There's nothing worse than sitting in the classroom day after day and struggling.
"The best way to help your kids prepare is being proactive, not reactive."
Mia Redrick, the Mom Strategist says by now your kids have likely gotten their first progress report.....so it's time to see how they're doing.
"First place to start is with your child. Look at how they're trending. Really think about if you're looking at their report card and they've got A or B's in everything else and there's this C."
Have a conversation with your child and then begin looking for resources to help them. The first place she recommends is the Khan Academy.
"There's tutoring online for any major subject, math, science, the PSAT, the SAT's. There's automatic testing, there's lessons set to videos so it's really interactive and customized based on what your skill set is, and it's free.
That's right, she said free! Redrick says The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation acquired the online tutoring site.
Their mission is to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. Redrick says it works.
"My daughter used it for biology class, and she found that a lot of the exams were just a nice refresher for her even around exam time, even if you want to do some extra work so you can get clear, it's great."
If you’re looking for more individualized help, you can always just hire a tutor, a college or high school honors student, or if you're willing to pay a little more, a professional.
"The best resource I can recommend are teachers, create a flyer that goes in the teachers lunch room to say you’re looking for a subject matter tutor with your phone number. Teachers know other teachers who are great tutors and parents never think about that."
There are also tutoring sites like Mathnasium. While they're more expensive, the learning centers offers customized math tutoring services helping kids in grades K-12. Whichever course you follow, Redrick says it's better to act sooner, rather than later.
"It's a tremendous confidence builder, not to struggle and to fill in the gaps before they are huge gaps."
