What are some things you can do at home to help your child?  Here are a few ideas.
 

Kindergarten:  You've probably been reading to you child for many years.  You can start to improve reading comprehension before your child even becomes a reader.

• Before reading make predictions about what will happen in the story.
• Have your child retell the story, using beginning, middle and end.

First Grade:   First graders are working hard on developing reading fluency.

• Rereading familiar stories and poems will help children develop fluent, expressive reading.
• Play rhyming games:  Say a word and think of how many rhyming words your child can name--cat, bat, hat, etc.

Second Grade:  In school and at home second graders are beginning to explore non-fiction reading.

• Ask questions before reading a selection and locate answers in text while reading.
• Have your child paraphrase information from the selection.

Third Grade:  Third graders are beginning to learn research skills.

• Practice looking up words in the dictionary and numbers in phone books.
• Practice using maps:  Before you go somewhere give your child a map and have him/her mark the route.

Fourth Grade: Fourth graders are learning about Virginia.  This is a great opportunity for you to learn more about your state with your child.

• Use maps of Virginia to locate towns, cities, parks and other sites.
• Play "Who am I?"  Take turns describing famous Virginians and then guessing who the person is.

Fifth Grade: Good organizational skills and time management are becoming very important skills.  Helping your child develop these will serve them well throughout their middle and high school years.

• Take a few minutes at the beginning of the week to look over your youngster's assignments.  Help him/her prioritize and plan a work schedule based on when assignments are due and predicted time to complete.

     Contact me at school if you would like more ideas for providing enrichment activities, dealing with "homework headaches" or developing organizational skills.