Some parents might decide the time has come to help their kids with homework a bit more diligently. But what to do might elude them.
Tracey Holloway, owner of Club Z In-Home Tutoring of St. Petersburg, Fla., offered some ways to help.
Q: What advice do you have for them when they see their report cards to ensure that they do well in school from here on out?
A: Well, I think that in most situations if you are getting a report card back that is surprisingly less successful than you had thought, it's best not to panic. It's early enough in the school year and it's time to strategically make a plan about how you can get your student's grades up to where you want them to be. There's obviously a conversation with the teacher to find out where they think your student is struggling ... so that you can work with the teacher, work with the student to bring up those grades by the time the next grading period comes around.
Obviously if this is a long-term pattern and you have a student who never does well or consistently has trouble getting up to speed at the beginning of the year, there might be some other issues to deal with, too. Club Z obviously does tutoring and I can always recommend getting a tutor if you cannot handle getting those students' grades up to speed on your own.
Q: When the kids are coming home with their homework, a lot of times parents don't know what to do to help them. What do you advise parents to do to make sure the kids don't get frustrated and stay focused?
A: I think there are several things they can do. Time management is a really important thing, especially establishing it at a young age. If you have a middle-schooler or a high-schooler and you haven't done it, it's never too late to start trying. At least with the smaller kids, if you can, try to establish a time of day -- and you can give them some choices to make them feel like they're in control. But try to establish a particular time of day when you do homework. I kind of recommend letting them have some playtime after school, but getting it in before dinner. If that doesn't work for your situation, if you can establish a time of day that's important so the child knows what's expected. ...
Make sure the environment where they're doing the homework, they have a special spot to do it, that it's lit properly, it's quiet, they have all the tools they need. ... And there's no television going on. Because I know that can be very distracting.
Q: Is it a good idea to talk through a question with them as they're doing it? Especially for younger kids?
A: I think that could be done well in either case. There are some kids who might respond better if you work through the problem and give them some hints to start with. But I caution against doing that too much and not letting them figure out some things for themselves. Especially for younger kids, it might be helpful to read through and say, "Do you understand what you need to do here?" And if they don't understand what they need to do, you can better explain what it is they need to do; again, without necessarily doing it for them. If they still don't understand, perhaps give them examples.
Q: And by the time they're in high school, hopefully they'll be doing this on their own.
A: Yeah. If you're establishing good study skills when they're younger, they'll grow up with them and they probably won't need all of this to be explained when they get into high school.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service www.scrippsnews.com)
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