Supporting Your Child's Elementary School Education
What reference books should I buy for my elementary school student?
Every house should have a dictionary. And I think that's the one thing that we can say you should have, for sure. If you have the internet, it's amazing. You can get rid of, you don't need a whole lot of books. You don't need encyclopedias. You don't necessarily need a lot of things because all of that informatoin is at your fingertips on the internet so that's of way to a kind save shelf space and save some money. I like families to have an atlas. I think looking at maps and being able to place things is really helpful for kids and atlases aren't terribly expensive so that's a great thing to have. I also think almanacs are great things to have. There's lots of little facts and pieces of information in an almanac so when you're child asks you: How big is the United States? or Where do bananas come from? These are the sort of things you can actually look up in an almanac and tell someone pretty quickly and I think it is really nice, although the internet is great, I think it is nice to be able to model for kids that we get information from. Most of the information that we get from books is a little bit richer than we get from the internet, not because the information on the internet isn't rich, but when you search something on the internet it will pinpoint you to exactly the thing that you want to know. And when you read a book you often have to kind of skim through the whole thing and sometimes then you get more infomration that you weren't even looking for but that is really helpful. And so that's one of the bummers about internet searches is that it pulls up the exact paragraph that you're looking for and you don't have to kind of broaden your horizons and see more.
What educational materials are needed for an elementary school student?
I think one of the main things is again, there should definately be books. There should be fiction books and story books, and there should probably also be some kind of non-fiction book. Some things that your child is interested in. So if your child is totally in to dinasaurs, have dinasaur books around. You can go through and do those. Magazines are great, if there's kids magazines. Even if your child just like to look at the pictures, so they always constantly have some new information, and some new questions coming into the house. In terms of actual supplies, pens, paper, pencils, obviously. Rulers, protractors, they'll use protractors as they get older. They'll use compasses, things you use to make circles. They'll use those. There's a huge market in educational toys, so some of the things are real simple. You've got your building blocks, and your legos, and some things where it's not even educational so much as it does force your child to think. And kind of think about the consiquences. So if they build out ward from the bottom, with their blocks they're gonna topple over. So, it allows them to kind of tangibly do some thing. Those kinds of toys are great. Little science tools even if they're not really official. Or really scientific, it gives kids a sense of doing some thing. They can talk about, oh we're digging up a fosil. Even if you're kind of cracking open that little fossil egg. It gives them the excitement of doing some thing that they think is really cool. There's a ton of educational games, and I think some of them are great. Some of the leap frog, and the v-techs, and some of the things where you can read to your child. A child can push little bottons and it will talk. There's these little fridge magnets where you can put up a letter. Every time you put up the letter, it will tell you the letter, and it sings a little song about what sound the letter makes. Those little things really are fun, and it gives little kids a sense of I'm playing, and it's actually they're learing at the same time. That's one of the greatest things I think a parent can do for a child is integrate learning and playing. So the child can't even tell the difference between the two.
What happens during a "parent-teacher conference"?
Parent teacher conferences are one of the few opportunities that parents get to really sit down and talk, one-on-one, with their child's teacher. And usually it's a time for the teacher to let the parent know how the child is progressing, often both in terms of academics and in terms of behavior, and settling into the classroom. And it's also a time when the parent gets to ask questions, whether it's about "I didn't understand this homework assignment or 'why isn't he learning to read when my cousin's kids are learning to read,' or 'what can we do over the summer to help him progress or do better in school next year.' The way parent teacher conferences run often varies by teacher and by parent. Almost every teacher will walk into a parent teacher conference ready to run it, they're not going to rely on a parent to run it. And sometimes it's to their detriment, because they'll come in and they've got a folder of work they want to show you, they've got all this information they want to give the parent, and sometimes the parent has questions, but the parent doesn't speak up because the teacher keeps talking, and the twenty minutes are up and the parent walks out feeling they didn't get their questions answered. And if parents are a little shy, these parent conferences go quickly, so I always encourage parents to go in, a) go in with questions, or whatever they want to know, and to b) indicate to the teacher that they do have questions that they want to ask, whether it's just by having a list out, or by saying, 'I do have a bunch of questions I want to ask you, please tell me what you want to tell me but I have a bunch of questions," just so the teacher doesn't feel that she has to fill up empty space, so that she can get done what she wants to get done and they can move on to the parent's questions.
What is a "tutor"?
A tutor is anyone who teaches your child individually. I always think of it as one-on-one. It could be a small group, but the main difference between a tutor and a teacher is a teacher is teaching to a group: they are trying to present information to a group of children and hoping that more of them get it then don't get it. A tutor is the person who is going to tailor that information or lesson particularly to a child. A tutor is able to redo it if the child needs it to be redone or teach it a little differently if that is what the child needs. A tutor can be a professional tutor. It could be a parent or an older sibling. It could be a high school kid from down the street. A tutor is basically anyone who can step in and tailor the information to your child and help them learn it.
How can a tutor help my elementary school child's performance?
Tutors come in handy for a couple of different reasons. Sometimes tutors just act as one more person to present information to your child and support your child's education. Some kids are great at learning in a big setting and picking up information that they need; other kids tend to just day dream straight through group lessons or don't understand at the pace at which a particular teacher is talking. So sometimes a tutor can just kind of bring it back, put the lesson at the right pace and present it in the right way for your particular child. Sometimes a tutor steps in when your child needs help with something that you simply can't help with. For example, if you have fears about math or never learned it well, or, English isn't your first language and you want someone else to come in and do the grammar and the writing with your child. Tutors also play a really interesting role because tutors aren't invested in your child the way you are as a parent. I've had a lot of parents who just say about working with their child, "He screams at me and we end up in a huge fight." The great thing I always tell a parent is, as a tutor, I don't have to have dinner with your child after we work together. I can work, I can push him, he can hate me by the time I leave - I hope he doesn't, but he can. By next week it will be fine. Parents can sit down and have family dinner and talk to him about other things, and not have all of that pressure from the tutoring hanging over their heads. As a tutor, I'm also not sitting there worrying, "Okay, is he going to go to college? Where's he going to go? What's he going to be? Is he going to be just like me or just like my partner?" I just have to focus on the issue at hand. Tutors can come to teach your child minus all the emotional baggage that you bring into the situation when you try to help your child with schoolwork yourself.
