Article # 24

Based on the interview with Barbara-Lynn Taylor, M.Ed. on “Raising Your Kids”

Aired on WXII-12

Wednesday, August 4, 2004

SCHOOL SUCCESS TAKES TEAMWORK: HOW PARENTS CAN HELP ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

from “School Success Takes Teamwork”, Part Four of the video-based parenting program, Successful Parenting

It’s the time in our lives when our children are in elementary school. We know we are part of our children’s educational team, but, we wonder, specifically, what should we be doing as part of that team? Because each child is unique, and learning needs will differ, of course the parent’s role will vary from family to family. There are, however, four concrete ways we all can help our children, beyond supervising and assisting with assigned homework (See discussion in the Taming the Homework Monster series). These four ways include continuing what we began when they were preschoolers as a reading resource, “playing” with math manipulatives, broadening their experience base, and emphasizing the good work and behavior that makes us feel so proud.

The nightly habit of reading to our children that we began in their preschool years should continue through elementary school – or as long as our children will allow us to read to them. As long as we pick appealing, fun stories and read them in an entertaining manner, our children will probably enjoy the family time and our undivided attention. In many families, nightly family reading time even continues on up to when the children are in middle school, and in some cases, beyond.

As they begin to read for themselves, we parents should be sure that we make time every day to listen to them. This should be a fun, family time that our children don’t dread and which doesn’t make them nervous. Home reading should be at the child’s instructional level; that is they can read it easily with only a few words here and there that may give them trouble. If at-home reading is consistently too difficult and frustrating, we should contact the teacher to discuss this. If our children do get stuck on a word, we should give them a moment to try to figure it out. Then if they still have trouble, we should just gently say the word and urge them to continue. This isn’t the time nor is it our role to teach them decoding skills. We want to be sure that struggling over a word doesn’t interfere with the child’s understanding of what’s happening in the story, or with their enjoyment of the moment. This is practice and an opportunity to increase their appreciation for reading. We want it to lead to a lifetime love of reading.

A second area in which we parents can be extremely helpful is in our children’s math studies. We have the unique opportunity to go one-on-one with our children and provide opportunities to use “manipulatives” – something our children can hold and use to figure out problems, as opposed to paper and pencil problems. Every child will benefit from using manipulatives, but for some children this kinesthetic approach is vital to their “getting it”. It is unfortunately often difficult in a classroom full of children to do as much hands-on work with manipulatives as teachers might like to do, so parents should help! Parents can do this by having the children count items, divide up cookies among a group of friends, measure liquids, figure distances, balance the checkbook, pay for purchases at the store, get change, and so forth. Math also plays an important role in sports as statistics, batting averages, yardage in football, and even scoring all deal with numbers, and in some cases, equations. An added bonus of performing manipulative math with our children is that it shows them math really is something they will use in everyday life. When children see math as relevant, they are more likely to be motivated to learn it.

The richer a child’s background knowledge, the better, so the third role we parents have as members of our children’s educational team is to take our children on trips as far away from home and as deeply into other cultures and experiences as we can. If travel is not possible, we should make every effort to take them to locations right in our own communities such as art galleries, history or science museums, libraries, and so forth, where they can have vicarious experiences.

Finally, in keeping with our emphasis on instilling and maintaining high self-esteem in our children, we should make a point of displaying evidence in a prominent place like the refrigerator of the good work and good behavior our children have accomplished. It is critical that we all catch the children being good!