PARENT TALK

Research findings in education and ways to help your child - Volume 98-2

Parents as Tutors - Learners All

Helping Your Child to Focus

This issue is not about the oft-heard truism that every parent is their child's first teacher. We would like to demonstrate beneficial ways that parents can help their children with homework.

How we parents handle homework, whether assigned by the school or self-imposed, builds attitudes and skills that will influence our children's learning for years. For example, if we say: "Don't ask me how to do your homework. I was never good at it," what are we saying to our kids? They will do everything they can to avoid reading, writing and math homework. We just told them to treat it as an ugly, unmanageable burden.

On the other hand, if we say: "Let's sit down together to learn what has to be done," we create a calming, learning attitude. We indicate that we will learn together, and we respect the need for our child to practice the material assigned by the teacher In this way we gently direct our child to handle homework in a matter-of-fact, positive manner.

No parent needs to dodge his or her responsibility to tutor a child. You don't have to know any answers. All you have to do is help your child solve the problems that are posed. In the primary grades, where the basics of reading, writing, and math form the bulk of most homework, parents should feel comfortable in asking questions and in listening to responses.

You can guide most homework tasks with a series of simple direct questions:

"What is the assignment?" ("What is the problem to be worked out?") "How can you figure Out the answer'? What do you have to do first'? Do you want me to listen (to reading)? Do you want me to read what you have written? Do you want me to check your knowledge (for example, in spelling)?"

By asking those questions night after night, you are tutoring your child in a method for doing homework in addition to responding to the specific needs of the day. You are teaching your child to focus on the problem and to first ask herself how she might solve the problem or might approach the task at hand. You are also showing her that she is responsible for the work; you are there to listen, to guide, to check her work.

Specific tutoring tips are discussed in other articles in this issue of PARENT TALK.

Helping with Homework

Teachers and parents can work together to develop the abilities of the child. The teacher directs attention to the child's special needs and you, the parent, follow up with specific instruction and practice. (See the video: Parents as Tutors on page 7)

Working with Your Child

Children who have difficulties with early reading often think they cannot learn. It is very important to help your child develop a positive image of him/herself. To do this, you must first show your interest.

1. Establish a warm and friendly relationship.
- Ask questions to show your child that you are interested.
- Encourage your child to tell you about things he or she finds interesting.
- Show that you think your child is a good learner by praising accomplished tasks. ("That story had some hard words in it, but you read it very well," etc.)

2. Show a positive attitude yourself.
- Pay attention to your child and listening to what your child has to say.
- Demonstrate that you think your child is a worthwhile person and that the tutoring sessions are important.
- Try not to be late.
- Be prepared for each session and having the materials ready.
- Let your child know that you are human, and not afraid to make mistakes.

3. Help your child believe in his or her ability to succeed. When you praise work completed successfully, you are showing your child that he or she can do well in school. Success builds confidence. This can be achieved in many ways, for example, if you write a word such as when and your child reads it as what, don't say, "wrong." Instead, say the word aloud and ask your child to repeat it after you. After the word is repeated, praise your child and move on.

Working with Others While tutoring, stay in touch with the teacher who monitors your child's progress and can guide your work along the way. Follow the teacher's suggestions. Don't hesitate to ask for help when you meet a problem; it will enrich your personal contribution and send a signal to the teacher that your concerns are genuine.

Helpful Tutoring Hints for Phonics

Give your child specific, concrete guidance. Here are four techniques used in teaching phonics:

1. Associate the sound with the letter or symbol

Demonstrate the sound associated with a particular letter. EXAMPLE: "You know that the letter b usually stands for the sound that we hear at the beginning of boy. Can you think of other words that begin with this sound?"

2. Demonstrate the sound-symbol correspondence in words.

Use examples to show how a target sound can be at the beginning, middle, or end of a word. For example, b might be presented in simple words like boy robin, tub. Demonstrate where short vowel sounds can be found in words, such as the a sound in cap, bat, mad.

3. Substitute letters in words to demonstrate different sound-symbol correspondences and to produce new words.

For example, hop is changed to mop; bit is changed to bat. Play substitution games to see how many words your child can develop from the word that you give.

4. Supply rhyming words.

In a variation to the previous technique, ask your child to supply words that rhyme with a given word. Focus attention first on the unchanged sound in the rhymes, then point out the changed sound at the beginning of the words. Example: bat, fat sat, mat; mop, top, shop, pop.

Overview of Reading Instruction

It is important for you to have some basic understanding of the processes involved in reading instruction.

Early Reading Skills and Attitudes

Not all children learn to read at the same age. The development of certain attitudes and early reading skills, however, indicate that your child is ready to begin a more formal reading process. You may be assisting the teacher in determining which skills your child already has, but your main responsibility is to develop those skills and attitudes not yet attained. The following skills and attitudes represent those usually found in early reading programs.

