As school has started and for some children their first major progress report is approaching, I thought I’d post the highlights of a recent conversation with my best friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Downer- also a California high school teacher and mother of two- on how to best support your child’s study habits and academic success. Since she comes from a long line of teachers and administrators and has been teaching for nearly a decade, I trust her judgment. She has noticed four strategies that separate successful and struggling students- and these work for kids of any education level. They seem simple, and that’s the point; these are small changes that you can do to give your children the solid foundation they need. Here are her suggestions:

1. Students need a quiet place to study and do their work. The best place for this is not necessarily their rooms. Because I have thirty students in a room that is only 540 square feet, I have become privy to numerous student conversations. I have heard many students talk about the amount of time (hours!) spent on myspace, AIM, or playing the newest version of Halo before settling down to start their homework. It seems that most of their parents think they are in their rooms working on homework for hours, before any work actually has been started. Ideally, students should have a supervised study area, where parents would be available to help and to see what their children are actually learning in school.

2. Have a variety of reading material available in the home. It is believed by many teachers and research shows that students who come from homes where reading is valued and a variety of reading materials is available perform better in school. Reading material should not be limited to the latest best-sellers (although fictional narratives do have their place), but should also include newspapers, magazines, and even digital material. Students who are only exposed to fictional narratives have difficulty processing the information in textbooks. The way one reads a Harry Potter book is different from the way someone would read a newspaper article, and is different still from the way one would read through an article on the internet. As parents, we have a responsibility to expose our children to different types of reading so that they learn to acquire information from a variety of sources.

3. Parents need to ask information-gathering questions. Instead of asking their student, “What did you do in school today?,” they would be better off asking, “What did you learn today?” It is much harder for students to respond, “nothing,” to the latter question. This type of question also forces students to reflect on their day and what was learned instead of a task that was completed. The conversation between parents and their student should be about the process, not the product (”I’m learning how to multiply fractions” is a different type of statement than “We did a math worksheet”).

4. One last thing parents can do, although it may be embarrassing for older students, is to communicate with teachers before problems begin. Because of the teaching load, co-curricular and extra curricular commitments and countless meetings, it is difficult for teachers to make contact with parents unless there is something wrong in the classroom. Unfortunately, this means that often parents and teachers are first interacting in negative circumstances. It is important that parents take advantage of opportunities to actively communicate with their child’s teacher. This can begin at “Back to School Night” type functions and can continue throughout the year. Most teachers, in this day and age, are accessible via e-mail, so parents don’t have to plan on taking time off work for a meeting with a teacher or play endless rounds of phone tag. Many teachers also have websites that parents can use to see what is happening in the classroom. If there is open communication between parents and teachers, it is easier to hold students more accountable for their learning.

Good luck on those progress reports, kids!