Talk to your child. To find out which of these skills your child has and which he can develop further, start a simple conversation that focuses on his goals. Ask him about his favorite subjects, classes he dreads and whether he's satisfied with his latest progress report.
Listen for clues. Incorporate your own observations with your child's self-assessment. Is your child overwhelmed by assignments? She may have trouble organizing time. Does your child have difficulty completing her work? She may get distracted too easily. Is your child simply not interested in school? She may need help getting motivated.
Identify problem areas. Start here
to help your child identify which of the five skill areas are
trouble spots.
1. Organization
Whether it's keeping track of research materials or
remembering to bring home a lunch box, children need to be
organized to succeed in school. For many students, academic
challenges are related more to a lack of organization than to a
lack of intellectual ability.
Tips to help your child get organized:
- Make a checklist of things your child needs to bring to and from school every day. Put a copy by the door at home and one in his backpack. Try to check with him each day to see if he remembers the items on the list.
- Find out how your child keeps track of his homework and how he organizes his notebooks. Then work together to develop a system he will want to use.
- Shop with your child for tools that will help him stay organized, such as binders, folders or an assignment book.
2. Time Management
Learning to schedule enough time to complete an assignment
may be difficult for your student. Even when students have a week
to do a project, many won't start until the night before it's
due. Learning to organize time into productive blocks takes
practice and experience.
Tips to help your child manage time:
- Track assignments on a monthly calendar. Work backward from the due date of larger assignments and break them into nightly tasks.
- Help your child record how much time she spends on homework each week so she can figure out how to divide this time into manageable chunks.
- Together, designate a time for nightly homework and help your child stick to this schedule.
- If evenings aren't enough, help your child find other times for schoolwork, such as early mornings, study halls or weekends.
3. Prioritization
Sometimes children fall behind in school and fail to hand
in assignments because they simply don't know where to begin.
Prioritizing tasks is a skill your child will need throughout
life, so it's never too soon to get started.
Tips to help your child prioritize:
- Ask your child to write down all the things he needs to do, including non-school-related activities.
- Ask him to label each task from 1 to 3, with 1 being most important.
- Ask about each task, so that you understand your child's priorities. If he labels all his social activities as 1, then you know where his attention is focused.
- Help your child change some of the labels to better prioritize for academic success. Then suggest he rewrite the list so all the 1s are at the top.
- Check in frequently to see how the list is evolving and how your child is prioritizing new tasks.
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