| As parents, you play an important role in the education of your children since after all, you were their very first teachers. When your child enters school, it is important that you stay involved in his or her education. Parents and teachers have to work together to ensure that children meet with success in their day-to-day school work. There has to be open communication between the home and school and support from each group for the other. Here are some tips that parents can employ at home to help their children with their nightly homework and some interesting parenting sites that you can check out if interested. | |
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HOMEWORK TIPS: GENERAL: |
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It is important for your child to have a quiet place to do his or her homework. Doing homework in front of the television or with the stereo blasting does not work for most children, even if they believe it does. Parents should also ensure that there are no distractions (ie., stereo, phone, television, etc.) in the child's bedroom if this is the location in which homework is completed. |
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This location should have all of the possible tools ready, so that valuable time is not lost searching for things. Here are some items that you should ensure are there: ruler, eraser, several sharpened pencils, pencil sharpener, pens (if appropriate), lined paper, blank paper, graph paper (if appropriate), markers, crayons, coloured pencils, dictionary (or a thesaurus if appropriate) and a math set and calculator (if appropriate). Your child may require things not listed here, so keep an ear open. |
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A routine time should be established for homework to be completed. Some parents may find it convenient to have their children complete homework immediately after getting home from school. Other parents may want it done directly after supper. The important thing is to get your child used to a schedule so that he or she will develop good study habits for the years to come. On the nights when your child has no homework, he or she can use this time to review the work done that day and do independent reading. If the schedule won't work for certain nights, then have an alternative schedule to follow on those nights. |
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Show an interest in your child's homework. Get him or her to explain what the assignment is and give feedback. Homework time will be much more pleasant if you give positive feedback (interest and praise) to your child regularly at the completion of an assignment. Also, make sure you have a positive attitude about homework in general, as this will carry over to your child's attitude. |
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Older children frequently need help organizing assignments. It might be helpful if your child was to use an agenda book or calendar. This would help him or her organize what is due and when it is due and help prioritize tasks. |
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It is equally important that children learn how to break large projects or assignments into smaller, more manageable pieces. These smaller steps can be recorded on the calendar or in the agenda book, too. By doing this, you teach your child to plan ahead and he or she won't come crying to you about a major assignment that is due the next day. |
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Make sure your child has a homework notebook or agenda to write assignments in at school. You should stress that this book is to come home every night, even when there is nothing assigned. Teachers often ask parents to initial homework books each night to ensure that the parents have seen them. |
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Writing assignments in this homework book should be done carefully. Everything on the board should be recorded in the same detail given. Otherwise, your child will come home with cryptic notes in his or her homework book and not know what to do. |
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When your child packs his or her schoolbag before coming home, he or she should do so while checking the homework book. In this way, necessary resources will not be left at school, making the assignment impossible to do or requiring a second trip back to school. |
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Try to relate your child's academic life to regular life. For instance, if your young child is helping to set the table, have him or her count the cutlery as it is put on the table. Or, when you are driving in the car or are in a grocery store, have your child read signs or labels on items. |
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The power of modeling behaviour is amazing. Let your child see you read the newspaper or a magazine. Even better, let your child see you reading a good novel for enjoyment. Children tend to model what they see, so don't be surprised if your child starts picking up books to read for fun, as wll.. |
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Have your child complete a relatively easy and quick assignment initially and then move onto the hardest work. Your child will feel a sense of accomplishment in being able to cross something off his or her homework list and he or she will likely feel confident going into the more challenging work. However, do not leave all of the hard work 'til last because your child will be tired by then and less able to focus on the tasks at hand. |
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Check over homework assignments each night. You are checking to see that your child has completed all of the work in a thorough and legible manner. Check with your child's teacher to see if he or she want you to help your child make corrections or not. Some teachers will want to see the work your child did without any corrections from parents, but not all. |
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If you notice your child seems to be struggling with a particular assignment, then discuss it with him or her. Find out what the difficulty is and see if you can sort it out. If the difficulties persist, notify your child's teacher and never complete your child's work for him or her. You may think this last item should go without saying, but you would be surprised. |
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If your child's work is not complete when it is due and it is because of unusual circumstances or because your child was having difficulties with the work, write a note of explanation to the teacher. Keep in mind that the excuses: "I had Brownie's" or "I was away at my Dad's" are not good reasons for the incompletion of homework. School work should always be the priority in these instances. |
