Settling into school
OPINION —
The school year is well underway. As teachers and parents, we are beginning to assess our children with a signal I have used be-fore which is SOS: S-Safe, O-Open, S-Sensitive.
- Safe — Do the children in my class feel secure and safe? Is there any anxiety being shown from the student?
- Open — Are the children open to learning? Do they seem enthusiastic about learning by paying attention and engaging in the learning process?
- Sensitive — As a child’s teacher, am I being sensitive to a child’s learning needs as well as emotional needs?
Even though this article is focused more on early childhood, many of the ideas can be adopted for our elementary and high school age children.
As children adjust to their new home away from home in the classrooms, parents can help facilitate bonding and security for their child with teachers. Teachers and parents work as a team to provide a wonderful learning experience for their child during a school year.
Take time to talk to your child about their school day. Keep a positive focus as they talk to you about what they learn, what they do, and the friends they have made. As a parent, you can discern if your child doesn’t seem settled in school yet.
Here at the beginning of the year, contact your child’s teacher immediately if you sense your child is anxious or doesn’t feel good about school. Teachers will spend extra time and attention, and by giving your child a special classroom job so they feel special and connected with the classroom.
When children receive love notes in their lunch boxes or back packs it brings such a smile to their faces. Giving your child a little token of encouragement to put in their backpacks or pockets enables them to feel connected. You can let your child’s teacher know what you are doing by writing them a note or speaking to them. These tokens of encouragement enable your child to feel connected to the parents as they are in the classroom.
Humor and laughing is one tip I recommend to cut down on a child’s anxiety, especially on the way to school. Children absolutely love “Knock, Knock” jokes.
An openness to learning requires optimism and encouragement from adults. I love to see and hear parents encourage children to do the best they can with subjects. It’s fun and challenging to break down hard subjects into parts — a child can do well with each part.
Having success in small steps encourages children to know they can do it. For instance, when memorizing a week’s spelling word list, break each word down in syllables and spell each part of the word then put the syllables together to spell the whole word. Use the spelling words in sentences, sing songs with the spelling words, make up jingles with the spelling words, etc. With math facts or in counting, use objects to relate one on one correspondence as you count. This can be done with blocks, dominoes, crayons, setting the table, etc.
We need to encourage children not to fear rejection or failure. This is all a part of learning. Giving children hope by praising them when they have worked so hard on their assignments builds their confidence.
Sensitivity is where teachers and parents focus on the learning needs of their child. Children love to help. They want to feel significant and to be needed.
At the beginning of the year is when teachers and parents can assess each child’s gifts and talents. Let’s look at some of the are-as that talents and gifts are expressed in a child’s life. - Language — children love to express themselves with words and storytelling. They love to express themselves through creative writing stories and poems with pictures they draw. Too, they love to role play stories through acting it out or using puppets. The main focus is to encourage your child to express themselves.
- Math — Some children have the natural inclination to-ward reasoning, counting, quick computation and quick logical reasoning of math problems and systems.
- Music — Young children love to hum as they play or do their work. Children who are attracted to and fascinated by sounds and musical instruments usually have a natural tendency to perform music by singing or playing instruments.
- Physical — Children love to run and play freely. Play is a child’s work. Some children seem to be prone to participate and truly enjoy organized sports.
- Artistic — As teachers we love to see our young students draw, color and paint. Children are attracted to activities including painting, drawing, making things out of objects like Play-Doh, etc.
I hope with these few suggestions that you continue to have a good beginning of the school year.
Beth Pinyerd has taught in the early childhood classroom for many years. She holds a master’s degree in early childhood education.
