During these difficult covid times, education remains of paramount importance and includes the vital component of homework. We know this can be a challenge – especially if students are already completing their daily schoolwork at home, as well as their I Can Read lessons. It’s tempting to overlook homework, but homework involves essential activities which support and reinforce your child’s classroom and online learning. It is important that students know how to tackle homework, in order to reinforce what they learn from their lessons. 

We’ve pulled together some useful tips on how you can best support your child to complete their homework during lockdown.

First, your child needs to know and understand the task required. Take a few minutes to sit with them to make sure that he or she fully appreciates exactly what is required to complete the set homework.

WRITING HOMEWORK

First, make sure your child has everything they need to complete the task without having to break their concentration to look for whatever item is missing.

If the task requires handwriting, does your child have clean paper and a good pen or pencil before they start? 

If they can complete the homework on a computer, does he or she have access to the device for the duration of the task in order to complete their homework uninterrupted?   

It’s a good idea to break the task up into a few sections defined by time. For example, divide the homework into a beginning section, a middle section and a final section. By allocating a set time for each section – say 30 minutes, your child won’t find the task overwhelming and feel discouraged by an hour and a half of continuous homework.

This technique gives them a sense of progress and achievement as they go and makes the work feel much more manageable.

Sections of writing tasks

• Most writing tasks involve an introduction, a middle section (body), and a conclusion. An easy way to organise the task is to commence with a plan.

Ask your child to plan his or her work by making brief notes outlining the introduction, then jotting down points to expand on in the body of the piece, then finally, a couple of points for the conclusion to summarise what has been said.

• Have your child take a break after the plan is completed. Then use another session to write the introduction, using the notes from the plan. The introduction may be only a paragraph if necessary, but should set the scene for the text.
• Give them another a break (unless they are keen to carry on) before commencing the main body of the writing. This is the longest part and several paragraphs may be needed to develop the story, or to list details of a report to support the introduction. The middle section may be done over two sessions if necessary.
• Finally, they can write the conclusion by summarising the points made and the premise of the writing.

The length of the piece of writing will determine how many breaks you would like to use to make the task accessible for your child.

READING AND SPELLING HOMEWORK

If the homework consists of reading a story and learning some spelling words from the story, divide the homework into sections. For example, if your child has a week to complete the homework before their next lesson, read the story over two or three sessions, ask the comprehension questions and learn the spelling. Separate these tasks so that the homework is completed over several days, rather than all at once.

Ten minutes reading every day (if your child is learning to read) is preferable to one long session of reading in which the child may be decoding new and unfamiliar words.

Children can tire easily with long tasks, which may affect their enjoyment of reading in the long term. Keeping sessions short makes tasks less arduous, and provides something to look forward to during the break. 

SUMMARY 

Tackling homework demands comes down to using time well. Only work as long as your child is able to before taking a break. If your child works on a task for 30 minutes, perhaps a ten minute break will be in order. Reward positive and cooperative behaviour with small rewards that you know will be effective with your child (though be sure to avoid sugary treats that will affect their ability to concentrate). Allow your child to take breaks but always set a restart time. Say, “We’ll have a short break but you will resume the task in 10 minutes, okay?”

Perhaps agree on an activity they look forward to once they finish their homework, such as playing a favourite game, going for a walk, watching a favourite TV show.

Breaking up tasks into smaller manageable units makes the job seem less onerous and this principle can be applied to most homework challenges.

For younger children, please also remember to check out our series of fun and educational Literacy Guides, which will help you to keep the literacy momentum going between pre-reading and reading lessons. https://icanreadsystem.com/resources/

If you’ve found this article helpful, please let us know and we will write some more along these lines. If there are any particular topics you would like us to address, again, please share your ideas with us and we’ll be happy to include our advice in future articles.

Contact us via email on headoffice@icanreadystem.com.au or call us on 02 9972 1419.

It’s hard to know exactly how your child is performing in literacy, and how to benchmark their progress. With children home-schooling, you currently have a rare opportunity to see them in action and with this guidance can gain a valuable insight into their reading competency.

By around the age of 7, all children should be literate and well able to read. In order to become literate, children must be taught how to read by teachers who are properly trained in the acquisition process. Though you could reasonably expect this to be the case in our schools, it unfortunately is not, which goes some way to explaining how and why Australian children now rank around 17^th on the world scale where once they were ranked 3^rd.

This article however, is not about why our ranking in Australia is so dismal or how it came to be. It’s about markers, which identify that your child may be at risk of reading failure. This is very important because the fact is that should your child be failing to acquire the necessary skills to become literate, it is likely that without the correct intervention, your child will continue to underachieve in this area. If you would like to read more information on this topic, check out our blog article on the subject https://icanreadsystem.com/why-the-final-australian-education-system-is-failing-your-child/

For the purpose of this article, we will assume that your child is 7 years or older and you have some concerns about his or her reading skills. Many children under the age of 7 years are not yet appropriately literate but the indicators of later reading failure are more subtle and as a parent or primary caregiver you should get your child assessed in order to determine if there are or will be problems in the future.