| READING: | |
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Read with your children every night. This could involve having them reading aloud to you, you reading aloud to them or you both taking turns reading pages of a book, etc.. If you are not home some nights to do this, one option is to tape yourself reading a book or a chapter of a book and giving your child the tape recorder so that he or she can listen to the tape and follow along in the book. There are also taped books at the library which could be used for this purpose. |
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When reading predictable books with young readers (books that have repetition, pictures that show what the print says, and rhyming words), leave off some of the ending words in sentences to see if your child can predict what the word should be by using all of the clues given. |
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When reading with your younger children, have them point out certain words on a page. This should only be done after the book has been read because you don't want to interrupt the flow and the sense of story which are key reading supports. Once the book is finished, go back and point to different words and see if they can identify them or ask them to find certain words on a page. |
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Take frequent trips to the local library. You will find an endless supply of great children's books here without it costing you a penny. Have your children get their own library card, even your younger children. This way they can borrow library books on their own and they will feel very 'grown-up'. It is a great motivator. |
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When children are older, parents tend to stop the routine of reading with them every night. Reading with these children is just as important as reading with younger children, but it may take a different form. At this stage, parents may read some of the same books as their child and have book talks or discussions about the issues addressed in the book. This is a great way to connect with your pre-teenager or teenager. The books your child reads will usually contain dilemmas that are similar to the ones they or their friends face on a day to day basis. Discussing these situations while focusing on the fictional characters in the books, allows parents to get an idea of what is happening in their child's life and to get an indication of how he or she is likely to problem solve in real life. By discussing the book characters and not your child or his or her friends directly, a non-threatening atmosphere is established which will hopefully allow for good communication. |
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After reading a book with your child, discuss the book with him or her. Have your child retell what happened in the story in his or her own words. He or she could also draw a picture to show what happened in the story. You could also ask him or her questions based on what happened in the book or chapter. |
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Before finishing an unfamiliar story, give your child a chance to predict the ending of the story. |
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When listening to your child read, try to limit the interruptions so as not to interrupt the flow of the story. The flow of the story is a powerful clue to help your child predict what is going to happen and helps him or her figure out the vocabulary encountered in the story. If your child reads a word incorrectly, but the word he or she reads makes sense in that context, I would not stop the reading to point out the error. After the story is completed, you can go back and ask him or her what that words or words were. If the substituted word interferes with the meaning of the story because it doesn't make sense, then you can point out the error to your child during the reading. |
| WRITING: | |
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After you have completed reading a story with your child, ask your child to write an alternative ending for the story. If time does not allow this, have your child tell you an alternative ending for the story. You could discuss whether this ending would be better than the actual one and why or why not. |
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Upon finishing a story, have your child sequence the events in the story. I often use a sheet that has three boxes and the first box says, "First", the second box says, "Then" and the last box says, "In the End" or "Finally". With young children, you could have them draw a picture in each box and then write a sentence under each picture explaining what the picture is about. |
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Have your child write a letter or an email message to a relative. Children love to receive mail and the possibility of receiving mail should motivate them to write a response. |
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Make it a family practice of leaving notes for each other. These notes could be about who called or what time someone will be home, etc. and will provide lots of opportunities for communicating through writing. |
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Encourage your child to record his or her thoughts in a journal on a daily basis. Usually, such a record of writing is meant to be private, so you would have to respect his or her privacy unless it was clearly stated up front that you would expect to be able to read it. |
| MATH: | |
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Look for math related problems in daily situations. Engage the children in counting or patterning, telling time, adding and subtracting, etc. Your child could help determine the number of rolls needed for a large family dinner or if he or she is older, have him or her help you figure out how many floor tiles will be needed when you redo the kitchen. |
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If you don't understand math assignments or your child is struggling, contact his or her teacher for an explanation of the assignment or for assistance in whatever area is being problematic. |
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Also, at the beginning of the year, discuss with the teacher the manner in which math concepts are taught in that classroom. Initial instruction uses many hand held manipulatives (blocks, buttons, straws, etc.) to provide the children with practice on different topics. The children should have a solid grasp of the process before being expected to master the concept. |
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Check out these addresses for more information or ideas: |
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| http://www.nea.org/parents/homework.html | |
