HI Achievers- Miss Megan

He told me the vocabulary list was useless. Nobody talks like that.

I told him just because it's not in his 14 year old world doesn't mean it's not in the world.

We looked up sirrah together. Turns out it's not just an old word — it's an entire social hierarchy hiding in one syllable.

That's what reading old texts is actually for. Not memorizing dead words. Expanding your world beyond the one you currently live in. *That's a missed teacher opportunity, actually.*

💬 What's a word or concept that cracked open a world you didn't know existed yet?

*
*
*
*
*

Tracing looks like learning. And it's a good starting point. But the brain isn't building the letter — it's following one. There's a big difference.

I use a simple shift — trace five, then generate five with just a starting dot. That's where muscle memory actually gets built.

When cognitive load increases and the letters fall apart, it tells me the tracing never became true ownership. That's the gap I'm always watching for. For example, when a kid has to spell a word, the h is suddenly backwards and he or she forgot how to write a j. That's data.

💬 Has your child's school sent home tracing worksheets? Have you noticed this in their independent writing?

Mrs. Miyagi in kindergarten.
Ms. Au in 8th grade.
Professor Canham at UH.

I still carry all of them.

The way a teacher says your name.
The moment they see something in you before you see it in yourself.
The assignment that broke you open in the best possible way.

We talk a lot about classroom teachers — but this week I'm also thinking about the kumus, the art teachers, the music teachers, the swim coaches, the ones who taught you something that had nothing to do with a textbook and everything to do with who you became.

Every single one of them is a teacher.
And if you had even one who changed something in you — you know exactly what I mean.

💬 Drop the name of a teacher who changed your life.
Let's fill the comments with them. 🌺

*
*
*
*
*

I built this system after years of watching smart kids take zero notes OR annotate pages full of marks that meant nothing to them because their teacher said 3 underlines per page.

Fiction gets one framework. Non-fiction gets another. Both have key terms and details — but the categories are completely different because the reading experience is completely different.

The goal is always the same though: a student who knows exactly what they're looking for before they read the first word.

What reading strategy do you wish someone had taught you earlier?

*
*
*
*
*

Most annotation systems are built around process — here's HOW to mark a page.

What they often miss is content criteria — here's what you're actually looking for, and why it changes depending on what you're reading.

Fiction and non-fiction are completely different reading experiences. Your annotation system should reflect that.

💬 Did anyone ever teach you that fiction and non-fiction require different thinking?

*
*
*
*
*

He has a Jersey accent.

But I'm like if you're not from there why would you have a Jersey accent?

Through some research I found that the same hidden sense that causes handwriting to fall apart after 3 letters is the same one behind the hard R that just won't come.

It's still proprioception

I started noticing the pattern in my students' handwriting. Through research I saw how it was connected to much more. It changed how I approach every session.

***I always recommend working with a licensed OT or SLP for formal evaluation — I share what I observe because parents deserve to understand what might be happening.***

For further research:
📖 Sensory Integration and the Child — A. Jean Ayres (1979) — the foundational text on sensory processing in children
📖 ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) — asha.org — research on articulation and oral motor development
📖 Apraxia Kids — apraxia-kids.org — accessible research on oral motor and speech sound disorders
📖 BabySparks — babysparks.com — parent-friendly explanation of proprioceptive development
📖 IntechOpen: Proprioception Impairment and Treatment Approaches in Pediatrics — free peer-reviewed chapter online

💬 Save this. Share it with a parent who needs it.

"Fine" isn't the ceiling.

I'm seeing more and more parents come to me not because their child is behind — but because they know their kid has more in them and no one at school is drawing it out.

And a lot of times, it is not the teacher's fault. Often times the behavior problems leave little time to devote to the good kids. The good kids are often the most overlooked kids in the room. I've seen this time and time again.

That's who I show up for too.

💬 Drop a ❤️ if this sounds like your child.

*
*
*
*
*

She worked for months at a test prep center and barely moved the needle.

When I met her I wasn't surprised. She knew most of the material. What she didn't have was strategy — how to complete analogies, how to eliminate answers by looking for text evidence, and the importance of brainstorms before writing.

A year later her SSAT scores nearly doubled across all three domains. It nearly tripled for the verbal section (I think because now she KNEW how to answer the analogies!).

Hard work matters. But hard work pointed in the wrong direction is futile.

💬 DM me if your child is prepping for the SSAT and spinning their wheels.

*
*
*
*
*

Instagram makes it look easy.

A spreadsheet and a little bit of research tells the truth.

I do this with my kids before high school so they can plan with purpose — not just show up and hope it works out. We look at the salary of a potential future career, subtract taxes, and then try to live on that and create a budget.

Majority of my kids end up in the hole at the end of the month.

Then we backwards map to see how much training or schooling they have to go through AFTER high school to enter that field.

It's humbling.

Then they begin to see the reason why we ask them to learn SKILLS in high school.

💬 Did anyone ever have this conversation with you?

*
*
*
*
*

How pretty is this cover? 💮🌸 And there's a small calico in the crosswalk🐈 that cat is Kobako. Kobako and Sakura operate the Cherry Blossom Bookshop. This bookshop only appears during the spring, the cherry blossom season. When the character reads the exact same passage as Sakura, they are transported to the magical bookshop to experience another point of view of a moment in their life of immense sadness to help bring comfort.

There were things I liked and things I didn't. I loved how we followed different stories of sadness, grief and loss that were able to transform. The magic of the bookshop is that it allowed people to go back to certain moments to find a different point of view or experience moments to find clarity and comfort. It was so heavy with sadness and loss. The best story was the old man. And the cherry tree was described in such a way that I wanted this to be a real place to visit. Just seems so ethereal.

But the healing was a bit vague. It was really like a *snap* magical healing. Also, Sakura was kind of mean. Just the way she spoke in general. It just didn't fit with the rest of the story. I don't know if this was a translation problem. And there were no books sold in the bookshop. It maybe could've been a cafe more. Or maybe book club.

My cat must know I'm writing this review right now because Bentley never sits on my lap. Kobako was maybe the best thing about this story lol In Japanese, "kobako" is the term used for a cat loaf. Kobako is an incense box and the term compares the cat shape to sitting in a rectangular incense box.

What book do you wish someone had put in your hands when you were younger?

Go out and make today amazing 💜

*
*
*
*
*