What can parents do to help?

• Read to your child and listen to your child read.
• Show your child you enjoy reading by letting them see you read too.
• Play games with your child, such as card games, board games, sports games, computer games.
• Help your child get a library card from the public library nearest to you. Visit the library with your child. Help your child to select books (but don’t choose for them).
• Talk to your child about subjects that are interesting to them. Also draw them into everyday conversation, into your plans, and discuss outings and experiences.
• Write notes to your child: for example, put a short note in their lunch-boxes (Dear Tim, Have a great day, love Mum), or make up a treasure hunt where they have to read simple clues using some of the words they are focusing on at school to find the ‘treasure’. Leave notes on their bed, on the fridge.
• Have a pin-up board for artwork, notes, school correspondence, stories, and photos.
• Help your child to write lunch orders, letters and notes. Don’t worry if they are messy.
• Encourage your child to keep a scrapbook about a subject that interests them: e.g., dogs, cats, birds, cars, surfing.
• Limit your child’s T.V. watching. You might select certain shows to watch and monitor the T.V. being turned on for that show and turned off immediately after. Talk together about what they watch on TV.
• Keep a journal or box of records of events in the child’s life, such as records of growth, when they lost their teeth, birthday parties, holidays, school reports. Children love to look back on these.
• Provide a box with materials for creative projects: art paper, glue, paint, feathers, buttons, fabric scraps, old magazines etc.
• Give your child a calendar so they can write down special events, like birthdays, excursions & holidays. Mark off each day.
• Teach your child how to answer the phone, take messages and make a call.
• Ask your child to add a sentence when writing letters to grandparents or friends. (Young children could dictate while you write).
• Encourage your child to show their schoolwork to relatives and friends. (But don’t embarrass them if they find this too hard).
• Show your child how to tell o’clock times.
• Do jigsaws and constructions together.
• Give your child a special place to keep school things, such as a special drawer for school clothes, a box for library books, gear etc. Saves lots of time before school each day too!
• Provide counting experiences for your child: for example, in the supermarket show your child how to count out change or to count how many apples you need.