STRETCH2SMART’S MISSION:

Provide a holistic, interactive experience to help parents make reading fun for their children while expanding their base of knowledge and developing their thinking skills.

TEACHING REALITY:

In my over 30 years of teaching and designing curriculum, I have worked with preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and junior high students. My conclusion is that no matter how many hours you dedicate to being the very best, it will not meet every need.

STUDENT NEEDS:

What students throughout their educational journey share is a shortage of essential knowledge, and sophisticated thinking skills.

As teachers, we build on what students bring to us: their base of knowledge: optimally expanded through one-on-one attention and reinforcement. However, classroom size, makes these critical elements in learning more difficult to attain.

A NEED FOR THE STRETCH2SMART, INTERACTIVE LEARNING BOOKS:

Higher-level thinking skills evolve. Kids can’t be rushed, nor can these more complex thinking skills be rammed into them. Typically, a child learns from the inside out: self, family, and community.

The first and most significant teachers are parents. Parenting does not come with a degree, but Stretch2Smart books are tools that help parents give their children the one-on-one help that most classrooms can’t consistently provide.

HOW IT WORKS:

I provide the essence of 30 years of classroom teaching to parents so they can be successful in instructing the most important student in school: their child.

Each book in the series is an adventure story designed in verse to captivate the reader’s interest and attention. This narrative, then, becomes a “spring board” for learning.

The Appendix of “Interesting Facts” picks up on the reader’s curiosity and interest generated by the story.

The second appendix, “Stretch2Smart”, with three levels of difficulty, allows the reader to use both the story and “Interesting Facts” as stepping stones to assimilate information, weigh it, and make decisions he/she can back up with whatever age appropriate reasoning thus far developed.

As in life, it is not so much whether you are right or wrong, but the argument you bring to the conversation that is the deciding factor. Stretch2Smart does not emphasize right or wrong, but rather the argument used to support one’s conviction. It is a self-esteem building model that can provide peace of mind for parents, and success for their offspring.