No. 1 Back to School Rule: Get Organized - Long Island Newsday
Is your child's backpack ready to go and next to the front door every night? If so, she's on her way to an organized school year, experts say. If not, it's time to put that recommendation into practice. What follows is a set of age-appropriate tips to help students have a super-organized academic year. ...read more

K-8 school attacks 'middle school muddle' - Catholic San Francisco Online Edition
"You get to school, and 'where is it? Where's the paper?'"Notre Dame des Victoires Principal Mary Ghisolfo posed that question by way of describing one of the characteristic struggles of middle school: the plight of many students overwhelmed by the blizzard of assignments, class changes and busy schedules. "It's a state of being. You come in and you have anxiety, because 'where is my stuff?'" said Ghisolfo. The downtown San Francisco school is taking on the "middle school muddle" and hoping to help students, teachers and parents make sense of it all by implementing a new organizational system developed by Los Altos-based consultant Ana Homayoun. ...read more

A touch of class for school - Pioneer Local
"Helping your family adopt mini-routines is an excellent way to help maximize time and minimize stress," suggests Ana Homayoun, author of That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week and founder of Green Ivy Educational Consulting (www.greenivyed.com). When creating routines, give your children enough responsibility to encourage ownership of the process, while building in checkpoints to ensure things don't go haywire. ...read more

Encourage Children to Read - Los Altos Town Crier
One of the most frequent comments I hear from parents is that their children, for whatever reason, do not like to read. With so many technological innovations and distractions at their children's fingertips, these parents often resign themselves to believing that there is little that can be done to change their children's aversion to reading. ...read more

Pre-emptive organization can make a smooth school year - Los Altos Town Crier
The beginning of the school year is an exciting time, full of unrealized potential. For the students who come into the tutoring office, we look at the new school year as an opportunity to refocus and start anew. We talk about their goals and dreams to motivate them to manage their time better and become more organized. ...read more

Ensuring Student Success - Duke Magazine
Parents can't help themselves. They want their children to succeed. But sometimes the best of intentions can thwart a student attempting to find his own way. In her new book, That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week: Helping Disorganized and Distracted Boys Succeed in School and Life, Ana Homayoun '01 helps parents understand the importance of making students responsible for their own mistakes. ...read more

Keeping the Learning Alive Over Summer Vacation - The Chicago Tribune
The end of the school year is a bittersweet time, arriving amid a rush of final report cards, field day celebrations and for many an anxious parent, the quandary over how to ensure their children will keep learning alive over the summer months. ...read more

Giving Disorganized Boys the Tools for Success - NY Times
“Can we take a look at your backpack?” Ana Homayoun repeats that question countless times a day. No, she does not screen airline passengers or work security at a basketball arena. Ms. Homayoun is a tutor. She helps teenagers with subjects like math and science, but she particularly specializes in teaching boys how to become more organized. ...read more

Organizing for Middle School Boys: What Parents Need to Know- Education.com
Put your typical middle school boy on a daily schedule with multiple classrooms to visit, a locker to stock and replenish, four or five academic subjects in which to hand in homework, and shoelaces that need to be tied. Add a lunchbox, water bottle, and a backpack. What do you get? The term paper that ended up under the egg salad sandwich. The math homework that disappeared for five months. The locker that exploded open—all by itself. ...read more

Organizing for Boys: Getting Your Guy Through Middle School - Education.com
For decades, we worried that girls weren’t thriving in school. Now, after decades of work on the issue, there’s been a surprising turn: boys are the ones having trouble. Particularly in today’s standards-driven, no-nonsense classrooms, boys seem to be struggling to stay in their seats, talk quietly and follow lectures … skills which don’t seem to be so hard for girls. With scores looking more and more uneven, it’s a serious national issue. ...read more

Coaching academic success: Los Altos native uses natural skills to advise students - Los Altos Town Crier
When St. Francis High School student Ernie McMillan, 17, began reading Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” as a summer English assignment in 2006, he couldn’t get past the 19th-century style of British literature. ...read more

Helping Disorganized Boys - Suite101.com
Girls are excelling in school more than boys are and the college campus ratios of girls to boys prove it. It is not often that we find a college campus with a higher percentage of males than females. And, if we do it is a college or university that offers engineering or a vocational program. Why are girls outperforming boys in school? ...read more

When a Risqué Online Persona Undermines a Chance for a Job - NY Times
When a small consulting company in Chicago was looking to hire a summer intern this month, the company's president went online to check on a promising candidate who had just graduated from the University of Illinois. ...read more