I want you to know that I am delighted to be your child’s English Language Arts teacher this year, and I promise to do everything I can to to help him/her have a happy, productive, and successful year in my class. As a parent, I valued my own children’s education and wanted to be part of their learning experiences, and I know that you must feel the same way. All parents hope that their child will be successful in school, as educational success is intrinsically linked to success after school.

Parents play a central role in their children’s success in and outside of school. There’s no doubt about it. As children grow older, it can be increasingly difficult for parents to determine how best to help their child at school. At this age, students are becoming increasingly independent and although they still need support and guidance, it is sometimes hard to know when to step in to provide assistance and when to let your child work through things on his/her own.

I have had the privilege of working with many wonderful families in our area over the past years and I’d like to pass on some of the strategies they’ve used with great success:

Reading

Reading is a skill. In the same way that a piano teacher, carpenter, or tennis coach can teach an apprentice the finer points of the skill, a reading teacher can coach, advise, guide, and direct her students. However, the apprentice must practice in order to develop the skill. He/she must apply the techniques and strategies taught.

Children become good readers by reading, and good reading skills are essential to success in school and beyond. Even strong readers benefit from developing a daily reading practice. As students encounter increasingly challenging reading material they learn new content, new vocabulary, and they can learn how good authors use literary skills and devices in their writing.

Your child will have about 30 minutes of reading homework every night during their year in my class. We may start off with 15-20 minutes, but my hope is that by November, students will be reading for a full half hour per day at home. Students in my classes can select their own reading material most of the time, however there will be times when your child is assigned specific texts to read for homework. Even when students select their own reading material, I will approve the texts they read to ensure that students are selecting books that are interesting and accessible to them, books that are at or around their reading level.

Here’s how you can help your child with reading:

– Make sure that your child has a spot in your home for 30 minutes of quiet reading time every day.

– If your child struggles with reading, or is reluctant to spend the time reading, encourage him/her to read aloud to you, but try to avoid doing the reading for him/her. Reading aloud to children is always encouraged, but try to save that for after the 30 minutes of reading that your child does independently. I try to ensure that my students take books home to read that are at their reading level. If your child is struggling to the point of being unable to do his/her homework, please let me know and I will help him/her find a more suitable book.

– Talk to your child about the books he/she is reading. By discussing or even summarizing his/her reading material, your child will be strengthening his/her understanding of the texts.

Writing

Like reading, writing is a skill. Students learn to write by a) reading a lot; b) writing a lot. Of course guidance is a necessary component to developing the skill, but practice is essential. Although most written work will be completed in class, your child will have a few writing tasks to do at home. Students may be writing sticky notes about the reading they do at home, or he/she may have some response journal homework and some other forms of writing to do at home if the time in class was not enough for him/her to complete his/her work.

Here’s how you can help your child with writing:

– Talking is an important precursor to writing. When your child gets stuck in his/her writing – for example, he/she doesn’t know what to write next or where to start – ask him/her to talk about the writing. Some questions that might help your child generate ideas include:

1) Explain your writing assignment to me
2) What could you write about?
3) Tell me about your story/opinion/idea

Talking about the writing first can provide students with a chance to rehearse their writing, making them feel more confident when it comes time to put words on paper.

– Have your child read his/her writing aloud to you. Reading his/her written work aloud will help your child: discover errors in punctuation, spelling, grammar, and sentence structures; see where the writing is going and help him/her find ideas for continuing or ending the piece; hear his/her own writing voice/style.

– Resist the urge to fix your child’s writing. When you read your child’s writing, or listen to him/her reading it to you, and you find sections that are confusing or lacking in detail, ask questions that will help your child make revisions to clarify and/or improve his/her own writing. Students benefit much more from feedback than they do from having an editor fix the writing. Feedback allows students to work through the problems that writing presents to all writers. Working through the problems that arise for ALL writers is what learning to write well is all about.