Parent Strategies for Supporting Children in Primary
Education
All parents want the best education for their children, for
they understand the need for learning to succeed in this world. But is sending
the children to school and setting up tuition for different subjects enough?
The world of information and technology is expanding rapidly and we need to
give our children a head start by helping them learn how to learn. In school
and college, we try to ensure that our children will learn the given subjects.
This was enough in the days gone by, but now we need to ensure that our
children know how to learn, so that they can cope with the expanding information
needed to remain current with knowledge plus skills they need to succeed in
their chosen careers. Just as we are not born with parenting skills and we
learn as we go along, through trial and error and advice as well as support
from elders, friends and family, we also need to learn about the skills that
will allow us to help our children learn. If we use these skills then we can
give our children that head start they need in learning.
For the sake of convenience our ‘children’ are given a name
Ravi and Lena. From childhood parents need to show a keen interest in the
learning of their children. It is not enough for just one parent to take
interest, for generally this task seems to fall on to the mother. Both parents
need to show interest in Ravi and Lena as well as their expanding world. This
interest in initially very open and enthusiastic, for we take great pride when
our child learns to crawl and then walk, to say the first words and recite
their first poem. Ravi and Lena, during childhood will learn by imitation as
their nervous system develops. They learn to imitate sounds and understand
meaning through the process of repetition. We are eager to help them recite and
repeat skills to perfect them. They learn also the skills of social behaviour -
how to behave with each other, with parents, uncles and aunts and so on. This
allows them to develop socially acceptable behaviour. Most parents would also
have encouraged their Ravi and Lena to count and to learn the alphabet and
communicate in their own language as well as English.
Going to School
Eventually comes the time for Ravi and Lena to go to school.
Parents are worried about how they will cope in this new environment? There are
going to be so many new things that their children will encounter. How can we
help the little darlings to cope? Every child wishes for its parents to be
there for them and help them and believe in them. The parents can show their
child that this support and belief is there, by showing keen interest in what
they do and say. They need to be aware of what subjects Ravi and Lena have got
each day. What topics are currently being taught in class? Spending time with
Ravi and Lena when they return from school and find out what activities and
learning took place during the school day. Check in their school diary, the
homework that has been allocated to them each day. Sit down with them, to be
available to go through the homework, if necessary. It might be useful for the
parents to read up what their textbook says, so they explain the things the
children do not understand. At the primary school level all parents are
generally able to handle the different subjects.
It is also useful to show interest in the comments the
children get for the homework that has been corrected by the teacher and go
through the areas of improvement with Ravi and Lena to ensure they understand
what is required of them to make the changes. At this stage the most important
help the parents can give is to with the basics of learning - reading, writing
and arithmetic.
Children from ethnic backgrounds are also learning in the English
Language. This means the child has to master the skills of another language. To
become fluent in another language it is important to learn to think in that
language eventually. Otherwise, upon hearing something in English, the child will
translate it into his own mother tongue, before he understands it. To respond
to that information the child will form the response in his language and then
translate it into English. This process takes time and the child feels unable
to respond rapidly. Also literal translation can sometimes be misleading.
The way to improve these language skills is to do the same things
you did to teach the child your language as a baby. Repeating the words and
identifying the meanings allows them to practice speaking in the language. A
good pocket dictionary is helpful in getting them to learn how to use the
dictionary, learn spelling and meaning of words. You can also have the local
language to English dictionary for example Hindi to English translation
dictionaries as well. This is particularly handy when you are not well versed
in English language yourself but have to ensure that your child masters that
language. Remember that practice makes perfect so it might be good to keep some
time aside during the day in which the conversation between all family members
can be held in English. This will give Ravi and Lena the similar confidence to
speak in English, as they have to write through the schoolwork they do. Once
the children learn these kinds of skills of learning a new language they can
learn other languages in future. If the children are learning any language during
their education, this approach will work with those too.
Beginning to Read
Reading books should be encouraged from childhood, by all
parents. Parents can encourage reading by many different ways. This can take
the form of time for reading stories to Ravi and Lena. Maybe this is something
the father can do after a hard day at work. Spending what is called 'quality'
time with children is emphasised by so many psychologists. For the father this
quality time can be made into story time and reading to his children. All
children love to hear stories. As the skills of understanding develop the
children can be encouraged to read the stories back to the parents. So with
help they will learn to read. One can ask the child to read the headlines from
the newspaper every morning while having tea. If this is viewed as an important
job they are doing for the parent then they will feel greatly motivated to
master this skill. Since it is expensive to buy books for the children, sharing
can be a good option. Parents with friends having other children of similar
ages can share and pass on books that have been read and outgrown. The children
must borrow books from their school library or even the local library. Reading
from comics and magazines for children is also useful. Now they can use various
computer applications to help with reading as books for all levels are accessible
for ipads. Indeed children from many family now own their own ipads!
Beginning to Write
Writing is the second basic skill for learning. How can we
help the children to learn writing? When beginning to learn this skill, the
parent generally holds the child's hand and guides it to write the alphabet or
words. Again practice makes perfect. Make the child practice this art. Force
and coercion is not the key for doing this. Just as we made reading fun, we
need to make writing fun too. Allowing the children to draw and use colour
pencils and crayons makes it fun to actually use paper and pencils. Get them to
attempt small words for example learning to write their own and other family
members’ names, names of their favourite foods and favourite things. Regular
genuine praise is very useful in motivating a child. They enjoy the pride their
parents take in them and so will work harder to gain approval. One can write
out sentences for them to copy. Certainly there are books available in the
market for the very same activity but parents can make their own. They can even
copy the pages from their favourite stories. This way they will not only learn
to write but also to understand the rules of grammar within the language.
Beginnings of Arithmetic
Learning numbers is the third basic skills needed by
children. Counting numbers is the start. Getting the children to count various
things and making it again a game can encourage this. For example, when you
have a bowl of fruit or vegetables, get Ravi and Lena, to count them in various
ways, like count the number of fruit that is there, count the number of
bananas, apples etc. This can be taken further into teaching them to add and
subtract. For example, if you have 4 bananas and 3 apples how many fruits will
you have in total? If you have 8 bananas and you eat 3 today, how many bananas
will you have left? Using coins of various denominations to add and subtract is
also very helpful. Tables can be taught in a similar manner. Using join the dot
pictures will help in not only co-ordination but learning numbers as well for
they have to trace the line moving from one number to the next so that a
complete picture is made and they can see what it is. Counting of cars of
different colours, counting the number of scooters you see on the way to the
market, etc. are all ways of help you child learn through fun.
Make Learning Fun
For learning has to be fun and when it is fun children want
to learn. Parents will not have a battle on their hands, every time they say to
their child - 'it’s time to do your homework'. For homework will not be seen as
a punishment but as time spent with their parents doing things that are fun.
This is particularly handy when the child enters the secondary school and
homework increases and learning becomes wider. At this level the learning is
generally through conditioning, trial and error, rote learning. When the child
advances in school and reaches secondary school they are mature enough to use
higher levels of learning.
