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Creating Good Practices

General Practices

The following general strategies are intended to help all children improve their organizational skills, work habits, and overall production.

• Use assignment books.
  Teach children to use assignment books and "To Do" lists to keep track of their short- and long-term assignments, tests, and quizzes. Use resources provided by the school —a "homework hotline" on voicemail or homework posted on the school Web site, for example— could help you support a student who does not yet consistently record assignments.
• Provide models of assignments and criteria for success.
  Give children a clear sense of how a final product might look by showing examples —perhaps samples of work from previous years (obtained from the teacher) to illustrate specific qualities of the work— and by sharing exemplary products. Do not, however, compare children's work with that of peers or siblings.
• Build in planning time.
  Parents can talk with teachers about providing children with five minutes of planning time before beginning an assignment. Both can also provide guidance in effective planning when necessary.
• Prioritize assignments.
  Help students prioritize their assignments according to level of importance, difficulty, or due date.
• Use step-by-step approaches.
  Require children to break down tasks into parts, write down the steps or stages, and compile steps of frequent tasks into a notebook for easy reference. For long-term assignments, provide a due date for each step of the assignment.
• Stress the importance and positive impact of organization and preplanning on completed projects or assignments.
  Have children preview an assignment, collect the materials they will need before starting one, and keep their materials and notebooks organized and easily accessible. In middle and high school, conduct intermittent "notebook checks" and, if necessary, suggest ways to improve organization.
• Provide opportunities for children to review their assignments before turning them in.
  Parents can ask teachers to build in a due date that is one day before an assignment is actually due and should use this time to review the child's work and check it with an adult. This will give the children enough perspective to catch errors or add more details and to produce better work.
• Encourage self-evaluation.
  Set a standard of work quality or criterion for success that children can follow and encourage them to self-assess the quality of their work before turning it in.
• Set goals and record progress.
  Have children set a short-term goal —such as completing all homework for the week— and post a record of their daily progress in a visible place. Graphic recording, such as plotting their own line graphs, may be particularly reinforcing for some children.
• Practice estimating.
  Because children benefit from estimating answers to math problems and science experiments, stress the real-life benefits of estimating and understanding what the correct answer might look like.
• Eliminate incentives for frenetic pacing.
  To slow down children who work too quickly and speed up children who work too slowly, remove any positive reward for finishing first and state the amount of time a task should realistically take.
• Provide consistent feedback.
  So children understand which behaviors, actions, or work products are acceptable and which are not, create a feedback system by using specifics to praise good work and recognize when children use strategies effectively. Say, for example, "I like the way you drew a table to help explain the problem" or "Asking to take a break really seemed to help you come back and focus."
• Try a mentor/tutor.
  Some children may benefit from a mentor who will work with them to analyze their academic progress, improve basic skills, brainstorm alternative strategies, and provide recognition of progress. The mentor/tutor must be seen as credible and may be an individual from either inside or outside the school.
• Celebrate progress.
  Have children look back at past work and celebrate the progress they have made. Graph their weekly progress with them.

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Reading Practices

Some of the following suggestions and strategies may help children who are experiencing problems with decoding, comprehension, or reading retention. Many of those listed are accommodations that work around a child's differences by offering alternative approaches at home and at school. Look for those that you think might work best and, when applicable, talk to your child's teacher about using some of them in class.

• Play word games.
  Word games and puzzles are fun and also build vocabulary and word understanding. Try crossword puzzles, word bingo, Scrabble®, or Boggle®.
• Read aloud every day.
  Encourage children to read directions, labels, and signs in the classroom, at home, in the car, and at stores or shops, and have them take turns reading aloud with a classmate, parent, or sibling. Discuss in class or at home what you are reading.
• Model reading as an enjoyable activity.
  You might informally discuss what you are reading with your child or let him or her see family members or teachers enjoying reading. Have DEAR time several times a week where everyone "Drops Everything And Reads" for 20 minutes.
• Put learning to use.
  Help children remember by having them explain, discuss, or apply information they have just read, letting them "teach" you facts or ideas they have learned from their reading, or encouraging them to act out characters from their reading selections.
• Listen to books.
  Your child may benefit from listening to his or her textbooks and trade books on tape or by using assistive technologies like screen readers.
• Read to your child every night.
  Read novels above his or her reading level to stimulate and enrich language, creativity, and interest. Ask structured questions and encourage your child to predict multiple endings to each chapter.

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Writing Practices

Some of the following suggestions and strategies may help children who are experiencing problems with writing. Many of those listed are accommodations designed to work around a child's differences by offering alternate approaches at home and school. Choose the strategies that you think might be helpful to your child.

