Helping Your Child Succeed in School

Every child has the power to succeed in school and in life and every parent, family member and caregiver can help. The question is: How can we help our children succeed? The answer comes from a combination of common sense and research about how children learn and about how to prepare them to learn.We know, for example, that children tend to do the same things as their parents do. What we say and do in our daily lives can help them to develop positive attitudes toward school and learning and to build confidence in themselves as learners. Showing our children that we both value education and use it in our daily lives provides them with powerful models and contributes greatly to their success in school.As our children’s first and most important teacher, it’s important that all parents build and keep strong ties to our children’s schools. When parents and families are involved in their children’s schools, the children do better and have better feelings about going to school. We help our children to succeed by working with teachers to make sure that they provide curricula and use teaching methods that are based on strong scientific evidence about what works best in helping students to learn.The purpose of this booklet is to make available to you information that you can use to help your child to succeed in school. The booklet includes> information about things that you can do at home to contribute to your child’s school success;> activities that you can use to help your child acquire the skills to succeed in school;> answers to often-asked questions about how to work with teachers and schools; and> tips on how to help your child with test taking.