How to Support Your Child’s Learning: 10 Practical Tips for Parents

As a classroom teacher and tutor, there is one thing I have learned: when it comes to a student’s academic success and well-being, there is no substitute for a parent who is actively engaged in their child’s learning. Between my classroom teaching and tutoring experience, I have worked with more than 1,000 students, and I have consistently seen the value of parent engagement. Students whose parents are consistently engaged in their learning tend to make stronger academic progress, develop a clear and realistic understanding of what is expected of them, show greater grit and perseverance, and maintain better emotional well-being.

Below are some practical ways you can support your child’s learning starting today.

Here are some concrete steps to support your child's learning

1.     Know their homework – There are two important levels to this point. You should know what your student is doing in their class, and how to do their homework. Homework gives you a preview of the content being taught in the classroom. It’s important to know what your child is studying in their classes throughout the year. It will help you make sure that they’re staying on task, it will help you when communicating with their teacher, and you will also be much more informed of your student’s needs when they need extra support. If they start struggling in a particular class, you will know the kind of content they are struggling on, how that relates to their strengths and weaknesses throughout the year, and what kind of extra support your student might need to overcome those struggles.

Now on to the second point. Knowing how to do their homework. Some parents find this idea a little scary, especially for a STEM class if they haven’t done math or science in a long time. But here is why that’s important: a well-designed course should provide enough resources and support to allow students to successfully complete their homework. If you can’t figure it out, your student might also be struggling to figure it out. If I send my students home with Algebra II homework and their parents look through their notes, slides, and other materials and have no idea how to approach the homework, then I’m not setting up my students to succeed. In that case, a conversation with your student’s teacher might be in order.

2.     Have your student talk through their learning. There are different layers to learning, and talking through concepts is a fantastic way to deepen a student’s learning. If your child has an upcoming test, try this: have them talk through some of the concepts on the upcoming test and ask probing question. For example, if they have a math test coming up, ask them to solve one of the practice problems for you and talk you through their steps, why they are taking certain steps, how do they know if they arrived at the correct answer, what is a different way to get to that answer, etc. You don’t even need much familiarity with the concepts. Your questioning is a way to get them talking and explaining and it’s a way for them to test their knowledge and get insight on areas of strength and areas where they might still have misconceptions. It is a great way to have a student reveal to themselves what they know and what they still need to work on. The more you do this with your student, the better you will both get at it!

3.     Set realistic goals, focus on progress. Students learn at different speeds, and each student is at their own stage in their learning journey. Students and parents often only focus on grades and sometimes set unrealistic expectations that often lead to frustration and a loss of confidence for the student. For example, I recently had a student who struggled and failed the first few quizzes. He attended office hours and scored a B on his next exam, but he was very upset because both him and his mom wanted him to get an A. This student made amazing progress! His mathematical analysis and procedural skills improved, and he showed a great grasp of difficult concepts. However, he ignored his fantastic improvement because all he could see was that he failed to meet his goal, a goal that was probably unrealistic given the circumstances.  Grades matter of course, but progress matters so much more and progress is very often incremental. It’s often unfair to expect a student whose been struggling to get an A or even a B in a span of months. Setting that unfair expectation on your student can lead to burnout and it can hinder their long-term progress. So, instead of focusing on rigid benchmarks, focus on whether your student is showing progress.

4.     Focus on their emotional wellbeing. I teach at a school where I see incredibly high achieving students that are often stressed and unhappy. One positive thing that came out of the pandemic is that it pushed us as educators to focus more on our students’ emotional well-being. When I was a new teacher, most of my energy was expended on   academics. I thought that the best way to care for my students is by setting rigid expectations and consistently holding my students to them. As I got more experienced, I started to see and understand that students learn and want to learn when they are happy and feel valued. I still hold my students to the highest academic standard, and I ask a lot of them academically. But I also make sure that they know that I see and value them as individuals and if they need a break and if they need support, I am there to provide it. Students do well when they know and are consistently reminded that their support team (teachers, parents) cares about and prioritizes their emotional wellbeing. So, make sure you check in with your students. Do they feel overwhelmed? Do they feel like their classes ask them to do too much? Are they happy?

