Dear teacher,
Our private school is giving no instruction in keyboarding. Children are expected to pick up this vital skill during the summer by using one of the many keyboarding programs that are available online. My children in third and fourth grade made little progress last summer. How can I help them?
Dear parent,
As we all know, children spend a lot of time on the computer. What we really want is for them to learn to keyboard before they develop their own hunt-and-peck system.
There are a great number of keyboarding programs that are free online. Many include games that can motivate children to learn to keyboard. You can use a search engine to investigate these programs and choose one that offers a sound educational approach. Then, to ensure that your children learn to keyboard, plan to set aside a certain time each day in which they concentrate on learning keyboarding skills.
Do not expect your young children to become expert at keyboarding overnight. Remember how long it took you to learn to type.
How soon children need to become proficient at keyboarding depends greatly on their individual schools. Why don’t you have your children’s teachers spell out exactly what skills they will need to have now and next year? You can get a general idea of the computer skills children need at each level in grades kindergarten through eighth by visiting the website www.hw21summit.com and looking for “The New Proposed pre-K–8 Written-Language Production Standard.” This list was developed in 2012 by educators and researchers at an Educational Summit in Handwriting in the 21st Century.
Helping a middle-schooler get writing skills
Dear teacher,
My middle-schooler son is a terrible writer. With all of today’s technology, is it really important for him to become a good writer when he is able to express himself so well orally?
Dear parent,
Even today it remains necessary to express one’s thoughts in writing. For example, think of the importance of e-mail in so many professional fields and the need to write memos, reports, and instructions.
Unfortunately, for most children, writing is the weakest skill of the traditional three Rs. This is not good news, because with each year in school, children’s skill in putting words down on paper plays a larger role in the grades they receive.
Since you say that your son expresses himself well orally, have him try using a computer program that turns speech into writing. First, he needs to think of what he wants to say. After he has finished, he can then edit his work.
“Practice makes perfect” holds true in becoming a good writer. The more your son writes, the better writer he will become. This summer, have him write 100 words every day at the same time in a journal for practice. Because reading and writing are tied closely together, do encourage him to become an avid reader.
Simple ways to improve math grades
Dear teacher,
While my children do all right in math in elementary school, they usually get just Bs. Do you have some tips that might help them get As.
Dear parent,
What you do to sharpen your children’s math skills will depend on their age. Since your children are receiving good grades, slight tweaks could result in even better grades.
Our No. 1 suggestion for helping children in elementary school is for them to neaten up their work if it is sloppy. Young children may need to work on the correct formation of numbers, while older students should make sure the numbers in problems are properly aligned. It also helps at this level to make manipulatives to use at home to reinforce basic concepts and to sing the basic math facts to make recalling them easier. In addition, there are a great number of websites that let children drill on the basic facts if that is part of the basic problem.
Students in middle school may find it easier to solve word problems if they use smaller numbers in place of the actual numbers in a problem. It also helps if they underline the key facts in a problem and cross out unnecessary ones. They should also circle the question that they need to answer. Sometimes, drawing a picture can help in solving problems.
There is an old adage that math teachers use: The more problems you do, the better you will become at doing them. Try this approach. If only the odd problems are assigned, ask your children to also do the even ones.
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