1. Talk to the teacher often about your child's progress. Ask for activities you can do at home that may strengthen your child's skills and improve areas of weakness.

2. Expect your child to spend 1/2 hour or more each night on homework. Support this effort with a well-lit, well-equipped study area and planned at-home routines.

3. Make reading important. Stress its real-life benefits. NEVER make reading "the punishment" and television "the reward" for either grades or behavior.

4. At home, help your child follow increasingly more complex sets of directions:

b. Encourage your child to listen carefully, as you give two, three, or four step directions.

c. Encourage your child to ask questions whenever the directions are unclear.

 

5. On testing days, make sure your child is well-rested, unrushed, and has time for a good breakfast. Don't be overly anxious about testing and test scores, but encourage your child to take the tests seriously and do his or her best. To the degree possible, avoid arguments and family tensions that may interfere with your child's from concentration during the test.

6. Teach your child strategies for independent thinking and learning:

a. How to make lists, set short-term and long-term goals, and self-reward his or her accomplishments

b. How to make and use flashcards for math facts and vocabulary words, and how to use sticky notes to post newly-learned concepts on mirrors, the refrigerator, door frames, etc. for review.

b. How to use a tape recorder to study for tests and quizzes by taping questions and playing back his or her own answers

c. How to use spell check and a calculator

7. In your home, find ongoing opportunities to make reading fun, meaningful, and challenging. For example:

a. When two boxes of cereal sit on the table, ask your child to find and compare the calories in a single serving.

b. Ask your child to find "8:00, Monday night" in the TV guide and read the choices.

c. Ask your child to read you an article about Canton in the newspaper paper while you do something else.

8. Readers go through the day reading everything around them; non-readers "see', but do not read their environment. Turn "away-from-home" time into reading time. At the ATM, ask your child to read you the directions; at the gas pump, to read you the cautions. While sitting in the doctor's office or waiting for an oil change, read a book to your child. Point out street signs, advertising posters, and billboards that your child can read. In the supermarket, ask your child to find familiar words on product displays and discuss new words.

9. When talking about a book your child is reading, or about a movie you've watched together, ask four basic questions: WHO? Wanted, or intended, to do what? BUT, what happened? SO, therefore, who did what? This is a standard "character - motivation - action - reaction" sequence.

10. One facet of excellent reading comprehension is the ability to make logical connections between what is read and other books, movies, or real-life situations in a similar context. The secret is connecting to the PEOPLE in the story-line, not the story-line itself. "Connecting to people" is the ability both to understand why people behave as they do and to imagine how you would feel in the same situation if it happened to you. Connecting to the author's tone and message is "taking a critical stance", which is yet another comprehension skill that excellent readers demonstrate.

a. Ask how your child would feel, what he or she would do, and then, what might happen next?

b. Ask how the author [or the actor or director in a movie] wants the audience to feel at certain key points.

c. Help your child develop a set of specific criteria for "good" books that goes beyond whether or not your child "liked" the book. Your child might consider criteria such as: believable characters, descriptions a reader can picture, fast-moving plots or unpredictable plot twists, scary situations, or natural dialogue. [Keep in mind there is criteria for "good" pizza -- it's fresh, hot, perfectly baked, lightly seasoned, and so on -- regardless of whether or not you like pizza.]