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How can I help my child at home to prepare for testing?
Parental support is one of the most important pieces of the testing puzzle! Teachers can't do it without you. If you want specific ways to help your child, please talk to your child's teacher. These are a few easy ways to help that are good for EVERY child:
Parental support is one of the most important pieces of the testing puzzle! Teachers can't do it without you. If you want specific ways to help your child, please talk to your child's teacher. These are a few easy ways to help that are good for EVERY child:
- Check to make sure they are completing their Homework. After they finish, discuss their answers, the strategies they used, and ask them to justify their responses to you based on what they read in the passage, or based on what they know about math. You would be surprised how these conversations help students synthesize and deepen their understanding of the content.
- Encourage your child to problem-solve! Some of those grocery-store situations and mental calculations that come naturally to you would be rich real-world learning experiences for your children. Let them estimate/calculate how much you'll save if an item is 40% off, or if those 3 for 1 deals are worth it. If you're having a party with a certain number of guests, how many packs of cups, plates, and forks will you need. These are the types of problems they will be solving on the test, so help bring them to life!
- Have your child discuss what they are reading with you. Even if it's a magazine article or the side of a cereal box. Reading comprehension touches every aspect of their lives, so those discussions will help them become better readers and test-takers!
- Make sure your child is getting enough sleep at night. We have all heard it a million times, but it's true! Something as simple as enforcing a consistent bedtime can make a huge difference in your child's success during school, and during testing week. The National Sleep Foundation Recommends that school-age children get between 9-11 hours of sleep per night.
- Stay calm and positive! Children pick up on our anxieties, and will develop negative associations with school and testing if they sense them from us. Staying positive will help your child to focus on what is really important: LEARNING!