Teaching Your Child at Home During the COVID-19 Crisis?
Thoughts, tips, and links for teaching your child at home during the COVID-19 crisis, from an educator with 25+ years of teaching…
Thoughts, tips, and links for teaching your child at home during the COVID-19 crisis, from an educator with 25+ years of teaching experience
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You’re stuck at home. You know that social distancing is the wise thing to do, but that doesn’t make it easy. Apart from trying to do work of your own and keep up with household chores, you know you should continue your child’s schooling. That may not be as easy as it sounds, especially if your child has a learning disability or an attention disorder.
As an educator who has taught at every level (Kindergarten through graduate school) over the past 25+ years, I have licensure in math, science and special education. I also have a Master’s degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Currently, I teach at an alternative public school for children with mental health challenges. My school is closed at the moment, but I think about my students constantly. It occurred to me to share some thoughts, tips, and links for parents who are teaching their children at home for the first time.
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Teaching your own child is more difficult than teaching others, because your ego investment in your own child is so great.
If s/he doesn’t listen, or is slow to grasp something, you may be more frustrated than if another child did the same thing. Full disclosure: I don’t fuss now at my sons about their schoolwork, but that wasn’t always the case. Now they are both enrolled at an early college high school, and doing well. Yet 15 years ago, we went rounds over certain things. Such as, they hated to practice handwriting, and they didn’t want to practice any math during the summertime. (My compromise was to let the handwriting go but insist on the math.) Yet if I had known then what I know now, I probably wouldn’t have gotten upset. I would have taken a more oblique approach that didn’t raise our stress levels.
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First, get in tune with your child to get his/her attention.
Brain science has greatly enhanced our understanding of how learning happens. One fact that has emerged is that engaging a child’s Reticular Activating System (RAS) is critical to learning. This part of the brain determines what stimuli can safely be placed in the background of our attention (such as, for example, the sensation of your sleeve on your arm) and what commands our conscious attention. (Click to read “16 Ways to Activate the Reticular Activating System in the Classroom” by Lisa Van Gemert). Putting that in plain English, a person’s attention needs to engaged in order to learn. One great way to your child’s attention is through music and movement. Begin your learning session with a song or clapping rhythm. For younger children, traditional nursery songs on Starfall are a great place to start. For older children, you can combine reading practice with positive messages by singing along to Will I Am singing “What I Am” with subtitles, or a Lion King movie sing along. Not only will this help engage your child’s attention (RAS), it will help you to enjoy the moment and get in touch with your child before attempting to teach him/her anything. Our brains develops through language, patterns, and repetition— don’t underestimate the power of music, singing and movement.
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Second, realize that there are two levels of reading: Decoding (being able to pronounce words) and comprehension (understanding what you read).
If your child is still learning to decode, focus on breaking words into syllables, rhymes, and “sight” words (words that are very common). Read simple books with repetitive rhyme schemes, such as Dr. Seuss books. Watch Alphablocks cartoons together. Play online games, like this one at roomrecess.com, to help children recognize syllables and combine sounds. Watch and read/sing along to videos of Dolch sight words (here is a link to one Pre-K Dolch sight word video, start here and work your way up the grades). If your child can master the 220 Dolch sight words, it will improve his/her fluency (correct words per minute) enormously.
It’s never too early to work on comprehension, so ask your child questions about stories even if s/he is just starting to read. Start with the “Five Ws” (who, what, when, where and why) and progress to having your child retell the story back to you in correct sequence. Work on the concept of sequence by asking, what was happening in the beginning of the story? The middle? The end? Work on empathy and inference by asking your child what do you think the characters are feeling, and why do you think they are doing ____?
For older elementary children, Newsela.com is a fantastic, free resource for nonfiction readings at different levels. New material from current events and science is being added all of the time. Sign up for a free parent account with Newsela. You can access the same topic/article at different Lexiles (reading levels). It may take a little trial and error, but you and your child can figure out the best Lexile for him/her. All of the articles have quiz questions with answers at the end. In addition, Scholastic Learn At Home is offering 20 days of free material for all grade levels.
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Third, understand that even math is easier to learn through stories.
Many parents may find it intimidating to teach math due to negative memories they may have from their own schooling. However, you can overcome some of that baggage by reframing math for your child. Tell your child stories about the numbers and processes. For example, if you are helping him/her with a subtraction problem that requires borrowing, make up a silly story about the number in the ones place going “next door” to borrow from his neighbor. Knock on the door (table). Use silly voices to act out the part of each number. Psychological research shows that stories are “psychologically privileged”- in other words, stories are easier to understand and recall then other kinds of communication. In my teaching I have found that stories are very helpful in teaching math, especially for students with learning disabilities or attention problems. It doesn’t matter that the story is silly, it still makes the math less anxiety-provoking and easier to remember.
One great resource for all subjects, but especially for math, is IXL.com. It is broken down by grade level and topic, and your child can do up to ten interactive problems for free each day. That is probably about enough for a young child (through second grade). Make sure you use “props” while helping them do the problems, for example, pennies for counting. Another great resource is the Teachley Adding and Subtracting game at Brainpop.com. For elementary students who are third grade and up, Freerice.com has multiplication and basic math categories. Timestables.com is also excellent for learning those very important multiplication tables.
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Finally, and most importantly, know that you are always teaching your child.
Quite apart from sitting down with your child to read or do math, remember that you are a constant source of information to him/her. How you handle stress, the way you feel about yourself, the way you speak to people, your attitude towards work…all of it influences your child deeply. So include him/her, and talk through why you do things. Read and follow a recipe together. Plant seeds in some paper cups, and put them in the windowsill. Care for a pet together. Just sit and cuddle. The time is now.