7 Things Your Child's Teacher Wishes You Would Tell Them

While your child's teacher is an expert in educating children, no one knows your child as well as you do.  Students do best when parents and teachers work together as partners, with parents sharing any information about their child that might affect his or her school performance and teachers sharing what they are seeing in the classroom.

Emily Graham in School Family-your go-to guide for school success has come up with 7 things teachers wish you would tell them.

1. Health conditions: If your child is diabetic, uses an inhaler, is allergic to peanuts, or has a serious health condition, her teacher should know. It’s also helpful to let the teacher know whether your child has been diagnosed with conditions like ADHD, which may affect behavior and concentration.
2. Family issues: Fill in the teacher if your family is going through a major change that could affect your child, such as a divorce, a death in the family, or a move. Even if your child seems to have adjusted well, alert teachers so they can watch for behavioral changes.
3. Personality traits or behavior issues: Maybe your son is painfully shy and is worried about making friends at a new school. Or perhaps your kindergartner has been having tantrums at home and you’re concerned she’ll do the same at school. It’s best to make teachers aware of these issues before they become a problem at school.
   
4. Strengths and weaknesses: Your daughter is a star student in math but is embarrassed to read aloud. Your son loves language arts but struggles with science. If you tell teachers these things up front, they’ll have more time to help your children improve in the areas they need it most.
5. Learning style: You’ve spent years teaching your kids, from potty training to tying shoelaces, so you have a good idea of their learning styles. If your child learns better through hands-on activities than through listening to explanations, mention that to his teacher. Also share any teaching strategies that you’ve found work well with your child.
6. Study habits: Does your son speed through math homework but labor over reading assignments? Do your daughter’s grades suffer because she spends so much time at skating lessons? Tell teachers about your children’s study habits and any issues they face in completing the work. Teachers often can offer suggestions to make homework time go more smoothly.
7. Special interests: Knowing more about your child’s hobbies or interests can help the teacher forge connections in the classroom. Let the teacher know that your young son loves a particular comic book superhero and that your middle school daughter is a gifted painter.

Can You Read This?

Aoccdring to rscheearch at Cmadrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

How'd you do? Were you surprised at how well you read it? But.....did you really read it? Were you decoding the words based on the order of the letters and what each letter says?

The above paragraph is an example of what is called top-down processing. A widely accepted educational philosophy that utilizes a top-down approach to reading is called whole language.

Proponents of whole language instruction believe that comprehension should be used as the basis for decoding skills and that meaning is brought to print, not derived from it. It is a whole- to-part model, relying on readers being able to use their comprehension skills to anticipate what they think a word will likely say. It allows readers to comprehend text even though they do not recognize or cannot decode each word.

A bottom-up reading model, on the other hand, emphasizes part-to-whole processing of a text. Proponents of this model argue that the process of decoding words by using phonetic strategies leads to comprehension of the text. The reader first processes each individual linguistic unit, or phoneme, combining them to decipher words, and only then does the reader begin to comprehend the text.

Both of these models have merit, but neither, in and of itself, is the most efficient way to accurately decode and comprehend text. A better model is an interactive model which utilizes aspects of both, with a focus on the latter.

If you've been to a Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers presentation, you may recall a model for reading which draws on three areas combined, working together in unison. It is a balanced approach of drawing on word attack skills, sight words, and contextual cues. These areas combined result in accurate and efficient decoding, which allows readers to shift their focus to gleaning meaning from the text.

For more information related to this interactive model, check our website or Facebook page for the next presentation on "What Parents Should Know...about Reading and Comprehension Development." These presentations are FREE and open to the public.