Parents are our partners.
– Zeba McGibbon from The Kindergarten Cafe Podcast ~ Ep. 67
Episode Summary
In this episode, I discuss strategies for supporting struggling students at home, explaining the importance of early communication with families to build a collaborative support system. I share practical tips for integrating fun learning activities into daily routines, emphasizing that even short, engaging practices can lead to significant improvements. Celebrating small wins reinforces motivation and strengthens the parent-teacher relationship. I also introduce resources for educators to simplify family engagement and ensure learning remains enjoyable.
In this episode, I share:
- Supporting Struggling Students at Home
- Importance of Family Involvement
- Incorporating Learning into Daily Life
- Simple Ways and Resources to Help Families
Previous Episodes:
- Tips for Difficult Parent-Teacher Conversations – Ep. 3
- Empowering Educators with Effective Student Progress Tracking – Ep. 11
Resources Mentioned:
- Partnering with Families Bundle: Improving Parent Communication tips & handouts
- Kindergarten Home Support for Students | Easy Math Games and Phonics Games
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
[0:00] Hey teacher friends, we are following along our sort of like math mini-series, but focusing today on how to support students that are struggling at home, how to support families. And so this could be applied to not just math, obviously, for anything children are struggling with, but how do I encourage my families and support my families with supporting students who struggle and practicing those skills at home? All right, let’s get into it.
[0:27] Music. You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast, where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom-tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective. And purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started.
[1:10] Music. So when kids are struggling with a particular skill area, a particular part of their day, learning. It’s one, really important to let families know about this. As we talked about in preparing for parent-teacher conferences and difficult conversations, we don’t want to just wait for there to be a conference to let parents know that kids are having an issue or for report cards for them to see that they’re not getting a skill. We want to bring them in and let them know that they’re struggling with this particular area way before all of that. Parents are our partners. They want their kids to succeed. They want their kids to do well. And so when we bring them in and ask for their support, we’re showing that we value them as partners and we value them as their child’s first teacher. So one, we don’t want to surprise them with the report card or conference. And two, we want to show we value them as a partner.
[2:20] That’s why it’s important to bring them in and talk about where the child is struggling and what we’re doing in the classroom and how they can help at home. Now, it is really helpful for kids who are struggling to have that extra practice because maybe even just five minutes a day of just like one extra round of practice can help them, especially if they’re struggling with memory and they’re forgetting by the time the next day comes around. Having one extra round of practice can be beneficial. And for some kids, like that’s all they need. So I’ve had a few instances where I’ve told families, hey, this child hasn’t learned other letters yet. These are the letters they’re still working on. Can you practice at home? Boom. Two weeks later, it’s totally clicked. They’ve gotten it. They’ve clearly been practicing. It helped. Sometimes it can really make a big difference.
[3:06] Sometimes, as we know, children need more than what you can give in a general education setting. They might need special education, and a lot of kindergarten is figuring all that out. So for some kids, practicing at home might not be the end-all be-all, but I think it’s still important to show families that we value their partnership and give kids a chance for that extra round of practice. I stress to families not to make a big deal about it. I don’t want it to become a battle to get them to do work. I also don’t want kids to then lose interest in what we’re doing. I don’t want it to be so frustrating to practice reading that then they hate reading. So I tell parents not to make it a battle, to keep it fun, keep it short. It doesn’t have to be too long.
[3:55] You know, I say like set a timer or have them do that while you’re making dinner and you’re over there and they’re at the table. and really think about ways that parents can incorporate what you’re asking them to do within their busy lifestyle. I mean, If you have kids, you can easily imagine this. If you don’t have kids, which I don’t right now, but I can certainly imagine like I come home and I make dinner and then I go to bed, watch a little TV, go to bed. I don’t have the brain space to really be like imagining helping kids with homework when I get home. So I’m imagining families are busy working and when they come home, like they want to be asking their kids about their day, having dinner together, and then the day’s over, right? So we need to make sure that the work we’re asking them to do is short and able to be done within their busy lifestyle.
