Assist Your Child in Making Up for Missed Schoolwork

Make classroom routine a cinch, even when students are absent! Here are helpful tips to assist your child in making up with missed schoolwork. You may be concerned about the long-term influence on your child’s education following a tough year. However, experts believe it’s important to keep things in perspective and that there are strategies to help pupils this time around (without supervising their classwork).

Most parents wonder as the schools reopen and students return to solving math problems and word problems if their children are academically prepared.

If your child didn’t learn as much as they should have last year, it’s fair to be concerned. This year’s school year, 36 percent of parents were concerned that their child would not reach grade-level objectives. Disparities existed across the country, with some students spending the entire school year in the classroom while others had limited access to live instruction and technology. Others lost loved ones, suffered from homelessness or food poverty, and battled anxiety or despair due to the disaster.

Because their third-grade teacher had warned her repeatedly that her son was not paying attention in class, Alyssa Hanada’s sons returned to school part-time in Portland, Oregon, for a few weeks in the spring. Despite what others had said, she found it difficult to keep her son engaged with Zoom. As she looked at the year before her, she exclaimed, “This was a wash.”

As of June 2021, McKinsey & Co. believes that pupils had lost an average of five to nine months in learning. Based on the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the economy will suffer a 3.6 percent reduction in 2050 due to the long-term effects of school closures on students’ ability to study, including poorer productivity and lower salaries.

Despite these dire predictions, many educators on the ground are more upbeat. Collaborative for Student Growth at NWEA, a nonprofit organization, reported that third to fifth graders were particularly at risk of falling behind academically in math but did just fine in reading. Kids have plenty of time to learn the essentials of reading and math in early elementary school.

It’s more difficult to advance in math because of the sequential nature of the subject; nevertheless, students will have the opportunity to review information from last year and fill in any gaps as they go forward in the curriculum.

According to teachers, third grade is a critical year for students. You’re no longer learning to read by the end of third grade; you’re learning to read. Students must be able to read and solve word problems from textbooks. For this reason, parents of third and fourth graders may wish to keep an eye out for signs of depression. According to James S. Kim, Ed.D., a professor of education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, parents and teachers should reframe this year as an opportunity for a new beginning.

Get pumped up and ready to go.

The most crucial thing for returning students is to have a positive impression of their school. This isolation and detachment from school were common throughout the pandemic. We’re here to help them reestablish positive relationships with their teachers and classmates to achieve their full potential.

“Plan, don’t panic” is the best advice for helping your child. You should treat the start of the new school year as if you were sending your child on vacation to a foreign country, especially if they haven’t been there before. Students need to re-learn how to communicate in the classroom.

Your home habits can be established or reestablished, such as the time and place where you complete schoolwork and read. Make a place for incoming and outgoing material, as students are likely to bring paperwork home this year after submitting most of their work electronically the year before. Last. Invest in an academic planner for older pupils to help them stay on track.

Also, in addition to making the transition back to school easier for your child, following these suggestions will help provide the groundwork for them to succeed in school and catch up on any missed work. It takes more than just being able to do basic math to be an effective student. Time management and self-discipline are the keys here.

Be patient with them while they adjust.

When it comes to the fundamentals of classroom behavior, students, especially younger ones, will have to re-learn (or learn for the first time) the game’s rules. Wait a few months before you start worrying about whether or not they’re keeping up with their peers. Students who were only slightly behind last year will be able to quickly re-learn old skills with a bit of refresher coursework. Children learn best when they are settled back into their regular schedules.

Teachers will likely conduct tests in the first few weeks to see if your kid is meeting grade-level criteria. Teachers can see what most students in a class learned and retained from the previous year by administering tests, and they may also detect which students need additional support.

The teacher needs to know what you’ve learned.

You should know whether your child is lagging because last year’s teacher has likely informed you of the situation. Parents need to reflect on whether or not their child’s distant learning experience was successful or unsuccessful. The insights you gain from observing your child’s problems and successes can be invaluable. Teachers are just like doctors in that they desire to know as much about their patients as possible.

You’ll be able to observe and gather more information for the teacher after the school year has begun. Is it possible for your child to complete their schoolwork without your help? What words do they struggle over while they’re trying to read?

Which words do they consistently mispronounce, and how can I correct them? What kind of reading material do they prefer to read? If you have worries about your child’s progress and the teacher hasn’t contacted you within a few months, don’t hesitate to approach them. Tell the instructor right away if your child breaks down in tears while doing their homework.

Together, devise a strategy.

Families and schools need to work together more than ever before. There are several ways parents can help their children’s education at home. Sa’iyda Shabazz, a Los Angeles mom of a 7-year-old, regularly attended online parent sessions provided by her son’s first-grade teachers throughout the pandemic. 

Shabazz: Helped her recognize how she could support him in his education. “They’d show me an exercise to perform or a math game to play with them,” she recalls. It was constructive because we had to pick up some slack at home.

You should expect that kind of collaboration to continue in the future. A better way to help your child retain what they’ve learned in school is not so much to purchase flashcards or workbooks. For example, teachers point out that it is not your responsibility to help your child move up a reading level. 

Instead, spend time reading to them and guiding them toward appropriate books for their age and reading level and novels that they may love. Making and sharing clever puns, listening to audiobooks, and baking are all great activities to help your child improve their reading and math abilities at home. This will boost students’ self-esteem, who are just a little behind and help them move on to the next stage of their education.

Use a tutor if you can.

Private tutors aren’t something that all families can afford, and that’s okay. It’s also worth noting that research shows that one-on-one tutoring is one of the most effective ways to help behind students. Thanks to federal funding, individual or group tutoring with a specialist may be available at your school, so inquire about these options.

Tutoring by college students and volunteers may also be available to students. An individual setting will allow children to work on the specific abilities that they have neglected in a group environment.

The family stimulus check helped Melissa LaFreniere hire a Sylvan Learning tutor for her 11-year-old daughter last fall when she saw her struggling with arithmetic schoolwork. The fifth-tutor graders helped her reinforce the abilities she needed to catch up with her class, some of which date back to third grade. According to LaFreniere, a Grand Rapids mother of two, “she’s in a much better place now.”

Remember to keep perspective.

As much as Alyssa Hanada was concerned about her third-arithmetic grader’s performance last year, she was troubled by the fact that he was missing out on engaging with other classmates and forming new friendships. There is a lot more to school life than just academics.

When kids return to school, they can connect with their peers, learn to take turns, speak in front of many audiences and work together on a project—all of which are now possible because they’re in the same room together in real life.

If your child was already experiencing difficulties in school

Disproportionately, the pandemic harmed students with special educational needs or learning difficulties. During the epidemic, 6-year-old Jamie Davis Smith was diagnosed with dyslexia but could not receive adequate care because of a lack of resources. Parents have been told, “Everyone is in the same boat,” but that isn’t true.

According to national research by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project, students of color with disabilities have been disproportionately affected by a lack of support services in most schools over the past year.

You can take advantage of the fact that students have returned to school to review their individualized education plans and work with their instructors to determine what additional support your child requires.

Some schools may already be taking advantage of federal funds by offering summer school, which is projected to increase their resources. These are elements that students need to succeed and directly impact them both in and out of the classroom.

Articles you might like: Teaching Your Kids Self-Responsibility, Teenage Depression And Anxiety Are Common Problems, Boost The Confidence Of A Shy Teen