Connect with the teacher:  If you are lucky enough to learn who your child’s teacher will be, try to connect with him or her early in the year.  I always reach out to my kids’ teachers in the first weeks of school and sit down for a one-on-one chat.  Every child is different, and yours surely is.  So help your child’s teacher understand those differences (in a positive, friendly way).  Do so from the perspective of “partnering” with your child’s teacher to help him be successful in school.  Constant communications with teachers is vital to school success.

Connect your child with classmates to be: Ask around to find other kids who will be in your child’s class.  If you can arrange playdates before the school year starts to make some early friendships, any anxiety about the first week of school will be much lessened.  Most kids care about their friends and free time in school. If you can help smooth the way to some early connections, this time can be much easier.

Show interest in your child and his or her schoolwork:  Throughout the year, maintain interest in what your child is doing in school, both academically and in extra-curricular activities.  Be sure to ask your child what she is working on in school, and when you see school work well-done, offer praise and encouragement.  Resist the urge to be overly critical (but of course, if you have concerns, raise them with your child’s teacher – did I mention the importance of communication?…)  Staying connected and aware of what is going on with your child at school is an important part of helping her to maintain a strong sense of confidence and self-esteem with regard to academics.

Listen to your child:  Your child will send lots of messages and signals about what is going on in school.  If he is bored, getting bullied, having trouble, or doesn’t click with the teacher, at a minimum, you should make sure he knows that you hear him raising the issue, and you are thinking about it. Make time over dinner or some other time in the evening to chat with your child if he is having problems.  You won’t always be able to take action about an issue, but do take your child’s complaints seriously and engage him in conversation about what is going on.  You are your child’s main advocate at school.  If you feel something is not right, be sure to address it with the teacher or others at the school.

Enjoy the excitement and novelty of this time of year – it can be lots of fun!  If you can, send your child to school with some new school supplies, a nice pair of socks or some other little goodie to start the year off fresh.  And get psyched for the return of routine.  Ahhhh….

Tags: earlyreading, back to school, ready for kindergarten, teaching kids to read, kindergarten literacy

Tags: Oprah, kids, reading, teach kids to read

Reading to children also helps them develop a love of great stories.  But reading isn’t everything.  Another key to teaching preschoolers to read is telling them great stories.  It’s important for kids to see you use your imagination – to dream up a story from your mind.  Better yet, ask them what the story should be about (that also makes it easier), and come up with a fun story based on that.  If you don’t like telling stories, or just aren’t very good at it, play “Round Robin”.  You start the story with a couple of sentences like “Once upon a time, there was a sweet little girl who lived in a…” – and then let your child continue from there.  After a few sentences you say “Round Robin” and then the story passes to the next person (or back to you).  You create a story together that can take lots of fun twists and turns, and your child can see how powerful your imagination is for story-telling.

One thing I’ve observed is that kids who have one or two stories read to them each night become accustomed to the immediate gratification of a story that starts and ends in 10 minutes or less. You can help prepare your children for longer books by telling them stories from your imagination that are continued from one night to the next.  The first time I did this with my children – started a really exciting story about Bobby, the Intergalactic Dentist – and then stopped abruptly at a very exciting point to say “…and you’ll find out what happens next tomorrow!), my kids nearly fell off the bed with excitement.  The next night, they took their baths and brushed their teeth at a record pace to hear the next installment of the story.  The story continued for about 3 weeks, and each night they were thrilled and excited.  And shortly after, I was able to read them “The Mysterious Benedict Society,” a terrific book with 512 pages that I enjoyed just as much as they did.  Even my 4 year old was consumed with the story.

So give it a try – tell a story once in awhile!  It’s a great way to get your kids reading.

Nevertheless, I’ll never forget the single most important piece of advice given to me by a teacher when my first child was nearly finished with preschool.  As hard as this is to do, put behavioral and socio-emotional development ahead of academic development in those early years.

This doesn’t mean not to teach kids how to read.  It means it should be fun – it should be one of the activities your child looks forward to.  It should never be a chore!

Kendeyl Johansen offers some great advice on this in her article “Tools for School: Getting Your Child Ready for Kindergarten.”  Here’s a great excerpt from her article:

***

Pre-Kindergarten Skills to Target
Dr. Laurie Ford, a child psychologist from the University of South Carolina specializing in preschool development, recommends several areas to work on for kindergarten preparation.

• Language — Discuss real-life experiences, such as fixing breakfast. Read to your child and invite her to talk about the pictures or retell the story.
• Motor Skills — Develop fine-motor skills by drawing, coloring and writing letters and numbers. Put puzzles together. Practice using scissors.
• Independence — Have your child dress himself and wash his own face and hands.
• Socialization — Help your child learn to initiate contact with other children. Make sure she understands that hitting, biting or yelling are inappropriate ways to show anger. Provide opportunities to practice appropriate social behavior by playing in the park with other kids or inviting friends over.

***

Check out the rest of this article at this link.

That said, you’ll need to do so with with tact, diplomacy and restraint. Your goal is to enlist the teacher as an ally, not to create an angry and resentful enemy. I’ve had a few tough experiences with preschool teachers myself. As a result, I’ve learned some valuable lessons and strategies that might be useful if you’re ever faced with a similar situation:

1. Take time to scope out the situation. If you think your child’s preschool teacher is doing something wrong, try not to rush to judgement. Talk to your child. Talk to other parents. If possible, stop in to visit and observe the classroom. As you gather evidence, try to be as objective about it as possible. It may be that your initial impressions were based on your child’s fertile imagination or on exaggerations of a one-time occurrence.

2. Try to deal directly with the teacher. Resist the urge to discuss your concerns with the school director until after you’ve tried to discuss and resolve your issues with the teacher, one-on-one. The less adversarial the environment, the more likely that the two of can reach a quick and painless resolution and the better your odds of strengthening the parent-teacher relationship.

3. Keep things in perspective. When you’re deciding how to proceed, try to assess the true impact of the situation. Is your preschool teacher really that bad or is it possible that she’s just using a different style than yours?  Remember, odds are that what your child’s teacher really cares about is that your child is getting ready for kindergarten.

Ultimately, it’s also helpful to try to remember that one year or several months with a difficult teacher will rarely have a permanent negative effect on your little one. Before you know it, your child has graduated to the next level, and that teacher will seem like a distant memory.

But here’s my true wish for you: May all your teachers be excellent and may you never need any of this advice!