When your child is not happy and not learning well in school, there are things you can do. There are things you should do. Parents are needed in education!

This is not your traditional web page. This is more of an educational web site. While I do have my Reading Buddy Books for sale here, and while I do offer a variety of suggestions to help your child enjoy learning to read on the “Helping With Literacy at Home” tab, the primary purpose of this site is to help parents understand why they should be actively involved in their child’s education, and then to explore comfortable ways to help their children succeed in school and in life.

First you should know that parents have been the director of their own children’s education for many centuries. Almost two thousand years ago the early Christians sent their children to the schools of Rome where they received the standard pagan education. Knowing that this schooling was not designed for their beliefs, parents home schooled after the school day was over to complete their children’s education. It took time and effort, but the parents took control and added the instruction that they felt their children needed to succeed in life. Parental supervision and involvement to supplement children’s education has been the rule for well over 2000 years.

It has only been the last 150 years or so that schools have taken over the full responsibility for a child’s education. Parents allowed this to happen. It has been convenient. But it is not the best way for children to become educated.

This is probably not what you wanted to hear. That in your busy day, you will have to make time to help your child learn. But you as a parent are uniquely qualified to do this. You can do it better than any other person in the world. It is you who know what your child likes and dislikes. You know their interests and what they want to be when they grow up. What makes them smile and what makes them frown. And when you are learning together — one on one – you are the one who can see what they are using but confusing more easily than any teacher in any classroom.

There are things that school can do better than parents. Providing a social environment with children of their own age is perhaps the most important. Instruction in skill development is next. There are many aspects of education where a specific skill must be mastered, and phonics, basic math facts, the foundations of science and history are the usual subjects where schools succeed in imparting a ‘good’ education. Going to school is usually a very good thing for children. The problem is that for many, it is just not enough.

What is missing are the aspects where parents naturally provide a better learning environment than school. Parents at home are the best at supplying opportunities that lead to understanding, comprehension, enjoying learning, answering questions, and using the knowledge gained from instruction in other aspects of life. There is a difference between memorizing how to do something, and thinking to understand how something works. Schools do great with the memorizing. Parents do great with the thinking.

Each child is unique in the way they think and process information. Keeping that in mind, there are a surprising variety of ideas, activities, games, books, and manipulatives to choose from that can help parents help their children learn what they want and need to know. The most important aspect to keep in mind is that it has to be fun. I don’t mean ‘eating ice cream’ kind of fun, but enjoyable and fulfilling and full of smiles for both of you. Learning is one of the most enjoyable aspects of being a human being. If it isn’t fun, you probably won’t want to do it.

This web site is devoted to providing you the insight and resources you need to help your child learn and enjoy learning. These are the things that are missing from school. These are the things that parents can supply the best.