NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Jan. 29, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — With the Common Core underway, Tween Publishing has released a curriculum series enabling middle schools to further the high school and college readiness of their students through a range of preparatory skills.
"One strength the Common Core is the freedom to teach habits of mind and academic behaviors as a component of college readiness," says Susan Mulcaire, president of Tween Publishing and series author. "The instructional freedom is refreshing, but the flip side is the responsibility of creating concrete curricula and lesson plans. Most teachers don't have time to create curriculum for teaching study and organizational skills. The good news is, we've done it for them."
Mulcaire believes, as do many learning experts, that the success of the Common Core ultimately depends upon providing instruction in good academic behaviors. "College readiness is two-pronged," Mulcaire advises. "Mastery of content, plus mastery of good academic strategies and habits of mind. Those are the skills and traits that enable a student to persevere in learning, such as good study and organizational skills, learning strategies, self-discipline, and effort."
"The remediation rate for first year college students is abysmal," she comments. "Generally, it's not a matter of intelligence — the student is smart enough to be in college. The problem is they never learned strategies for managing their time and workload, nor did they learn productive study skills. That catches up to them."
Tween focuses on the middle level, because Mulcaire believes that these skills are too important to delay until high school. "These skills take time to develop and habituate," she says, "so start early."
The Middle School Student's Guide to Study Skills teaches metacognition, pre-learning strategies, note-taking, active reading and listening, outlining, memory, recall, and test-taking strategies, and introduces challenges students will encounter in college, such as distance learning and information literacy. The series includes Tween's popular organizational skills curriculum The Middle School Student's Guide to Ruling the World!, and introduction to postsecondary education The Middle School Student's Guide to College.
What's in the Tween Publishing pipeline? The Middle School Student's Guide to Commerce & Careers (2014/2015)
Susan Mulcaire is a teacher and attorney from Orange County, California. She holds a B.S. from UC Berkeley, J.D. from Santa Clara University, and California credential.
Media Contact: Susan Mulcaire P: 949-723-5131 Email