We would like to congratulate Grace Shea, Zack Cook and the four other high school seniors we worked with who were recognized as STAR students by the Professional Association of Georgia Educators Foundation in February. These high school seniors worked hard to be recognized for maintaining a grade-point average in the top 10 percent of their class and achieving the highest SAT score at their schools. Six of the 19 STAR students, which stands for Student Teacher Achievement Recognition program,  from the North Atlanta neighborhoods of Brookhaven, Buckhead, Dunwoody and Sandy Springs, were tutored by Appelrouth.

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Appelrouth’s ability to provide high-quality, score-increase focused results depends on our tutors. In the past our initial training has been extremely rigorous, while our ongoing tutor development was less structured. To help ensure that our tutors set the standard for content mastery as well as instructional method mastery, we are making a few adjustments.

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Maria is a Textile Engineer from Georgia Tech who started her career working in new product Research and Development with Kimberly-Clark Corporation. After having two children, she taught preschool, then graduated to home schooling her children when they reached elementary school age. As they reached middle school and returned to traditional schooling, she worked in the office of and substituted in several private schools for elementary and middle school grades. She returned to homeschooling after adopting two children from Russia, but when they became fluent in English and started in traditional school, she again returned to working in schools. Last November, she joined Appelrouth Tutoring, and is now focused on making your student’s tutoring experience with Appelrouth the best that it can be.

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It has been a long time coming, but we are pleased to finally announce that our SAT Vocabulary Flash Cards are now available as an app in the iTunes Store. As a special promotion for our newsletter readers, you can download the app today for just 99 cents (normally $2.99).

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With the introduction of our Online Proctor system (and online Answer Sheets), students can now take a mock test from anywhere with an Internet connection. Available now for all of our students, the Online Proctor can be accessed by logging into your ATS Account and clicking on the blue Online Proctor button.

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I just received an interesting article from my doctoral advisor, a memory researcher at GSU.

Some psychologists at Kent State are examining how testing affects memory and memory strategies.

Testing, as we know, is not just to gauge student progress or inform our sessions.  Testing is a powerful tool to enhance learning.  Testing has a significant impact on retention and encoding information into long-term memory.  Study alone is not as robust. This is why we insist that students take practice tests.

Why does testing (AKA taking mocks) impact retention in a way that review and study (practice problems) do not?

The KSU researchers found that students need a chance to fail (retrieval failures) in order to strengthen or replace their memorization strategies.  You don’t know you need a new strategy until the one you are relying upon comes up short.  And when a strategy for memorization (a mantra, a heuristic) was successful in a testing situation, the researchers proposed that this strategy was consequently enhanced in long term memory.  After failure, students in this study went back (the test-restudy condition) and modified their memory strategies to find more effective ways to remember the content.

So students clearly learn from their experiences of success and failure in testing experiences, and the act of taking a practice test is actually one of the best ways to encode information deeper into long-term memory.

You can listen to the podcast that discusses Mary A. Pyc and Katherine A. Rawson’s study, Why Testing Improves Memory: Mediator Effectiveness Hypothesis, which was originally published 15 October 2010 in Science Magazine.

In conjunction with the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta, we are helping 26 students prepare for the December ACT. These diligent students, over half of whom are seniors taking the last possible test for college admissions requirements, have been studying for the exam since the beginning of November. We are trying to give them every opportunity to maximize their potential and get the best scores they can. Unfortunately, we do not have enough graphing calculators to go around.

So, we are holding a Calculator Drive for our Boys and Girls Club scholarship students, hoping to give them the chance to score their best on the upcoming ACT. We are reaching out to our community, asking for any used graphing calculators for our students. If you have any graphing calculators approved by the ACT that you no longer use, we ask you to donate them to these motivated students. You may drop them off Monday through Friday, 9:30am to 5pm at our main office or mail them to:

ATTN: Randy Schultz
1768 Century Blvd NE
Suite B
Atlanta, GA 30345.

We offer our heartfelt thanks for your generosity.

We are thrilled here at Appelrouth Tutoring to announce that the Washington, D.C. branch of Summit Educational Group (mytutor.com) will now be part of our team.

Combining relationships and skills that can only come from a team of student-focused, innovative tutoring professionals will enable us to give all our students and parents the highest level of educational services.

As current Summit, current Appelrouth and future Appelrouth clients, you must have questions about how this merger will affect you. If your questions aren’t answered below, please contact our Client Specialists directly.

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A college admissions committee spends on average 7 minutes with each application. Will your child stand out?

On Wednesday, November 17, Jed Appelrouth, MS, NCC and Steven Goodman, MS, JD and will be meeting to discuss the ins and outs of college admissions. You can attend the event in-person or watch it live online:

Attend Webinar Attend In-Person

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ATS has three convenient new locations in north Fulton County.

Our 626 Holcomb Bridge location is a quick drive off of GA 400 (exit 7). It is a great meeting spot for students at Roswell, Blessed Trinity, Chattahoochee, Johns Creek and Centennial High Schools.

Our Alpharetta location is literally at the first intersection off of GA 400 (exit 11), across the street from the Marriott. roam café is convenient for students from Alpharetta, Milton, Northview, Lambert and South Forsyth High Schools.

For members of the JCC, you can tutor at the MJCCA Zaban Park location at 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody, GA 30338.

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