Our Parent Involvement in our Child's Education is an Important Role.

With your child constantly absorbing information, you as a parent continually demonstrates to them the importance of learning.

Reading, writing, listening and speaking are the 4 main roles in communication. Children learn to communicate from those around them and we as their parents demonstrate much about these 4 roles.

Everyday things you do show your children how language - that of reading, writing, listening and speaking - is used and that you too need to know how to read, write, listen and speak to communicate.

As a parent helper you can make sure that you help your children with their language skills. But don't be too concerned as most of the time you are doing that. You are constantly helping your children learn, the only minor change you could make would be to include them more in everything you do.

Many of our everyday activities can help with our child's learning. Here are some examples:

• Play games with them - card games, board games, memory games, you name it - this includes children using many skills, they need to listen to instructions, often read instructions, ask questions etc.
• Cooking - cooking involves recipes that need to be read, instructions to listen to and speaking skills as well. There are many mathematical concepts involved as well.
• Walking - if you go to the park, a walking track or around the local area, there are many things to see, read and talk about.
• Driving - you can look at signs, talk about directions, play games etc when driving, even just listening to children's songs on a CD player.
• Shopping - there are so many things you can do on a shopping trip - before you go you can write a list, at the centre you can look at signs, labels, etc and afterwards when unpacking you can talk about the products bought.
• Birthdays or special occasions - whether for your child or for another, you can plan a party, write cards and with Christmas coming, children can write to Santa.
• Watching T.V. - although we shouldn't encourage too much, some shows are good for children to watch. You can have discussions about shows that you have watched. Talk to them about different types of shows, why are they different, talk about advertising, get them to tell you what is happening etc.

  There are so many areas you can involve your child in. While you might feel it is not that educational, you are involving and immersing them in language. They will pick up on the structure you use, listen and learn new vocabulary and will often develop good conversational skills with all the talking.

I found this really great acrostic poem about parents and it ties in well with parents involvement in education and how you help your child.

PARENTS

Praise children's efforts to try new things.

Accept that children are not all the same.

Respect and care deeply for children.

Encourage children to talk about their feelings, experiences and ideas.

Notice changes as children grow in all areas of development.

Talk through things with children, listening to what they say.

Support and encourage children to 'have-a-go'.

Queensland School Curriculum Council. (1997). Hand in Hand - An Early Literacy and Numeracy Information Package, Queensland Government.