9 Back to School Tips

1. Communication

Be sure to attend this and your parent/teacher conference. As a prior classroom teacher, teachers do form opinions of students and their parents based upon their involvement. You want to know what’s happening in your child’s classroom, show up with questions in hand. Keep in mind the teacher’s time. Often times, parents show up during class time or without an appointment. Most teachers are flooded with meetings, documentation, grading, classroom upkeep and more. So, ask your child’s teacher when and how (try email) they can keep up communication with you about your child’s educational performance.

2.Standards

Know the California Educational State Standards for your child's grade. This information can be found at http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/ If your child's teacher is not teaching in accordance with the standards, be sure to supplement your child's education at home. McGraw-Hill publishes books called California Standards Practice with diagnostic and summative assessments. The books can be obtained via http://www.SRAonline.com

3. Schedule

Contact the teacher in the beginning of each school semester and find out if there's already a schedule of tests and quizzes. Get an idea of the teacher's schedule. Are there math tests every week? What will your child be tested on (text, in class lecture, labs)? What resources might be helpful to help your child succeed? How and when will your child know about tests and quizzes? How are tests graded and are there rubrics used for grading purposes?

4. Monitor

Continually monitor your child's work and progress. Your child may say he or she understands, but periodically make sure. Texts are generally written with guided learning in the beginning of each lesson. Go through the guided learning examples with your child. Pay special attention to ensuring your child knows the vocabulary, regardless of the subject. Reading comprehension is greatly enhanced if your child knows relevant vocabulary. Houghton Mifflin has Vocabulary Readers available online. Check your child' s understanding of reading material by asking open ended questions like, "Does this character remind you of anyone you know?" Or, ask your child where you would place a plant to help it grow using photosynthesis.

5. Keeping Up

Find out, based on your child’s initial performance (most teachers will assess students in the first couple weeks of school) what areas your child excels at and the areas your child needs improvement. If your child is performing below grade level, the teacher should inform you. Teachers generally document communication with parents. If your child is falling behind, you can seek a help at http://www.accreditedtutors.com There are also educational television shows teaching a wide variety of subjects from math to astronomy on Instructional Television (ITV), channel 16.

6. Friends

Find a way to meet your child’s friends. You want to know who’s influencing your child, educationally and socially. Whether you meet your child’s friends one on one or have a party, stay informed and involved in your child’s life. School resources, including information on social programs available at each school, is available through the San Diego County Education website at http://www.sdcoe.net/ Links to each public school in San Diego County are also provided via this site.

7. Organization

Help your child develop and routine and a sensible system for keeping his school work organized.
Give your child a snack and about 30 minutes of down time before starting homework. Use this time to set up a plan for tackling schoolwork. Find out what homework and tests there are during this time. Each week take the following steps to stay organized.

• Have a designated spot your child keeps his or her backpack and school work/supplies as well as a designated quiet area for school work.
• Keep a separate folder for homework due and a separate folder for items to be sent home to parents.
• Use backpacks with multiple pockets/sections (one for pencils, one for keys or money, one for folders, one for books).
• Have an “in box” or a place where your child can put items for your review (school announcements).
• Help your child clean out his or her backpack at the end of each week to avoid clutter.
  
  

8. Brain Food

Make sure your child has a breakfast with protein and carbohydrates to keep them full and able to concentrate on their studies. Pack and healthy and nutritious lunch or see what healthy choices are offered in the school cafeteria. Educate your child about the importance of eating healthy and how what they eat can help them perform better in class as well as in sports. There are many statistics available online to show important vitamins, like iron, necessary to learn well and improve memory. Nutritional information is available via http://www.fns.usda.gov/FNS/nutrition.htm

9. Attitude

Talk to your child about what was fun or interesting about his or his day. Get your child excited about learning and see if some of the school projects can involve your child’s interests. A fun book for younger students is First Day Jitters, by Julie Danneberg. The story is about a girl who feels anxious and curious about school and classmates. The reader find out at the end of the story, the anxious and curious girl is really the teacher! School can seem like a judgemental place where your child is constantly being graded. Reward your child's successes with systems like earning five A's equals a special outing. No matter how your child is doing in school, be sure to emphasize what he or she is achieving. Self esteem helps students maximize performance!

Homeschooling in California

Governor Schwarznegger acknowledges "Our education system is plagued by problems that are unacceptable." Governor Schwartzenegger notes the following statistics in his 2005 State Address:

• The majority of our students cannot even perform at their grade level.
• Barely forty percent of students are proficient in math.
• Thirty percent of high school students do not graduate.
• Nearly half of all freshmen admitted to California State University need remediation in English.

The new trend in education since our Governor's speech is homeschooling children. More and more students in recent years choose to homeschool their education. It's a hot topic on National Public Radio. One teacher from San Diego City Schools Mount Everest Academy thinks home schooling is a great option for students wishing to learn more subjects of their choosing and learn at their own pace. There's also social programs set up for students at the Mount Everest Academy. I used to teach kids who were homeschooled through Mount Everest Academy and thought academically, the homeschool system is great. Socially, homeschooling kids will probably never compare to sending them to school Monday through Friday to socialize and interact with other children.

People are pretty mad now. California instituted a new law stating that parents who homeschool their kids must have a valid California Teaching Credential. This is a huge debate and is likely to be appealed in the courts by parents who don't believe they need to have a teaching credential to teach their children.

