Homework Exams And Report Cards
What's the best way to help my child with his homework?
The key is to get involved with your youngster by asking him what he's learning. So if he's studying about the Civil War, ask him a question about the Civil War, if he's studied that or not, and what he understands about that. That's the best way to do it.
What can I do about a child who refuses to do homework?
For a child that refuses to do homework, you can consider a couple of effective tools that you have as a parent. One, you can have a conference with your child's teacher to get a sense of why, from the teacher's perspective, is the youngster refusing. There could be a number of reasons for that: fear, lack of confidence, not understanding the basic concepts, missing some pieces. It may not be absolute refusal, it may be a sign of frustration, so a parent-teacher conference can help clear that up.If it is a defiant activity, then the parent needs to sort of probe a little bit to find what the student is reacting against. Often times there's been trauma, and that's one of the signs, that there's trauma in the child's life, and he's taking it out in this manner of refusing to do homework because he has control of that. "You, as a parent, aren't going to force me to learn. I'm going to teach you because I'm upset with you because you're divorcing my daddy" -- something like that. You need to find out if it's because of defiance -- there's something there. It's not the homework in and of itself. Or it may be that the level of homework is too high for the youngster, but the teacher and the parent can both resolve that, by a conference, by communication.
What can I do to prepare my child for an exam?
As a good parent preparing your child for an exam really involves understanding the curriculum, understanding what are the standards that the teacher has to teach. Let's say in fourth grade, and let's say in fourth grade mathematics, so you understand that and have a sense of what this exam is about. Then you're working with the youngster and talking to him, asking him questions about those particular standards and that is a real good way of helping the younger complete the homework. Asking to see the paper at the tailend when the youngster is done, and then asking him, "Can you explain problem number 3 to me?", for example. If you get a sense that he understand problem number 3, it's fine. If you get a sense that he just put an answer down and didn't understand, then you know that there's a problem, and you're going to have to probe a little bit more. Ultimately, you may want to have a parent/teacher conference, if you find that maybe he doesn't understand problem two, ten and twenty. There might be something wrong there and you might want to have a conference with the teacher.
What should I do if my child does poorly on a test?
If your child does poorly on a test, you want to be sure, number one, not to over-react as there could be a lot of factors contributing to that result. Sometimes your child may have thought he was going to learn and be tested on these things, and because of miscommunication, the instructor, the teacher was teaching on these things, so he studied the wrong material. Basically you need to find out what are the causes of the poor results, and that takes exploration with your child and with the teacher. Communicating with the teacher is really a good venue to clearing the air and finding out really what's going on, especially before you start blaming the child for his failure in this history test let's say.
Can I prepare my child for a standardized test?
The reality is, in order to prepare your child for a standardized test, you have to understand that the standardized test is really difficult to prepare for the night before. The standardized tests are measuring standards, the areas of knowledge that are, let's say, covered in the third grade, or parts of the third grade, whatever the year is. So in order to help with that, you have to start at the very beginning and make sure that the youngster is doing the classwork and the homework all the way through. That's the best way. Avoid cramming the night before. That doesn't do any good. Make sure that the youngster gets a good night's sleep so that he's confident going in. The key thing with a standardized test, because it is not a teacher-made test, there's a lot of hoopla. Oftentimes, that creates a lot of nervous tension with the youngster. The best thing the parent could do is to provide confidence for that youngster. Ease them into taking the test. Let them know this is one of a series of tests that he's going to go through during his educational career, and they'll do fine in it.
What happens if my child does poorly on a standardized test?
Actually, when your child does poorly on a standardized test, it's a message to you as a parent, and it's a message to the teacher, and it's a message to the child himself. You need to involve your child in understanding, "Hmm, what do these scores mean?" On one level, it's a measure of your child's progress at that particular grade level, saying your youngster is achieving a little less than that. On another measure, another way of looking at that is you are measuring the school. If the standardized test shows that the school is struggling, that has to be looked at at a different level and should not be considered the child's responsibility. That could be the principal's responsibility to look into that. That's why we have school-site councils, for example. That's why they're looking at the larger issue. There's really two factors involved: one is the personal level, and one is the school-wide level and as a parent, you need to be able to ask both of those questions: "What's going on here at the school, and with my own child?"
What should I do if my child gets a bad report card?
When your child receives poor marks on his report card, one of the things to do is sit down with him, have a conversation about what he plans to do to correct that low grade in History, or whatever it might be. The key is: Do not ask, "Why?", because then you will provide a platform for him to make excuses about why and it doesn't matter why; it's, "Where are we gonna go from here, and how are we gonna get there"? That's the key. That's what you focus on when your youngster has a poor report card. How are we gonna make this better? Oftentimes that involves a teacher meeting and I can't underscore that enough. If there's a poor report card or one that you're not satisfied with as a parent; you talk with the child, but you also talk to that child's teacher.
