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.
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.