Assuming your child is 7 years or older, we can make some observations which should raise the red flag and you might consider doing some follow up. Please do not take on board anyone who says, “Oh, he’ll be right. He or she will come good later.” The evidence is that the child will not come good unless you take some positive action.

Let’s explore what observations you might make and what might be done to remedy them.

Children destined to become poor readers are hardly likely to enjoy reading, so make a note of how much your child actually reads without being pushed. If your child presents as quite competent in other indirectly related areas such as use of social media and communication, it may be that they just prefer not to read books. Try to avoid acting too concerned with your child, but time how long they might take to read something they themselves have picked up, and casually try to determine how much they comprehended. Should your child only read reluctantly, you may have some issues to address. 

Today, with a lot of research identifying the importance of the relationship between sound and associated alphabetic symbols, you might like to note how easily your child associates sounds with the letters of the alphabet. Difficulty manipulating sounds in words is one of the hallmark characteristics of reading difficulties and can be seen at a young age. Your child might struggle with rhyming, word games, or recognizing words that start with the same sound so a few game-like exercises might indicate there are some issues to address.

For instance, if your child has difficulties playing the age-old game of ‘I Spy’, you might need to take a closer look. Make sure that you play the game by saying, “I spy with my little eye something beginning with the sound /cuh/,” but don’t say with the letter ‘c’. Choose objects represented by unambiguous first sounds like ‘cat‘ or ‘car’ but not ‘city’ which starts with the sound /ssss/ for example.

You can play a game by saying, “I’ll say 2 words which start with the same sound, like /cat and /car/ so what sound do they both start with?” The answer is /cuh/, not ‘c’ (the letter name).

You might like to check out our literacy guides, which you may find helpful for this purpose https://icanreadsystem.com/resources/

In short, a child likely to have reading delay or problems with acquisition will probably present with a number of issues, which are listed below. These indications may be summed up as negative. Negative, in that your child is unlikely to read much or will not enjoy reading if he or she is challenged in these ways. You may be advised to get an assessment if you are concerned. A good assessment will determine the root cause for your child’s issues. Our experience is that an early identification of possible impediments to becoming a good reader makes it much more probable that the issues can be rectified with the right intervention by a professional reading teacher. Bear in mind that your child may, in today’s world, just not want to read when he or she has an internet connected device to play with. It’s worth your while to find out.

Here is a list of the more common indicators of reading delay:

1. Slow reading speed. 

This indicates your child has issues with processing the text. They may be struggle to remember sight words rather than having the ability to decode the words and therefore be able to read words that are new to them.

2. Transposing letters in words. 

This is when your child mixes letters up, causing them to incorrectly ‘read’ certain words.

3. Poor reading comprehension

Not only does the child have issues with articulating the words but also in understanding them. 

4. Difficulty identifying single words

If your child reads books they are familiar with, they begin to memorise the text. Try pointing our single words to see whether they are able to read them in isolation. Memorising text could mean your child is lacking decoding skills.

5. Problems with spelling

Spelling issues are quite complex and linked to decoding ability. If your child has problems spelling relatively simple words, this indicates they have not acquired the phonemic skills required to correctly construct the words.

6. Omission or substitution of words while reading

Look out for your child glossing over, or guessing challenging words, rather than sounding out and decoding them.

7. Reversal of words while reading

If your child reverses some words, for example, the word ‘bad’ becomes ‘dab’. This usually happens when the first and last letters are similar, or mirror images of each other.

8. Difficulty decoding

Your child struggles to decode words by breaking them down into syllables. They may even have difficulty with single letters and associating them with specific sounds.

9. Limited sight word vocabulary

Sight words are subject to recall abilities, and there is a limit to the number of words a child can retain in his or her memory. This is why decoding skills are so important. Sight words do have a role to play, but should not form the basis of reading acquisition.

10. Resistance to reading and lack of enjoyment

This is a big indicator of poor or weak reading skills. If reading is difficult for your child, it will always feel like a chore and they will resist.

While one or more of the above may be an indication of Dyslexia, it is probably unlikely, as this condition actually affects less than 5% of the population. You can read more about Dyslexia in our recent article https://icanreadsystem.com/is-your-child-dyslexic-we-dont-think-so/

In summary, people traditionally believed that learning how to read was something they ‘picked up’ as part of their overall education. Some children actually do pick up reading skills and there’s a reason they do. But those who cannot, need to have parents on their toes and taking notes, because – and keep this in mind – ‘it is unlikely that your child will grow out of any reading difficulty’ and poor literacy will prove to be a real hindrance for them in today’s world.

If you have concerns about your child’s reading abilities, please contact us for advice. We are passionate about early literacy and always happy to discuss any issues you may have, or answer any questions.

We continue to offer our free diagnostic assessment service via zoom, maintaining our face-to-face process as far as possible.

To book a free literacy assessment, call Amanda on 9972 1419, email headoffice@icanreadsystem.com or make a booking on our website https://icanreadsystem.com/#BookAssessment