Preparing Your Child For Success

Kangaroo Kids hosted an outstanding Parent Workshop last week by certified school psychologist Laura Marchese, entitled “Preparing Your Child For Success,” Here are a few highlights from the workshop:

1.      Attitude - Encourage a positive attitude. Listen to your child’s comments to understand how they feel about themselves.

2.      Ability – Pay attention to what your child is good at and encourage them to develop their abilities in that area.  Indentify areas where you child may be lacking, and work to build those skills as well so they can become well rounded.  Children who focus on developing abilities they have are much more likely to achieve success than those who have great talent but don’t learn how to use it.

3.      Skills – Learning good skills are what set the average student apart from the exceptional student.  It takes practice, and successful practice is what produces those skills.

4.      Habits – Children thrive on routine.  Good study habits ensure a student will be well prepared and efficient in their studies.  Time and life management habits as well as study habits are important to develop.  The sooner you start practicing good habits, the better chance you will have for lifelong success.

Reading is crucial for academic success!  Here are a few tips from the workshop on selecting the right book for your young reader.  While reading the first page of a book, count the unknown words.  If there are five or more, the book is too hard for now.  Read that book together.

The book that is just right is one that your child can read independently.  It is not too hard and it is not too easy.  It’s just right for their level.

When selecting a book take into consideration the size of the print, the length of the book, the amount of pictures, and the number of unfamiliar words.  Books should be interesting to the child and they should be able to figure out most of the words.