with.

There are plenty of programming languages to learn. But, Python is one of the best programming languages designed with simplicity in mind. As a beginner, you might have wondered “why Python is better than other languages?” If you’ve puzzled with such a question, the answer is here for you.

In this blog, we’ve provided you some reasons why you should choose python. Without any fuss, let’s take a short tour to explore some interesting facts about Python.

What is Python?

What is Python exactly? Python is one of the most popular programming languages that can be widely used for a variety of applications. Also, it is a general-purpose coding language that includes high-level data structures, dynamic binding, dynamic typing, and much more.

Despite these, Python is one of the beginner-friendly programming languages. It serves as a gateway to the coding world.

Why is Python so popular?

For the past few years, Python has witnessed incredible growth in the programming world. The key fact that drives Pythons’ booming popularity is: it is an open-source language. Anyone can download and use it to develop an application. It can be used on a wide variety of platforms like macOS, Microsoft Windows, etc. Also, it has been used for large scale projects at Google, YouTube, and many others.

Apart from the key fact, there are other reasons why Python is more popular. Here we go with them:

1. Easy to learn and code

Consistently, Python is ranking as one of the easiest programming languages to learn. This is due to its high reliability and simple syntax which is quite similar to plain text. So, you can write a Python code simply and execute it much faster than the other programming languages. Even, one can change the code base of Python for the quick experiment as it is an interpreted language. Due to the ease of use, Python is even more popular among all kinds of developers.

2. Has a Healthy, Active, and Supportive community

In general, the Programming language may lack documentation and developer support at some point. Python has neither of those issues. It has plenty of documentation, tutorials, and guides to learn. Additionally, the developer community is active. That is, if someone needs any help or support while using Python, they can get instant support from the supportive community. The active community will ensure you with the developers from the basic skill level to the expert.

3. Support from great Corporate Sponsors

Usually, programming languages will grow faster especially when it has a great corporate sponsor at its back. For instance, Visual Basic and C# by Microsoft, PHP by Facebook, and Java by Oracle and Sun. Likewise, Python Programming language is heavily sponsored by Amazon web services, Facebook, and specifically by Google. Back in 2006, Google adopted python and have used it for many applications and various platforms since then. Further, Google has created a dedicated portal for Python. This is an added benefit for Python and becomes more trending among the developers.

4. Amazing Libraries and Frameworks

When you work on bigger projects, libraries can help to cut down the initial development cycle and save time. Due to a supportive community and corporate sponsorship, Python has an excellent selection of libraries from SciPy to Django for web development. Furthermore, few libraries include some specific focus like nltk for natural language processing and scikit-learn for machine learning applications. Also, Python has library-like tools to offer cross-platform support to the developers.

Aside from these, other few libraries and frameworks are accessible in Python. Some of them are:

5. Big Data, cloud computing, and Machine Learning

The use of cloud computing and big data in this enterprise world is one of the main reasons for the popularity of Python. Next to the R language for data science, Python is the most widely used tool. Hence, many data processing workloads in enterprises are powered by Python. Also, Python is mostly used for research and development due to its ease of analyzing and usable data organizing.

6. Versatile, Reliable, and Speed

If you ask any developer, they will heartily agree that Python Is reliable, efficient, and faster than other languages. Python language can be used in any kind of environment without facing any issue or loss. Also, it is versatile to use. Thus, you can use Python in various environments like web development, mobile applications, and much more. This makes it more attractive to use Python.

Importance of Learning Python Programming

We guess you might have a glimpse of why Python is so popular compared to other languages. Now, it’s time to know why you should learn Python and the importance of learning Python programming. Below are some reasons why you should learn Python.

1. Versatile and multiple programming paradigms

Like other programming languages, Python supports multiple programming paradigms like object-oriented programming and structured programming. Also, the features of Python will support various concepts like aspect-oriented and functional programming. As well, Python features automatic memory management and a dynamic type system that help you for developing large and complex software applications. Furthermore, Python has an automatic memory management system to deal with dynamic storage for easy handling.

2. Fast growing with high demand

In recent days, Python is used across many corporate industries and applications. Also, the explosive use in machine learning, data science, and Artificial intelligence increased Python’s popularity in the developer community. Hence, due to the lighting speed growth, Python programming is in high demand for jobs.