• Create a safe environment for writing.
  Balance feedback between what is good about the writing and what needs improvement, always highlighting whatever is positive in a child's writing and avoiding direct comparison to other children's work.
• Make your expectations explicit.
  Clarify your expectations when presenting an assignment or giving directions to children by telling them the process you want them to use to write a report and by modeling that process for them.
• Evaluate content and mechanics separately.
  Help a child to see that he or she may have good ideas and still need to work on a particular writing sub-skill. Always correct any grammatical or other speech errors in private and do so in a respectful way.
• Encourage a variety of writing activities.
  Keeping a daily journal can be motivating and can provide needed writing practice. Consider other fun writing assignments such as writing to pen pals or suggest that your child compose songs or record family trips.
• Encourage free writing.
  Set a time each day during which children can write about anything that interests them. Stress that no one else will read or evaluate what he or she writes.
• Separate the creative aspects of writing from the motor aspects.
  Some children who struggle with the physical process of recording their own ideas benefit from dictating assignments to a parent or someone else.
• Allow enough time for each assignment.
  Help children estimate how long a given task will take to complete. Consider giving them additional time to complete a written assignment or test rather than have something due at the end of the class period.
• Provide time for revision and proofreading.
  Encourage children to revise and proofread their drafts, and provide time for them to do so. Explain to them that writing is a process and that it is easier to proofread what they have written several days —rather than immediately— after writing it.
• Introduce your child to one of a variety of simple graphic organizers.
  Investigate computer programs including word webs, story maps, and venn diagrams, to help him or her approach writing in a systematic way. The Education Place Web site has a number of useful tools you can download.
• Provide access to programs or tutors that can help your child improve his or her word processing skills.
  Many children who struggle with motor output (handwriting) benefit from using a computer for their written work. Summer time is optimal for acquiring these skills.

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Math Practices

Some of the following suggestions and strategies may help children who are experiencing problems with mathematics. Identify strategies that you think will help your child and, if appropriate, talk to your child's teacher about using some of the strategies in school.

• Maintain consistency and communication across school and home settings.
  Parents, tutors, and classroom teachers should coordinate and use the same instructional approach.
• Teach basic concepts using concrete objects.
  For example, let children explore number concepts by counting the legs of a chair to find the number four or by subtracting crayons from a box. The progression from understanding concrete materials, pictorial representations, and abstract number representations may take some children longer than others.
• Provide specialized materials.
  To help children organize their calculations, have them use graph paper (or lined paper turned sideways) to keep numbers in columns. Encourage the use of scrap paper to keep work neat, highlighters to underline key words and numbers, and manipulatives such as base-ten blocks or fraction bars.
• Make your expectations explicit.
  Tell children the procedures you would like them to use when solving a problem, model each procedure for them, then have them tell you what they are expected to do. Some students benefit by having a math notebook filled with examples of completed problems to which they can refer if they become overwhelmed or confused.
• Provide time for checking work.
  Emphasizing that completing math assignments is a process, encourage children to become comfortable reviewing their work, making changes, or asking questions when they are unsure of their answers.
• Give children opportunities to connect mathematical concepts to familiar situations.
  For example, when introducing measurement concepts, have children estimate their measurements before measuring classmates' and family members' heights or weighing their book bags' when empty and when full.
• Help children apply math concepts to new situations.
  For example, show them how to use percentages to understand the price of a pair of shoes on sale at the mall or the amount of their allowance they spend on snacks.
• Provide access to programs or tutors that can help a child improve his or her math skills.
  Tutors can assist children with weak math sub-skills, such as multiplication and division. Provide tutors during summer months or after school to boost performance and ensure that the child retains his or her skills.
• Help children keep track of problematic areas.
  When doing math homework, children may benefit from having their most common errors listed on flashcards. They can then refer to the cards while completing their assignments.
• Play math games.
  To encourage automaticity with math facts, students may benefit from playing math games (i.e. dice, playing cards) and listening to commercially available audiotapes that provide a fun way of learning math facts. The PBS Parents Activity Search can help you find great games from PBS Children's television series.

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Attention Practices

Some of the following suggestions and strategies may help children who are experiencing difficulties with attention. Many of the steps listed are accommodations and are alternative approaches that help children work around learning problems. Some accommodations must be made in the classroom and require a teacher's participation. Look for strategies that you think might help your child in school and talk to your child's teacher about incorporating them into the classroom.

• Allow longer breaks.
  Extending the amount of time given for breaks from schoolwork can be beneficial, especially for elementary school children.
• Use a variety of instruction methods.
  Use verbal, visual, and experiential methods to enhance attention. Make frequent shifts between discussion, reading, and hands-on group activities.
• Be a coach, mentor, or check-in person.
  Encourage your child to share his efforts and accomplishments. Make statements about how you schedule your own daily activities and the positive benefits of such planning and scheduling.
• Keep track of time.
  A homework timer may be beneficial in order to keep track of the amount of time your child spends working on each assignment as as to schedule needed breaks.
• Encourage scheduling and tracking of assignments.
  Your child may benefit from managing his or her long-term assignments through use of a paper or electronic planner and time-line where due dates are recorded, goals are set for each step of the project, and check-in points are scheduled.
• Whenever possible, give children homework choices.
  When children have a "say" in what their homework is, their interest in and motivation to complete their work will skyrocket (e.g. write a story, draw a poster, or write a song about the book they read in class.)

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