Monday, August 07, 2006

Ready for School?

An article on the Indianapolis Star's editorial page discusses the role of parents in preparing students for school. What is your opinion?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My first comment is with regard to the author's spelling of "'rithmatic". I am not referring to the dropping of the 'A', but to the fact that the correct spelling of the word is arithmetic. I recall my third grade teacher using a mnemonic device as follows: "a rat in the house might eat the ice cream". Thank you, Mrs. Jones.

To the issue of parent involvement I say, in general the students who have parental involvement and home support do much better than those who do not. I see this at open house nights, where most of the parents that show up have students that are succeeding, while the parents of the students who are not succeeding are either working or simply stay at home. I also see this in the lives of home schooled students. Many of these students are highly successful and I cannot believe for a minute that the home influence is not a factor. There was a time when the classroom teacher was able to fill in the gap created by absent or uncaring parents. I don't think that happens anymore because there are so many students that come from single parent or practically no parent homes the teacher cannot possibly be a surrogate parent to them all.
We cannot overemphasize the influence a quality home life has on a student's success, not only in the classroom, but in life itself.