Making Learning Resources Readily Available
Your child has plenty of learning resources at school - teachers, books, videos, computers with Internet access, fellow students, and so on. To truly reinforce learning at home, you need to provide additional resources, which may differ from what your child can access at school.
Team up with your child to identify and gather the resources he needs to achieve his full potential. Here's a list of suggestions to get your started:
Remain vigilant about interests and abilities outside the confines of what your child's school offers, and nurture them to the best of your ability. Enrolling your child in piano or guitar lessons or in modern-dance classes is certainly an option, but you can also explore opportunities in your community, such as community theater, church choir, local hobby clubs, and scouting. Older children may have even more opportunities, such as moot court programs in which students argue imaginary court cases in front of a mock judge or jury and even compete against other teams.
Team up with your child to identify and gather the resources he needs to achieve his full potential. Here's a list of suggestions to get your started:
- Accumulate a collection of high-interest reading materials. Turn reading into a fun activity at home by providing your child access to an abundance of interesting texts. Reading comprehension is strengthened over time as students consistently read more and more fluently. If you expect them to do this at home, make sure reading materials are available that are related to their interests.
- Tap into resources at local museums, parks, and cultural centers. Take advantage of any resources available around you that are readily accessible. If museums, parks, or cultural centers are nearby, visit them with your child and spend an afternoon learning together. Many places have brochures or pamphlets that summarize and highlight key features or exhibits.
- Spend time at the library. Visit your local library and explore the various resources that are available. Even though students can access numerous materials on the Internet, help your child learn to navigate the library to find reading materials. If you can't find something on your own, ask the librarian for assistance. Seeking help not only results in finding what you're looking for, but it also demonstrates the importance and value of people resources, such as librarians.
- Create a file for interesting articles. Keep track of articles in magazines and newspapers that you think will pique the interest of your child. You can simply cut them out (or print them out) and stick them in a folder. With an abundance of articles close by, you can frequently read one with your child and have a great discussion. Even if a certain article may be over her head right now, you can pull it back out in a few years.
- Bookmark useful and interesting sites on the Internet. Practice organizational skills when exploring resources on the Internet. Performing a quick search for a resource you access often is easy, but using bookmarks and favorites to flag commonly uses resources facilitates and expedites the research process. Spend some time identifying certain websites that are updated frequently with materials that are interesting to your child, showing him how to bookmark or favorite the site and then prompting him to revisit the site often to read new materials.
Remain vigilant about interests and abilities outside the confines of what your child's school offers, and nurture them to the best of your ability. Enrolling your child in piano or guitar lessons or in modern-dance classes is certainly an option, but you can also explore opportunities in your community, such as community theater, church choir, local hobby clubs, and scouting. Older children may have even more opportunities, such as moot court programs in which students argue imaginary court cases in front of a mock judge or jury and even compete against other teams.
