Jeanine Benca's Young Shakespeares Writing Center

08/21/2026

"There is no part of the writing process that can be handed over to A.I. without some cost. Intellectual growth occurs at every stage, from brainstorming to fine-tuning a final draft.

If writing is thinking, then any part of the struggle that is outsourced to technology amounts to relinquishing some freedom to perceive."

Educators are worried that many students can no longer write essays without A.I. And it’s costing more than just grammar skills.

07/08/2026

Six years after dropping SAT and ACT test requirements, members of an influential University of California admissions board said Thursday that the group will reconsider requiring the standardized tests, a major move favored by faculty who have complained that many students are severely deficient in math.

The University of California will consider bringing back SAT and ACT requirements for first-year admissions. UC ended test requirements in 2020.

05/29/2026

Summer is one of the BEST times to help students improve writing skills and reading comprehension, because there’s finally time to slow down, build confidence, and fill in gaps without the pressure of nightly homework.

Many students who struggle with essays aren’t “bad at English” at all. They just need:
• clearer structure
• help organizing their thoughts
• reading comprehension support
• or confidence getting started

I’m currently enrolling students for:
📚 Reading Comprehension
✍️ Essay Writing & Literary Analysis
🎯 AP English Prep
👥 Small Group Classes

Summer sessions are designed to be supportive, engaging, and individualized to each student’s needs.

Contact me for more information or to discuss whether my program would be a good fit for your child!

Use this space to add a brief description of your project.

05/20/2026

Email from Jeanine Benca Tutoring Summer/Fall Small-Group English Language Arts Classes in Pleasanton   Happy (Almost) Memorial Day! Summer is upon us, and before long the new school year will be, t

04/21/2026

This looks cool!

🎭 Discover Shakespeare with your children! This week, celebrate Shakespeare Day (on 23 April) with these fun and engaging videos. They are a brilliant way to introduce some of his most famous plays to your little ones. Each one comes with online activities and printable resources to enjoy together.
📚 Watch the videos and explore the activities here: https://learnenglish.pub/LEKShakespeareVideos
~ Tina☺

04/21/2026

04/21/2026

How many spaces should be used after a period at the end of an English sentence is still a topic that can infuriate people, James Hamblin wrote in 2018.

That’s when a study was published that specifically considered the question. “Our data suggest that all readers benefit from having two spaces after periods,” Rebecca Johnson, the study’s head researcher, told Hamblin. Among people in the study who use two spaces after a period, there was a 3 percent increase in reading speed when reading text with two spaces following periods—an average of nine additional words a minute. “Removing the spaces between words altogether drastically hurts our ability to read fluently, and increasing the amount of space between words helps us process the text,” Johnson told Hamblin.

But the scientifically optimal number of spaces hasn’t been well studied, and the 2018 study, which consisted of only 60 subjects, was far from definitive. “Most importantly, the effects appeared early in processing, and spacing did not affect overall comprehension,” Hamblin continued. “And that’s what reading is all about, no? The fact that our eyes may move a little faster is less important than whether the concepts make it into our brains … Even in the studies where researchers have removed interword spaces altogether, reading comprehension is still very high. For example, Thai and Chinese are typically written without spaces between words, even though studies have found that when space is added between words, reading speed increases.”

“The standard comes down to aesthetics, tradition, conservation of paper and space—basically, the fact that reading is an act of much more than information delivery,” Hamblin continued at the link in our bio. For instance, “it goes against the findings of science that our words should be in a single color, usually black and usually on a near-white background, and usually presented in lines of a certain length … All of this is to say that if we really wanted to do evidence-based delivery of text for maximum comprehension, it wouldn’t be like debating one space or two. It would look totally different.”

Read more: https://theatln.tc/h7kJjyKE

📸: Tina Fineberg / AP

04/13/2026

I am _______ sea.
(at the / at)

#영어공부

04/13/2026

Cool story about an elementary school that has achieved super high reading proficiency rates:

Windsor Park Elementary in Corpus Christi motivates young readers with a Millionaires Club that has kids clamoring to get in