Dear teacher,
I am a stay-at-home mom who is anxious to help my toddlers get a head start on learning. What is my best approach?
Dear parent,
One of the best ways to start toddlers on the path to being a learning star is by talking to them. This is true whether you are with them all day long or have more limited time, because you are a working parent.
It is sad, but true, that young children from poorer homes usually hear far fewer words than those from well-to-do homes. The difference in the number of words that are heard in an hour is absolutely enormous — more than 1,000.
It is believed that this greatly affects the variance in IQ between economic groups. So talk, talk, talk to your children, and whatever your income level is will not be a factor in them being smart students.
Incidentally, this does not mean hearing words on television; this simply doesn’t help children.
Beyond just talking to children, introduce them to the world, and talk about it. Get out of your home. Go to stores, restaurants, parks, museums, and libraries — anywhere they can have new experiences. Let them see rivers, lakes, the ocean, bugs, and birds, planes, trains, and buses. Have them experience elevators and escalators, and look at the day and night sky. Take them on walks and car rides. Introduce them to all of your relatives. Each new experience will widen their horizons. The more they learn about the world, the more they will understand when they begin reading about it in books.
Stopping homework procrastination
Dear teacher,
Our son puts off and puts off starting his homework every night, then doesn’t have enough time to finish. Is there any way to cure or at least improve his tendency to procrastinate?
Dear parent,
For many families, a homework contract resolves a lot of homework problems. The agreement between parent and child can state a specific time for starting homework. Both must talk over the terms and agree to them. In certain cases, it may be helpful to have rewards and penalties to incentivize the child to follow the terms of the contract. You should look at our contract on dearteacher.com. It is found under Skill Builders/Study Skills.
The tendency to procrastinate can be also be reduced by having you and your child look over his homework at the start of a homework session as defined on the contract. Then, together you can decide which assignment will be the easiest to do. Starting on the easiest assignment will reduce your son’s reluctance to start his homework. You can further push your son to start his homework by not letting him do anything else before his homework is completed.
Math test anxiety
Dear teacher,
You have written about math anxiety being a real phobia that can actually be seen in the brain patterns in the regions associated with problem-solving. We have strengthened our fourth-grader’s basic math skills, so she can handle her homework okay. However, she still panics on tests. How can we help her do better?
Dear parent,
You have taken the first step in helping your child grasp basic math skills. Now you need to help her learn to unfreeze her mind when she is being tested.
Instruct her look over the entire test to find just one problem that she can answer. Then she should look for others that she can solve. By solving a few problems, her confidence will be enhanced, and she will be ready to go back to the start of the test.
Should she get stuck on a problem, teach her to draw a picture of it to make the solution easier.
Cyber safety resources for parents
Dear teacher,
What are the absolute basics that our children should know about what they should not do online? They might not pay attention to us. Who would they believe?
Dear parent,
One of the best places for parents to get good safety information is on the Facebook website www.facebook.com/safety. Here you will find sections for both parents and teens. Do read the information under “Tools & Resources,” which includes these topics:
• Updating account information
• Protecting your account
• Controlling who sees your information
• Unfriending someone
• Blocking someone
• Reporting abusive or offensive content
• Social reporting
• Learning advanced security features
It is also helpful to read all the safety and privacy sections on this website.
Another good resource for parents is the website of the Family Safety Online Institute (www.fosi.org). It offers tips, tools, and rules of how parents can confidently navigate the online world with their children.
Parents should send questions and comments to deart
© Compass Syndicate Corporation, 2016.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
