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How Can I Help My Child With His/Her Homework? Mr. Lepetit. General Tips. Make sure there is a regulated TIME and PLACE for your student to complete homework. This does not have to be his/her own room, but a place with few distractions
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General Tips • Make sure there is a regulated TIME and PLACE for your student to complete homework. • This does not have to be his/her own room, but a place with few distractions • By making homework routine you will also be creating a “homework culture,” in which homework is no longer an afterthought.
More General Tips • Teach your child to take initiative. • The best students are the ones who don’t let a hiccup in their homework become an excuse not to do it. • “I wasn’t there that day” --> “I got the information from a friend” • “I lost the book” --> “So I borrowed it from the library.”
Even More Tips! • Make sure they have, AND USE, a planner; writing it down on scraps of paper won’t do. • Teach them time management. If you see in their planner that a project is due in a few days, ask to see tangible progress days before. If none can be produced, ask them to do something.
Praise, Don’t Punish • Kids are motivated more by praise than they are by punishment. • Encourage kids to do better when they don’t do well. It may seem obvious, but children shut down completely if they feel that their efforts will only result in failures and punishment. Tell them you know they can do better.
Who’s Doing the Homework? • Ultimately, it’s okay for kids to make mistakes on their homework, just as it is in life. • Additionally, the teacher needs to see what the students are struggling with. • Doing it for them or correcting everything won’t teach them anything. It’s important that students learn from what they have done wrong, not that they get it right. You won’t be there on the SAT’s.
But I Don’t Want My Kid To Fail! • Of course not! There are ways to help: • Encourage them to deepen or expand their writing. • Have them take pride in a mature piece of work. • Make sure they followed the directions, rubrics, etc. • Help them if they don’t understand a concept or the steps. • Look up math equations, science formulas, book plots, and re-teach it if needed.
Set an Example • If kids see you reading or getting work done in a silent manner then they are more likely to follow suit. • If you watch TV while they are studying calculus they just might ignore that work.
“I Don’t Understand” • It’s often difficult for teachers to effectively and habitually communicate the motivation and reason for an assignment. • Additionally, students are not always the best at communicating what they have to do, which leaves you in the dark.
“You Have To Do What Now?” • In that case, ask to see the task, written out, or a rubric, if possible. • If that’s not possible, talk to your student about what they have been doing in class. Take a peek in their notebook and get an idea of what’s going on. (This can be more enlightening than you might think.)
Self Advocacy • Self advocacy is one of life’s most important skills. • Teach your child to ask when they don’t understand something. • Encourage them to get better feedback from teachers. • This is hard, especially among shy students, but with some encouragement, and a plan, they can do it. “Ask one teacher for help today.”
What happens to all those pencils? • Make sure that your child can account for their supplies. Notebooks, pens, pencils, reading books, a planner, these are all things that they will generally need. Get them in the habit of double checking their supplies!
That’s funny, last year you got A’s… • A good teacher pushes his/her students. • Unfortunately, this means that sometimes they won’t perform as well as they usually do… • BUT THAT’S OKAY! • A failure every now and again, treated properly, can keep kids in check. It can show them that they need to step it up and change how they are doing things. • Overcoming a failure can be more valuable than never failing.
More than one teacher! • Remember, your child’s education is not only the responsibility of the teacher, but of everyone at home, too. • If you can’t remember the quadratic formula, the emperors of Rome, or the point to The Sound and the Fury then don’t be afraidto look it up. You and your child can learn together. Your child will learn a lot by watching you.
Don’t be afraid to use Google or Youtube or Sparknotes to find information, they can be great resources. Even Wikipedia isn’t entirely terrible. Looking it up…
Working together • Students learn more from what they see at home then what they are taught at school, so keep in mind good habits and do your best to set good examples, and this will make your child a better student.
