Communicating the importance of education at home

As a teacher, it is always frustrating to feel as if education is not being valued at home. While some parents simply don't value education, others overlook the importance of adequately communicating the importance of education with their child. By working with students, checking up on them and motivating them to use their education, parents can communicate to their child how importance they feel education is for them.

At my school and many others, teachers or the whole school have provided students access to sites that allow them to practice their skills at home with immediate feedback. Two of these sites are StudyIsland.com and IXL.com. StudyIsland provides work for state standards in Reading and Math (more on the way) for students. Not only can students work on questions, there are games (associated with questions, of course!), lessons, print outs AND teachers can personalize work for their class or a particular student. Parents can view how their child is doing in comparison to other students at the school level, state level and national level. IXL has a lot of similar features, but focuses on math exclusively.

In addition to working with students, parents should display a genuine interest in their child's learning and motivate them to use the education. While there are many ways to show interest (talking to teachers, coming to school, checking homework, etc), simply talking to your child about their learning everyday can go a long way. Not only does it help your child develop their communication skills (added bonus!), it reinforces daily that their life and education are important to you. If you couple this with ideas of using their wonderful education in the future, you are communicating to your child that education is important and valuable.

Always,
Dwight