- Visual Discrimination Skills. Your child is able to determine simple similarities and differences in colors, shapes, and objects. Your child can distinguish a letter and a word from other forms and can distinguish among words. EXAMPLE: From a set of four words such as mop, top, pot, toe, your child can separate top from pot

- A Auditory Discrimination Skills. Your child can distinguish familiar sounds as well as sounds represented by letters at the beginning and end of words. EXAMPLE: Your child can hear the difference between cat and bat or plane and plate.

- Skill in Following Directions. Your child can follow simple one-step directions as well as a series of directions with two or more steps. EXAMPLE: Your child can successfully follow a direction such as, "Tom, give the book to Mary and bring the pencil to me."

- Enjoys Listening to Stories. Your child exhibits interest in listening to stories, asks to be read to, and responds during story readings.

- Handles Books Correctly. Your child shows an understanding of how to hold a book, to turn pages one by one, and that print should be read from left to right.

- Attempts to Read. Your child tries to read, learns words, and asks for help in reading.

Word Recognition Skills

Several skills come into play, often simultaneously, when a child sees a word and successfully reads it.

- Phonies. Your child relates the letters in the word to the sounds those letters represent.

- Sight Vocabulary. Your child begins to increase the number of common words recognized on sight because he or she has seen these words frequently and is able to identify them through their use in sentences.

- Word Endings. Your child recognizes common word endings (noun endings, such as -es or -s; verb endings, such as -ed or -ing) and uses this knowledge when reading a word.

- Context. Your child uses the meaning of the whole sentence as a clue to identifying a word in that sentence.

Comprehension Skills

Reading is more than the ability to recognize and pronounce individual words. The purpose of reading is to communicate ideas. Beginning readers often concentrate so hard on recognizing each word that the meaning of the material is lost or forgotten. For this reason, teaching comprehension is an important part of teaching reading. Your child learns to comprehend as he or she learns to:

- Recall Details. Your child can understand and recall the important statements.

- Make Inferences. Your child is able to analyze, interpret, draw conclusions, and make judgments about what is being read.

- Relate to Personal Experience. Your child can relate what is being read to his or her own ideas or experiences.

Early Writing-Tutor's Guide

As with all homework tutoring, your first concern is to focus on the purpose of the assignment. What does the teacher want to achieve? Then you know whether to concentrate on the message or on some of the mechanics of writing, such as punctuation and grammar.

Estimated Writing.

At the early stages of writing, the teacher may want to help the child get a sense of telling a story using both words and pictures. Your role at that stage is to ask your child to tell you what he has written, trying to get him to connect what he says with what he has written and drawn. You are helping your child develop a sense that the ideas in his head can be communicated in writing.

Purpose is critical.

To help your child with a written assignment, you need to ask her what the purpose is. Is it to tell a story, to respond to something she has read, to describe something'? Those would be the three most frequent writing assignments in the primary grades. Depending on the purpose of the composition, you can ask first whether or not the purpose was achieved.

In a story, characters work on a problem over time towards some conclusion.

In a response, the writer is usually asked to write her reactions, her likes and complaints, and her reasons why.

In a description, the writer tells the reader about the scene so the reader has a mental picture.

As much as possible, you want your child to tell you that she achieved the intent of the composition, after she has reread it. If you feel that she has not achieved that purpose, you can then discuss remedies that are within her grasp.

Clear writing demands rewriting. After purpose, the most useful question you can ask about your child's writing is: "Is it clear?"

For a child in the elementary grades, you can call attention to confused or unclear statements with a simple comment: "This is not clear to me." In his explanation, your child will probably say the words that remove the confusion. "Now I understand," you reply. "Why not write those words in place of the sentence that was not clear?"

Self-correct the mechanics of writing. From month to month your child's teacher may ask the class to attend to punctuation, grammar, or spelling. As much as possible, you want your child to review her own writing to see if she has applied the punctuation marks or the grammar rules that the teacher has discussed in class. Encourage your child to circle and correct any mistakes that she thinks she has made.

If your child continues to miss some of the targeted errors, you can circle them and ask her to make the correction. Explain, of course, if she does not understand.

Your job is not to find every error your child has made. You are helping your child follow the lead of the teacher. If the class has been studying punctuation, focus on those marks that your child is now expected to use correctly. You can visit other problems on another day.

