As a parent, helping your kids get a great education is one of your most important goals. With strained resources in many public schools, though, this goal might seem hard to achieve. One of the most difficult challenges to overcome is ever-increasing class sizes. Although you can’t control the number of teachers at your child’s school, the good news is that you can control the outcome of your child’s education if you take the right steps.
Get to Know Your Child’s Teacher
When dealing with large class sizes, it’s easy to blame the teacher for any deficiencies you notice in your child’s education. To help avoid this blame game, it’s a good idea to get to know your child’s teacher. Both digital and in-person contact will help you gain a better perspective on who is looking after your child so that you can best know how to respond when you notice issues.
Be Active in Homework
Although there aren’t many children who enjoy homework, you can help make it more enjoyable and fruitful by becoming more involved in the process. Homework can help your child to review concepts that they’re learning while in school. The benefit of homework, though, is that you can provide individualized attention to address any specific questions that your child has.
Recruit Some Extra Help
Ultimately, if you notice gaps in your child’s learning, you may not be able to bridge the gaps yourself. That’s when something like an online special education program can be extremely beneficial. By recruiting extra assistance to help your child in areas they are struggling with, you can help give your child the confidence they need to make progress even in the midst of difficult circumstances. When you are concerned about your child’s learning ability, it’s best to enlist the help of a professional tutor who specializes in the subject your child is struggling with.
If your child isn’t doing well in a subject, then it is safe to assume that the teaching methods their teacher is employing and the level of one-on-one support they are receiving is not sufficient. This does not mean that the teacher is bad at their job, but rather than your child probably a learning style that is not fully compatible with that particular professional’s teaching methods.
In this situation, it is a good idea to seek out the help of a professional tutor who specializes in the subject that your child is having difficulty with. For example, if they are doing poorly in their English classes, then you should find an English tutor.
Having one-on-one tutoring sessions with this educational professional a few times per week could make a huge difference to your child’s ability to cope with their English assignments and tests.
The reasons for this are as follows; if, for example, your child has trouble grasping grammar rules and as a result of this, tends to not only perform badly in English grammar tests but also in English essay assignments, then a tutor could pinpoint the exact issue they are experiencing (for instance, they might be struggling to understand which prepositions to use for certain types of sentences) and have them do grammar exercises that will enable them to overcome that particular issue. This should then improve their performance in both grammar tests and any written assignments they are set by their English teacher.
Additionally, their tutor can adapt their teaching approach to suit your child’s unique learning style. For example, if your child tends to understand things better when they are presented to them visually, the tutor can use graphs, flow charts, and other visual forms of educational exercises that will enable them to easily comprehend the information that they are being taught.
Give Them What They Need
In a crowded class, something as essential as basic classroom supplies may be hard to come by. To help prevent your child from suffering due to a lack of resources, it’s a good idea to pack extra school supplies that your child may need throughout the day. Items like pencils, paper, notebooks, and other necessities can come in handy during times when classroom supplies are exhausted. Plus, this simple act of caring will show your child that you are invested in their success.
Generally speaking, when a child isn’t doing well in a particular subject, they will often experience a decline in their motivation to study it, simply because it makes them feel like a failure. As such, even if your child knows that they need to devote more time to this subject outside of school hours, they might find the prospect of sitting down at a desk and doing even more challenging homework very unappealing.
One way to overcome this problem is to provide them with some fun alternative ways to learn. For example, if they’re falling behind in history, you could take them for a trip to an interactive history museum, as your child may find the way in which the educational materials are presented in this setting far more interesting than if they were reading the same information from a book.
Similarly, if they’re struggling with their times-tables, you might want to look online for educational songs or games that will provide them with a fun way in which to memorize these multiplication tables.
Pay Attention
Above all, it’s important to pay close attention to your child when you know that they’re in a challenging educational situation. This will allow you to catch problems sooner so that you can address them more effectively. Thus, what starts out as a challenge can turn out to be a great period of growth for you and your child..
Find Fun Ways to Help Them to Better Understand the Subject
Generally speaking, when a child isn’t doing well in a particular subject, they will often experience a decline in their motivation to study it, simply because it makes them feel like a failure. As such, even if your child knows that they need to devote more time to this subject outside of school hours, they might find the prospect of sitting down at a desk and doing even more challenging homework very unappealing.
One way to overcome this problem is to provide them with some fun alternative ways to learn. For example, if they’re falling behind in history, you could take them for a trip to an interactive history museum, as your child may find the way in which the educational materials are presented in this setting far more interesting than if they were reading the same information from a book.
Similarly, if they’re struggling with their times tables, you might want to look online for educational songs or games that will provide them with a fun way in which to memorize these multiplication tables.
