Education, an educational consultancy. Dr. Corinn Cross, a physician and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, adds that the daily schedule should be posted on the refrigerator or another place in the house where everyone in the family can clearly see it.
Be an Academic Coach Tips for Teaching Your Kids at Home
By Tanni Haas
K
ids are headed back to online schools. How can parents support their kids’ education during these new and unprecedented circumstances? Here’s what the experts say.
Dedicate a quiet learning space. The first and most important thing is to dedicate a quiet space to learning instead of letting kids work in different places around the house. This way, kids will come to associate that space with doing schoolwork and won’t be distracted by unrelated activities. Steve Bentley of Method Schools, a large chain of online schools, says that the space should be large enough to have room for their computer and the other things that they need during a regular school day, such as pens, pencils, notepads, and a calculator. 12 SonomaFamilyLife
Create an effective routine. Since they’re doing their work from home, it’s important that they have a well-functioning routine and structure that mirrors what they’re used to from their regular school. Experts agree that kids should wake up at the same time as they would on an ordinary school-day morning, follow the same routine (taking a shower, getting dressed, eating breakfast), and start their school day at a consistent time. “Following a normal weekday schedule will be reassuring and set the expectation of what’s to follow,” says Edith Adams and Carolyn Nelson, counselors at Macmillan
Become an educational coach. So, what role should parents play in helping their kids accomplish all the things they have to do during the school day? Adams and Nelson suggest that parents should think of
It’s not how much time they spend studying that matters but how much they learn. themselves as their kids’ educational coaches: “Your children’s teachers will be providing the content to be studied, so your role is more of a coach [who] facilitate[s] the completion of that work.” Just like real educational coaches, parents should help their kids set specific goals and develop plans (including tasks and timelines) for meeting those goals. Know how they best learn. You can best help your kids meet their goals if you know their learning style. For example, says Dr. Linda Carling, an expert on online learning, if your kids’ teachers give them a choice on how to study certain material, find out whether they learn the best synchronously (when the teacher explains the material to them in real time) or asynchronously (when they engage with the material themselves and in their own time). Have your kids focus on the most difficult material
September 2020 www.sonomafamilylife.com
