Starting school is a milestone for children – and for their parents. In the first few years children grow and learn so much. So do their parents – researching, reading all the baby books and so on.
Parents hand over a good amount of their child’s education to school and teachers at this point, to specialists and professionals. But even at school age, most of a child’s time is spent at home and learning is done at home too. No matter how dedicated your teachers, the person most interested in your child’s success at school will be you.
Not just homework and reading, though there is plenty of that to be done. But all sorts of other education that school doesn’t cover. There’s also lots of opportunity to reinforce lessons learnt at school.
Because of all this learning at home it’s worth parents keeping up their research and learning about different learning styles and some educational theory. Understanding learning styles can help you tailor activities and new experiences to your children. And it will be really useful for homework help and revision.
A lot of parents have to become experts when their child has special educational needs. Or maybe the child has a learning style not as catered to by the education system – such as visual learners.
Being able to spot a visual learner, or work out how your child learns best, will be a huge advantage. It means you can adjust their learning, working with their teacher and school, or just at home.
Specialist revision and topic guides are available from Oaka Books, for visual learners and children with dyslexia, for example. You can supplement your child’s learning with these revision books in their preferred learning style.
Some schools hold information evenings for parents so you can stay up to date with teaching methods. The curriculum can move fast and literacy and numeracy lessons today are very different from how most of us were taught.
So it is worth parents keeping educating themselves, even once their child is at school.
