Ideas to Help the Struggling Learner

1. Ideas to Help the Struggling Learner The following are simply ideas and not required. This is for the parent that wants to be sure their child will have a chance to succeed.

2. Kindergarten • Practice letter and sound recognition every night. • Game idea – make note cards for each letter with your child. Then have them draw a picture on separate note cards that start with the sound of each letter of the alphabet (ex: apple for /a/). Each night pick ten of each set of cards and play Memory with them. • Practice number and quantity recognition the same way as letter / sound recognition. • A good idea is to plan math for one night and letters for another.

3. First Grade • Practice word recognition every night. • Good website to visit for high-frequency words is http://www.theschoolbell.com/Links/Dolch/Contents.html • Website will give you flashcards, games, and activities • Practice simple addition and subtraction facts. • Make problems on one set of note cards, and the answers on another set. Play Memory with the problems and answers. At this point, child may still need something tangible to count (ex: beans).

4. Second Grade • Practice word recognition each night. • Use the website http://www.theschoolbell.com/Links/Dolch/Contents.html for words, flashcards, game ideas, and activities. • As you work on word recognition, talk about what each word means, and see if child can use it in a sentence. • Pracitice math facts every night. • Please ask your child’s teacher about touchmath if they are struggling with simple addition and subtraction. This is a program that teaches the child how to use the number to add and subtract without using fingers or tally marks. We have extra number lines if this is something you can use at home.

5. Third Grade • Please be sure your child is reading EVERY night. This is the most important thing we can do for these children. • If their reading is so labored that they are no longer wanting to even try, you can do things such as you read a page, then they read a page, or you read it first then they read the same story. • At this point, we need to make sure they are understanding what they read. Ask them things that are specific from the story, as well as things they will have to infer. • Please have your child practice math facts as much as possible. Ask them math facts as you are driving down the road. This is a good time as they are usually bored and driving you up the wall anyway.

6. Fourth Grade • This is the first year that students are tested for writing. • Try to let your child write in a spiral notebook as much as possible. Have them read the story to you. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar at this point. The most important thing is making sure we are getting ideas down, and that is makes sense. Reading their work to you is the best way to make it important to them. • Your child NEEDS to be reading EVERY night. We can not express how important this is. • The way to make this important to your child is to show that it is important to you. Ask them questions about what they read. Have them tell you the story. Summarization is very difficult, and the more practice they get the better. • Math at this level is mostly problem solving. • When you go to the store, take your child with you. Ask them to round, add, subtract the numbers as you do your shopping (it is ok for them to use a calculator). They have to decide what operation to use.