Coaches

Literacy Tips for Parents

Helping Your Child as a Writer

At HOME:

• Go places and see things with your child, then talk about what has been seen, heard, smelled, tasted and touched. The basis of good writing is good conversation. All children benefit from stimulating experiences and rich conversations about those experiences- particularly with parents.
  
• Let children see you write often. If they don't ever see you write they might think that writing is only done at school. Let them see you writing notes to friends, letters to business firms, and stories from your life history. Share your writing with them and ask their opinion as you make revisions. Let them see that revision is a natural process in writing.
  
• Be as helpful as you can when your children are writing. Talk through their ideas with them; help them discover what they want to say. When they ask for help with spelling, punctuation, and grammar, offer that assistance and resist the temptation to be critical.
  
• Provide a suitable place for students to write. A quiet corner with a flat surface, a comfortable chair and a good light will do.
  
• Give gifts associated with writing: pens, pencils, desk lamp, pads of paper, diary or daily journal, age-appropriate dictionary, thesaurus, erasers, an old typewriter, etc.
  
• Encourage frequent writing. Be patient with a child's reluctance to write "on demand". Remember that frequency of writing is important to develop a habit of writing.
  
• Praise a child's efforts at writing. Resist the tendency to focus on errors and emphasize the child's successes. Look for the dozen things the child has done well.
  
• Share letters from friends and relatives, treating their arrival as special a event. Urge relatives and friends to write letters and notes to your child, no matter how brief. Help your child write thank you notes, when appropriate.
  
• Encourage your child to write away for information, free samples, or travel brochures.
  
• Focus on times when your child can be involved in writing: helping with grocery lists, adding notes at the end of parent's letters, sending birthday cards, writing telephone messages, writing thank you notes to letter carriers or other service workers, and preparing inviations for family gatherings.

At School:

• Ask to see the child's writing, and keep it in a special folder. Most writing should be kept, not thrown away.
  
• Be positive regarding the child's school writing. Your optimistic attitude toward your child's writing is vital toward strengthening the writing habit.
  
• Be primarily interested in content rather than in mechanics. What matters most in writing is words, sentences, and ideas rather than punctuation and mechanics. Be patient as your child learns and works on these things.
  
• Find out if children get writing instruction and practice on a regular basis. Daily writing is the most effective. Encourage your district toward smaller class sizes- no more than 25 for elementary schools and no more than 4 classes of 25 for secondary English teachers.
  
• Ask if every teacher is involved in helping students write better. Long answer quizzes and tests, rather than multiple choice tests, encourage students to write more.
  
• Determine if students are being asked to write in a variety of forms (letter, essays, stories, etc.) for a variety of purposes (to inform, persuade, describe, etc.) and for a variety of audiences (classmates, teachers, friends, strangers, relatives, and/or business firms). Each demands a different style, tone, approach, and choice of words.
  
• Check to see if students are reading the works of talented authors. We learn to write by writing but also by reading the writing of great writers.Good literature is an essential part of a good writing program.
  
• Be aware of "the grammar trap". It is not necessary to have a full understanding of English grammar for students to express themselves well. Time can be better spent learning to communicate effectively rather than spending the bulk of time learning the details of grammar.
  
• Encourage administrators to make sure teachers have plenty of writing supplies such as writing paper, teaching materials, copying machines, dictionaries, books about writing, and classroom libraries of great books.
  
• Work through the PTA and your school board to make writing a priority. Let everyone know that writing matters to you.

These suggestions come from the National Council of Teachers of English

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Math Tips for Parents

Parent Resources to Help Your Child in Math

• Encourage a positive attitude toward mathematics by being good role models.
• By the time students are 18, they have spent 13% of their waking time in school. Parents can greatly impact the 87% of time they spend outside of school.

"Student achievement will not improve much without study beyond the classroom." - California Mathematics Framework, pg.191

Most elementary teachers spend twice as much time on reading and language arts as they do on math. If parents have to make a choice of where to spend time helping support a child with academic subjects, it might be better to spend time doing math, rather than reading, to help correct the imbalance in our schools.

1. Do math with your children every day.

• You need to do it often to get better at it.

A. Play mental math games: anytime, anywhere (in car, in line at grocery store, waiting at doctor's office, etc.)

Target Math : Choose a target number (ex. 10) You give a number less than 10 and the student responds back with the number you add to it to get 10. You say 7, child says 3. You say 2, child says 8.

• Practice with 10- K through grade 2
• Use 10, 12, 15, 20, 25 through grade 3
• Use any number to 100 with grades 4 & 5
• Use any number to 1000 for grades 7 & 8
• Multiply by 10, 100 : Ask students to multiply a given number by 10. You say 4, students says 40. You say 8, student says 80. You say 14, student says 140. Then practice multiplying by 100: you say 2, student says 200. You say 35, student says 3,500.

B. Estimate often: How long is a million seconds? How many people are there in the world? How long is a minute? How long will it take to get to the grocery store? To the library? About how many square inches are on the top of the kitchen table? How many square feet are in the family room? How many cubic feet in your bedroom? Measure to find out!

2. Let your child see and hear you doing math

• Talk through math problems out loud.
• Let them see and help you double or cut a recipe in half
• Balance the checkbook, share parts of family budget
• Let them see how much monthly expenses are
• Let them add up the coupon savings
• Don't hide math- point out architectural design features, interesting shapes and symmetry in nature- that's math!

3. Explore the math in books you read to your children

• Not just in picture books, but in chapter books as well
• Determine when to finish a book and then figure out how many pages a day must be read to achieve the goal

4. Play games with your children

• strategies in chess are perfect problem-solving teaching techniques
• Monopoly (Let students be bankers)
• Logic puzzles
• Connect Four, checkers, Mancala, Battleship, Mastermind, Krypto, etc.

5. Keep doing math with your children as they get older

• let older children keep track of your miles per gallon
• let them help plan and budget meals
• calculate costs for a family vacation

6. Value children's (and your own) mistakes

• Figuring how mistakes could be solved more effectively is essential in learning mathematics
• Ask children to explain their thinking to you (often they can see their own mistake this way)
• Try figuring out a problem a different way
• Value mistakes as an opportunity to reflect on and clarify your own thinking. Self-reflection brings self-correction.

All things are difficult before they are easy; what's easy for one child may not be easy for another. Support your children to see themselves as mathematicians!

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