Tutor Guidelines

The typical adult wants to correct everything he or she sees I in a child's composition. Please remember that you want your child to make progress over many years of education. Do not expect perfection in the second grade. Your role as a homework tutor can be extremely beneficial if you follow these powerful guidelines:

1. Bring the purpose of the composition into focus.

2. Ask your child to clarify those statements that are confusing or opaque.

3. Lead your child to self-correct punctuation, grammar, and spelling by circling errors and writing the correction.

Through these techniques you will be able to have helpful, even friendly, conversations with your children over the compositions that they produce. Resources to help can be found on page 7.

Tutoring Early Math

The math curriculum continues to change (as does every other area of the curriculum), but the changes actually make it easier for the parent to help. Rather than abstract math functions, the recent emphasis is on "math in my world."

Your children are likely to bring home math homework that integrates math with literature or social studies and gives problems that children might encounter in their world. For example, the children might read about panda bears (literature and social studies) before being asked to estimate their size, distance in miles to where they are located, and length of time to extinction. By reading about the world-famous panda, children build a context for learning an important math function-estimating.

Create a real-world interest

A circus might be used in primary grades because it is an experience that delights young children. By first reading and talking about the circus, children develop a set of images and knowledge from which they can ask all kinds of math questions - some very simple, some more complex.

There are 6 clowns in a car. The car can hold ten clowns. How many more clowns can fit into the car?

Two elephants got on a teeter totter. Each elephant weighed two tons. How many pounds of elephant was the teeter totter holding?

Learn to solve problems

You can help your child by following a problemsolving routine and by providing concrete practice. The routine involves asking a set of questions about every math problem that the child brings home.

1. What do you know? (about the theme, the vocabulary, the math operation)

2. What do you need to know? (in order to solve the problem, to answer the question)

3. What did you learn'? (as a result of solving the problem)

Question #1 gives you and your child an opportunity to discuss the situation, to define terms, to help each other relate the problem to your own experiences. You may want to read together about a panda or the circus to build a common background.

Question #2 helps focus on the true nature of the problem, to decide what math function or operation is required to solve the problem. You may want to write key math terms on index cards in order to remind each other of the terms that need regular review. On the back of the card you can write the definition.

Question #3 is a critical step to reinforce the concepts that have been introduced. The review process gives children the chance to solidify the knowledge they have learned.

Use Hands-On Materials

In explaining or demonstrating concepts to your child, use household objects to make the point. Nothing is better for math practice than the bowl full of change you have on your dresser. With only 50 pennies, you can demonstrate all kinds of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts.

Take 5 pennies and add 6 more. How many pennies do you have?

You have 20 cents and buy gum that costs 15 cents. How much do you have left?

In a similar fashion, you can use various coins and bills to show how addition and subtraction work when buying goods. Translate each problem into a math fact, as it is real-world counting.

Quick Review

Each time you work with your child, end the time with a quick review of terms or math facts. If you do it consistently, it becomes a game.

Pull out vocabulary cards or write math problems on a card and ask your child to give an answer.

Here's the word "estimate. " What does it mean?

How much is 50 minus 30?

Keep it lively and enthusiastic!

Eight Steps to Guided Oral Reading

Guided practice in reading aloud is an important part of learning to read well.

1. Look through the story and its illustrations together. Point out different characters and objects pictured. Ask questions, such as "What is happening here?" "Why do you think the woman is doing that?" Encourage talk about the things in the pictures and what the story might be about.

2. Return to the beginning of the story. Have your child read the title and begin reading out loud.

3. Let your child read independently as much as possible.

4. If your child has very little self-confidence, try reading alternately with her. For example, you read one sentence, and your child reads the next one. You read a paragraph, then your child reads. As your child gains experience and confidence, read alternate pages.

5. Encourage your child to relate the illustrations to the text. Sometimes pictures will help your child to identify an unknown word.

6. After reading a story, ask your child to retell it in her own words.

7. Make reading together a pleasant social experience. Smile, talk, and laugh. Enjoy the story along with your child.

8. Compliment your child. After every session let your child know that she did something well. ("This story had some hard words, but you read it well"; "When you read the wolf's words, you sounded like a scary wolf yourself"; etc.)

Evaluating Your Child and Yourself

At the end of a tutoring lesson, record your judgment about your child's performance. Remember many factors influence the response. Your child may be sleepy, angry, or preoccupied about something that happened before the session. As you gain experience, you will improve your ability to assess responses.

Recording observations about yourself will enable you consistently to improve your skills. Consider your preparation, attitude, knowledge of skills, and reporting. Record your honest response in each of these areas. Identify the areas in which you feel you need improvement. Think about one thing you might do to become a better tutor. For example, you may really feel that you need to improve your preparation skills. Maybe you will decide to set aside a specified time every day to get your lessons ready. You should write down whatever decisions you make. This is one of the many ways that you can grow in skill as a tutor.

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