The main law governing homeschooling is the California Education Code that states: "All children between the ages of 6 and 18 must attend a public full-time day school unless otherwise exempted."

For more information on homeschooling in San Diego click on the San Diego City Schools website:http://www.sandi.net

Actors Help Educate

So, guess who cares about education? Actors and actresses like Rainn Wilson and Jane Kaczmarek think helping kids become characters helps educate them. A recent three page advertisement was published in the September, 2008 issue of People magazine. The Screen Actors Guild Foundation's ad was called Get Ready to Play. I thought the ad was really innovative and just what many kids need to help make learning fun. The ad provided eight tips to help kids with reading comprehension and simply appreciate reading books more.

1. For younger children, choose books with rhymes and repetition. This helps kids join in reciting lines.
2. Use props, like stuffed toys, to represent characters.
3. Video your family acting out a favorite book.
4. Visit http://www.storylineonline.net/ to see popular actors read kids' books.
5. Perform gestures to illustrate your name. (I didn't see the point of this exercise.)
6. Play charades and act out favorite characters. (They suggest acting out movie characters, but I would suggest acting out characters from books you want your kids to understand more to aid in reading comprehension.)
7. Remember the game Telephone? Well, this is similiar...Start a story line and let each family member add the next part of the story. This builds imagination, creativity, and helps kids learn how to sequence a story.
8. Build kids ability to express themselves by having them "walk like you're stepping on nails." (I think this is more just for fun, rather than a learning exercise for helping language arts skills.)

I thought this was a great advertisement and appreciated the Screen Actors Guild Foundation paying for an ad to promote education through drama.

California Language Arts 2008 Textbooks

Well, they're out. Publishers have sent San Diego County Office of Education all the new textbooks. So, here's my thoughts on a couple of the texts being used in San Diego County:

McDougal Littell California Literature is new book for eighth grade students. There's also a web resourse: http://classzone.com/

The text offers instruction in building vocabulary, conducting research, writing, critical thinking, author studies, and spelling. One technique the publisher uses that I like includes highlighting transition words to demonstrate good writing. Underlining key vocabulary words is well done with the defination written on the side bar. There's compelling questions about setting and plot to help build student's critical thinking skills. Most of this book is helpful and easy to understand. But, the writing workshop guided learning is a bit too technical.

As an English teacher, I do like McDougal Littell's Grammar for Writing Workbook. The workbook adheres to the California Standards for eight grade students. The best thing about this workbook is there's an example at the top of each page walking students through each lesson.

Harcourt School Publishers includes a Gold Pass Reader for for third grade students. This paperback book is part of their HSP California Excursions learning set. This colorful book is really well illustrated. It includes information on fossils, California's government, and United States presidents.

Macmillan/McGraw-Hill has a hardbook text called California Treasures which is also available online via http://www.macmillanmh.com The book uses stories to teach third grade students about California history. This book does a good job of not packing too much information on each page, so it's easier to read and digest. This book also includes reading selections from award winning authors like Sonia Levitin.

Art Education

I received the 2008-2009 "Learning Together" brochure for the California Center of the Arts in Escondido. It turns out they have some pretty good learning programs for students in elementary, middle, and high school.

Programs include:

Museum tours

Hands-on Art for Youth

School Outreach Program: My Story: Literacy through the Arts (Elementary)

Behind the Scenes: Technical Demonstrations (Middle and high school)

I've been to their facility and was impressed. I think students, who are interested in the arts, would benefit by participating in their educational programs.

Their website, for more information, is:
http://www.artcenter.org
artcenter.org/education.htm

Great Online Learning Games

There's some wonderful educational games on the net. My student's favorite games are on:
http://www.quia.com


They have really fun battleship games. They also have TV game show style learning games. The games cover almost all educational subjects, including games designed to learn new languages.

Some kids love science more when it becomes fun, and even gross. For these kids try:

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/pages/gamezone/slime.asp yucky.discovery.com grossology.org funbrain.com webmath.com quia.com/cb/7689.html

Other good sites are:
http://www.yuckydiscovery.com
http://www.grossology.org
http://www.funbrain.com
http://www.webmath.com

Students also love viewing fun learning movies called Brain Pops, found through a fairly kid-friendly site:
http://www.yahooligans.com

Proper English Grammar

As an educator, I appreciate diversity and learn from others who are different than me. However, as an English professor, I am more impressed with people who speak properly. Often, I judge a person's intelligence based upon their ability to speak and use proper grammar. I love the English language. "My bad" is bad. Ebonics or leaving off the end of words like "I'm away on vacay" isn't proper English in my book.

Yet, speaking in the vernacular is considered hip. I taught ESL last summer at a local university. Students came from all over the world to stay in San Diego for three weeks and learn English. The students learned formal English. But, they also learned hip expressions from watching TV. I understand language isn't static and words have denotations and connotations. Language evolves over time. But, for now, I'll choose to say "Pardon me" rather than "my bad".

The book I find most helpful in teaching English is English Grammar For Dummies. The Dummies series is great and very precise and easy to follow. This book can be found at http://www.amazon.com/

There's a lot of internet sites that you have to pay for or sign up for a free trial to use to help teach English grammar. One free one that I would suggest trying is: http://www.englishlearner.com/tests/test.html

Another site I absolutely love that includes fantastic games and learning exercises is:
http://quia.com/

In order not to pay to use Quia, just scroll down to the bottom right hand side of the page and click on the subject you wish to learn. Then follow the prompts to choose the precise game or learning exercise you'd like to try.