3. Web testing framework

Python has many in-built testing frameworks that cover the fastest debugging workflow. Also, like Selenium and Splinter, Python has many modules and tools to make things much easier. Well, we all know testing is a tedious task. Python is a booster for testing. Because it supports testing for cross-browser and cross-platform with the testing frameworks like PyTest and Robot. So, if you are a tester, you should go for Python.

4. Simplify complex development

The main goal of Python is to provide simplicity to get rid of complexity. So, Python is quite easier to read, write, and learn than other programming languages. Hence, you can use the Python programming language for developing both web and desktop applications. Further, Python is designed with some special features to facilitate visualization and data analysis. So, you can take the benefit of data analysis to create big data solutions without any effort and extra time.

5. Easy Access

Well, do you wish to access databases easily? Python will do it for you. Python has two strong points that allow the user to customize interfaces like Oracle, MySQL, etc. This allows you to access other databases rapidly. Furthermore, its integration and flexibility will allow it to run with other programming languages like CPython, Jython, etc.

Advantages of Python

Whenever you learn a new language, you must be aware of the advantages of that language. This will help you to get better knowledge to use the language powerfully while building a robust application. Below we have listed the advantages of Python. Make sure to keep your eyes on them.

1. High-level language

Python looks more similar to the human-readable language than other programming languages. This gives the ability to code at a faster rate than other languages. Python can be extended to other programming languages. So, you can code in languages like C or C++.

2. Simple Syntax

When compared to other programming languages. Python’s syntax is easy to learn. Both the programmers and non-programmers can begin programming right away.

3. Do more with less code

As we mentioned previously, Python is easy to learn and write, you can do more with less coding. That is, you can construct a prototype and test out your ideas faster in Python. So, using Python, you can save valuable time.

4. User-friendly Data Structures

Python is designed with an in-built dictionary data structure that can be used to build fast runtime. Further, Python doesn’t know the variable type, it automatically assigns the data type while executing the code. Hence, programmers need not worry about the variables and their data types.

5. Support libraries and third-party modules

Python has a large standard library. It includes areas like string operations, internet protocols, and operating system interfaces. The standard library of Python will reduce the length of the code for writing significantly. Additionally, the Python package has numerous third-party modules. This makes Python more capable while interacting with other languages.

6. Object-Oriented Programming

Python supports both procedural and object-oriented programming paradigms. Object-oriented programming allows you to build data structures that can be reused. This reduces the repetitive work. So, have you ever decided to switch your programming language from Python? If yes, you have a significant chance to work with object-oriented programming.

7. Productivity

As Python has an object-oriented design, it offers enhanced process control, text processing, and integration. Also, the extensive library and language simplicity will render more productivity than other programming languages.

Is Python a Good Career?

The next big thing that we need to look up is: Does learning Python have a good career? Absolutely yes! Though Python is not the only programming language across the globe, it offers the most promising career opportunities. So, you don’t need to think of it anymore. Here are a few job roles that you can fill by learning Python:

Python developer

Python Developer is one of the most direct jobs that you can expect to land after acquiring Python skills. So, what does a Python developer do? Following are some of the key responsibilities of a Python developer:

  • Build Websites.
  • Write codes efficiently.
  • Troubleshoot problems related to data analytics.
  • Optimize data algorithms.
  • Implement security and data protection.

Data Analyst

Data Analyst is an interesting opportunity specifically for those who like to work with huge amounts of data. Many great companies are looking for people who can work with large sets of data. Specifically, many companies look for people who acquired Python Knowledge. This is because the Python libraries come in handy to accomplish this task. Hence, there is no wonder that companies are opening offers for people who are experienced in Python.

Machine learning engineer

If you are skilled in Python, you will be given high preference over other candidates for machine learning engineer. The role of a machine learning engineer is to build and train machines for making predictions.

Final Thoughts

It’s not too late to learn. If you are striving to learn new skills, then age is not a factor. Learning Python programming not only enlightens you with great skills. But provides you the ability to create something you love.

Hope you have a clear idea about Python. So why are you still waiting? Python has plenty of perks for beginners. So give Python a go!

Happy coding:)