How can I help my child with math?

• Help your child to use math in every day situations.  

  • Shopping:  "I noticed that this comes in a pack of 6 and I'm getting 2 packs, how many will we have altogether?" Etc. 

  • Money: Think about giving  your child a small allowance for doing chores etc., so he or she can save up money buy things. This will help your child practice with adding, subtracting, and budgeting. 

  • Measuring: Ask your child to help you measure various things around the house.  (Make sure you discuss standard verses metric measurements). 

  • Time: Find a clock or watch that your child can use.  Make sure your child is exposed to both analog and digital time.  

  • Cooking: When dividing up pizza, brownies, or doing measuring for recipes, discuss what 1/2, 1/4, 1/3 represents in relation to a whole. 

  • Car games: In the car, ask your child to count by 2's, 5's, 10's 100's (maybe 25's 50's) and see how high he or she can get to accurately. 

  • Card Games: Games such as 21 (blackjack) or cribbage involve a lot of mental math skills. 

  • Word Problems: We solve word problems daily in math.  The more you can help your child problem solve real life situations involving math the better :) 

  • Create charts and graphs at home. Making  graphs showing frequency of halloween candy or bugs observed are always fun :)

  • Help your child observe various shapes (square, cube, rhombus, cone, sphere, rectangle, or triangle, etc.) around your home and neighborhood. 

  • Flashcards: You can use flash cards or on-line games such as Xtramath to help your child memorize addition and subtraction facts quickly and accurately. 

How can I help my child improve his or her reading and writing skills?

Make sure your child is reading every day at home!  Any type of reading counts. 

• Helping my child learn how to read and spell "Trick Words".  See list of trick words here. 

• If you are trying to find books at your child's reading level, try using Book Wizard by Scholastic.  

• Ask your child comprehension questions after and during reading.  Here is a list of comprehension questions you can ask about any book.  

• Here is a list of reading strategies to help your child improve reading comprehension. 

• Reading menus.

• Reading instructions to games/recipes. 

• Reading captions on the TV

• Reading books he or she loves!  This is important.  At home your child should choose books  that are of interest. A visit to a local library is a fun way for children to choose books. Kids love having their own library card! Saving allowance to buy a favorite book can also be motivating. Swapping books with a friend is another good idea. 

• Reading books at your child's reading level.  To check reading level, ask your child to read a few pages aloud.  If your child seemed to struggle with too many words, you may want to read the book together with some support. Help your child to choose books that he or she can read independently with only 2-3 tricky words per page (for a chapter book), and 1-2 tricky words for a picture book. 

• Reading magazines.  You can subscribe to National Geographic Kids, Ranger Rick, Highlights, Sports Illustrated for kids, or American Girl Doll Magazine, etc.  Your child will get excited to receive the issue each month. 

• Write letters or emails to family members or friends. 

• Help write grocery lists, or other lists. 

• Make a scrapbook of a family trip and ask your child to write descriptions of what happened. 

• Kids love writing stories. You can make (or buy) a blank book, and your child and write and illustrate a story. 

• Improve your child's vocabulary by discussing what words mean, and explaining how prefixes (bi- in bicycle) and suffixes (ful in careful) can change the meaning of a word. 

• Help your child identify compound words (words made up of 2 words) and how each word can help you to understand what the word means. i.e. sunrise, is when the sun is rising in the sky.