What Can We Do at Home?

Parents often ask us what they should/could be doing at home to help their child’s learning.  The absolute most important thing that you can do for your child is to create an environment that helps them to LOVE learning and to truly believe that it is fun and that it is a part of what you do all the time.  The links on this website for each subject are a starting place for practice but there are many other things that you you can help your child at home.  Some ways that you can do this are:

–  Have conversations with your child.  Talk! –  Children who hear stories (even about your work day) and the vocabulary words that come with them have far better literary skills than those don’t.  Listen! – Kids need the opportunity to orally tell stories to develop the skills needing to write them.  This will also go so far in building your child’s self-esteem.  When children know that their voice is heard and they are valued they are more confident and willing to take risks in all areas.  These conversations don’t need to be anything magical or at special times for them to be effective.  Use your busy times to your advantage!   The car on the way to soccer, grocery shopping and of course dinner time are great times to chat.

– Read!  Read!  Read!  For your child to become a better reader, they need to read. They can read books from school, from home, magazines, comics, books online, cartoons, the cereal box…anything and everything!!!  The key is to really try to help your child become engaged in reading and to not have it be a punishment where they are being forced to do their daily reading time.  One way for them to integrate reading into their life more is for them to see you do it   Never underestimate how much your kids look up to you and how much influence you have even as they get older!  I know how busy life gets but even a 10 minute family reading time where everyone sits and reads either together or your own book can do wonders to help motivate kids to read.  Write Too! Similarly, try to incorporate writing into daily life when you can.  See your kids write a grocery list, an email, a thank you card and have them do the same!  For fun writing activities try suggesting that they write a comic or write a story together as a family.

– Don’t forget about Math! Many parents feel intimidated by math either because they feel like it was hard for them as a child or they don’t understand the way that it is being taught.  Having a positive attitude about math and making it fun will help your child want to learn more.  There are so many math games (cards and dice etc) that are fun to play as a family and can help your child learn their basic facts and other important concepts.  I will be posting a list of these in the blog section soon but crib is one great game that can be great!  Also, point out the math involved in real life situations to your child.  It is so neat for them to see how math is everywhere and part of so much that we do every day!

– Encourage Inquiry!  Children are naturally curious!  When you see that they are passionate about something encourage them to find our more about a topic and research the things that are interesting them.