Good Habits Start Early

     Good habits start early.  Children need to be in the habit early to do homework and to do homework well.  This means, as a parent, a time each day needs to be set aside to do assigned work, review what has been learned, and even more importantly, share time to make school learning fun.
     When required work is done, as a parent, you can do one of three activities to build the skills:
1.  Pick a book that you and your child have agreed on and share the reading.  Model reading with appropriate tones, but more importantly, listen and be interested as your child reads.  Twenty minutes to thirty minutes every other night works well to build strong reading skills.  Be sure to discuss what the major themes are in the story and encourage your child to explore and discuss what the book means to him/her.
2.  Do math games.  This can be done through cards, money games, board games... or just plain verbal drills.
3.  Write!  Encourage your child to write to a friend, to a relative or to a pen pal.  Connect with another parent to have the children write to eachother.  Or you may want to involve a grandparent.  What makes this even more fun is when your child gets a letter back.
     The biggest key in this is to have fun.  If it feels like a chore to you, it will feel like a chore to your child.  If in the process, you notice gaps in your child's work, then call us, Learning Tree Tutors, and we can assist in filling the educational gaps.