Improving Your Child’s Learning and Grades

Improving Work Habits and Skills

Homework
Homework provides an important chance for students to repeat skills taught in school. Research shows that students who do homework learn more than those that do not. In addition, the more time a student spends doing homework, the more learning takes place. As a parent, you play an important role in helping your child do their homework on their own and on time. If your child needs help in this area, the Center for Effective Parenting has a booklet entitled Homework: How to Motivate Your Child that provides practical ideas for monitoring and structuring your child’s homework times.

Studying Skills
Studying for tests at home provides another important chance for students to repeat material taught in school. Since studying for tests at home is not always required by the school, you need to help your child develop this habit. Since learning requires repetition across time, it is best for your child to begin studying several nights before each test rather than “cramming” the night before. It is also important for your child to use good study methods during his or her study time. Effective studying requires many different skills. Parents can teach these skills to their children in early elementary school. As a parent, you play an important role in teaching your child to spend the time to study and to use good study skills. The Center for Effective Parenting has a booklet entitled Strengthening Your Child’s Home Study Skills (www.parenting-ed.org) that has things parents can do to help their children learn specific home study methods.

Organization
In order to regularly do homework and study at home, students will need to plan ahead and get their books and papers to and from school. Disorganization can be a part of the cause of poor grades. Organization and planning ahead are learned skills. Children often have a hard time organizing themselves and staying motivated to practice good organization skills. You play an important role in teaching your child how to stay organized and in keeping them motivated to practice the skills. The Center for Effective Parenting has a booklet entitled Improving Your Child’s School Organizational Skills (www.parenting-ed.org) that has things parents can do to help their children write down assignments, bring home books and materials, keep track of papers, and plan ahead.

Class Participation
Participating in classroom activities provides a critical opportunity for learning new skills. Participation helps students make deep, meaningful connections in the mind that are important in learning. Participating in class involves several types of behaviors as listed in the table at the right. Signs of problems with classroom participation can include low grades, incomplete work coming home as homework, and low grades on classroom papers. If your child often does not know how to do homework, this could be a sign that he or she is not participating well in class. Teachers typically assign homework as a drill or repetition of skills already taught in school. Teachers are the best judge of your child’s level of class participation.

Although you are not present in class to monitor or encourage your child to participate, there are some things you can do to improve your child’s classroom participation. The Center for Effective Parenting has a booklet entitled Improving Your Child’s Classroom Participation (www.parenting-ed.org) that provides some specific ideas you can use to improve your child’s classroom participation.

Teaching work and study habits

Parents play a very important and specific role in helping their children get good grades. You need to teach your children to use good work habits and skills. Since habits and skills take time to develop, you should expect to spend most of the school year working with your child. Students form their work habits at the early grade levels. A good time to work with your child is when the school load increases(for example, about 4th grade). You can successfully teach a child as young at 9 years of age to use many of the same study techniques as high school and college students. At first, you will need to put in extra time teaching your child the skills and monitoring your child’s use of the skills. You will probably always need to stay involved with your child’s education; however, you can expect to spend less time as your child becomes more independent and skilled.

You can use this four step process to teach your child good work and study habits.

• Develop and communicate high expectations about your child’s work and study habits
• Teach your child how to use the specific work and study skills
• Monitor your child’s use of the skills
• Reward your child for using the skills

Assessing the problem

In many ways, getting good grades is like a game. Successful students know how to play the game. You will better know how to help your child if you know why the grades are low. A good place to start is for you and your child to talk with the teacher about what goes into the final grade. The following questions can be helpful when talking with the teachers.

What elements go into the final grade?
A grade in a course is usually made up of several elements such as those listed in the table below. Every class may be different. Find out what specific elements are included in the subjects with low grades. Find out how many of each element there are for a reporting period.

How many points is each element worth?
Find out how many points each element is worth in the overall grade. In early elementary grades, sometimes every element is worth the same amount. For example, a homework paper is worth 10 points and a test is worth 10 points. In later grades, it is common for the value of each element to differ. For example, a homework paper can be worth 10 points, while a test can be worth 100 points.

How did my child do on each of the elements?
If you know how your child did on each of the elements, you will have a better idea on where to focus your attention in helping your child. For example, you may find that your child had several zeros on homework papers as a result of not turning them in. This may suggest a need to work on organization. Other children may have low test grades, which might suggest a need to work on improving study skills.

What kinds of suggestions can you give me to help my child bring the grade up?
You and your child can use the answers to the above questions to keep up with the current grade in the class and to make any adjustments to work habits. The teacher may also have some good ideas your child can use to pull up the grades.