5.     Celebrate progress. Has your student been struggling with their math tests but were able to accurately answer some open response questions in their last test? Celebrate it! Did their English teacher mention that they’re much more willing to participate in class? Celebrate it! Small successes lead to big successes. Incremental improvement in the short term leads to significant improvement in the long term. Making it clear to your student that you value their progress will set up a powerful positive academic feedback loop.

6.     Keep open lines of communication with your student’s teachers. As a teacher, I can tell you that the great majority of my colleagues really appreciate parents who maintain open lines of communications with us. We are a small part of your student’s life, and we might not be aware of things that might impact their learning. Unfortunately, that might be the case even if you’ve shared information with the school or with some of the teachers. Communication between administration and teachers is not always seamless at a school. If you believe there’s something a teacher should know, if you have any questions, if you have any concerns, always reach out. When in doubt, reach out. We want all our students to succeed, and we are ready to support our students in any way that we can. The sooner we are made aware of things that might impact their academic performance or well-being in our class, the sooner we can start taking steps to mitigate it. You and your student’s teachers are part of your student’s support team. Good communication between parents and teachers is something we owe to all our students.

7.     Know when office hours are and encourage your student to attend them. In most schools, teachers will hold mandatory office hours. These office hours are a great way for your student to get individualized attention from their teacher. Know when these office hours are and encourage your student to attend them regularly, even if they’re not currently struggling on the material. If they are struggling, make sure your student attends these office hours as often as possible, and not just before an assessment. Often time teachers will be more than happy to hold additional office hours if your child needs them or if your child can’t attend the regular office hours. Make sure you ask! 

8.     Encourage your child to join after school activities. After school activities are a wonderful way for your student to interact and built relationships with peers, teachers, and administration in a more relaxed school setting. It also allows students to see their school environment as more than a place that has them perform certain tasks (homework, tests, etc.) and hands out consequences for poor performance. A positive experience in this setting can encourage students to want to be a member of this school community, which can have both academic and non-academic benefits.

9.     Know and plan for standardized tests. While the benefits and necessity of standardized tests are debatable, the reality is that our students must take these tests. Have a sense of when these exams will take place, their evaluating value (i.e. does it count for graduation, for admission to certain schools, and what happens if your student fails?)  whether students are expected to study for them, and what content will be tested on these exams. Check in with your teachers on their plan to make sure students are prepared for these exams, and let your teachers know if your student has had any issues with standardized tests in the past. If the test is a cumulative year end test, make sure your student gets support as soon as possible if they struggle with the content discussed in the class. As the test date approaches, have frequent check ins with your student and see how they’re preparing for the exam, how prepared they feel, and what support they might need.

10.  If you’re going to hire a tutor, set concrete goals. Before you hire a tutor, ask yourself a few questions: Why are you hiring this tutor? What do you want them to “fix”, if anything? How will you, as a parent, track your student’s progress? How often do you expect your student to meet with the tutor? How much time does your tutor have to help your student reach your goals? It takes a few sessions for a tutor to really get to know a student and figure out the best strategies to support them. So, if you’re hiring a tutor to help your student improve their grade, know that better grades won’t necessarily happen overnight. It might be unreasonable to expect that one or even two tutoring sessions will help your student ace an exam when they’ve been struggling with the content. If your student has really been struggling with content and you’re well into the school year, it might be unreasonable to expect that a one hour weekly tutoring session is enough to help your student improve considerably in a short time frame. The final decision on what you want your student to get out of the tutoring session and how often you want your student to meet the tutor, is yours. But you should be upfront with all your expectations, and you should be willing to take the tutor’s suggestions.