[4:50] So give really specific things that they can do, for example, like reading together and talking about comprehension, and then give them a handout that has questions that they can ask, because parents don’t always know the questions to ask. They also might not know that the questions they’re already asking actually help with the comprehension skills. So it can be a good like, oh, hey, you’re already doing this. Or give them some fun games that they can play when they’re at home to practice the skill you want the child to work on. Anytime you can have a game is way more effective because the kid will enjoy it more, the parent will enjoy it more. I always include directions on the activities so that the parents can quickly know how to play because you can’t assume they know how to play the game that the kids did in school, and you can’t always assume the kid can go home and explain it well. So I always include directions. I also like to include things that parents can do in their everyday routine, like driving in the car. I’ll say like, hey, next time you’re driving in the car, just play a game where you’re saying rhyming words and having the kids come up with another rhyming word that you say. That’s a great way to work on that phonological awareness that they know they’re struggling with in class.
[6:02] Or while you’re driving in the car, you know, count the number of stop signs that you see that can really help work on the number order and the counting that we’re working on in class. So ways for them to practice that skill within their life. And they may be doing it and not even realizing that that’s helping their kid progress. But also, if they’re not doing it, it’s a super easy way for them to start integrating that learning into what they’re already doing. I always talk about how baking and playing board games or helping like set the table and counting the number of forks that you need, helping to write the grocery list. Like these are things that are so beneficial and they’re easily done within the everyday life of the family. But baking and board games are really, really beneficial for kids learning math and literacy and all of those all those good academic areas.
[6:54] If you meet with the family and you give them lots of things to practice at home, make sure that you are celebrating with them when you’re noticing any positive effects of this work. So if you see like, hey, you know, this child was struggling to write their name. I asked you to practice. Now they’re writing their name really, really well, and we’re just working on making sure it’s in the right order, but they’re doing it on their own. Let them know that. Let the parent know that because they did that. They helped with that. And you also don’t want them to keep practicing it if they don’t have to, right? So, hey, I told you to work on counting and we’ve been doing some in class and I can tell you’ve been doing some at home because the child is now counting up to 20 without any errors, any mistake. That’s amazing. We’re going to keep working on it up to 30 in the classroom, but I think you’ve done an awesome job at home. Thank you so much for helping, right? Share that progress with them. Celebrate together. It’s a really important part of the family partnership.
[7:52] So if you were looking for easy ways to send home game like activities to practice different skill areas, I do have a whole home support product where you can easily just print off and send home these games and activities for different skill areas. And it has great directions and it tells parents exactly what we’re looking for the kids to be doing when they’re doing these activities. So it’s great to just have ready at conferences or when you’re meeting with parents and just print it off and hand it to them, be like, hey, I noticed they’re working on counting. We’re still you know working on counting up to 10 in the classroom it’d be great if you practice at home here are some resources for you to use easy peasy you give it to them they’re able to take it and go.
[8:31] I also like to have parent tips ready to go for if I talk about, like I said earlier, the reading comprehension to actually have the questions ready for the parents for what questions to ask their kids or tips on how to include fine motor at home in their everyday life. I have all of those put together in a parent tips and handouts packet that you can get that has a range of, like I said, fine motor, math, literacy, all those areas, how to help parents understand how to support their kids at home. And even for all your kids, for the whole class, if you’re not specifically just thinking about like this child needs to practice counting at home, but you’re thinking about your whole class and you’re looking for ways to help parents support their children at home with what you’re doing in class, you can send home a homework bingo board. I don’t believe in homework for five-year-olds or six-year-olds. I don’t really believe in homework for anyone in elementary school, but that’s like a whole other thing. But definitely for kindergarten, I don’t do homework. I do do choice bingo boards that I send home once a month that just have related practice that kids can do at home. So those things where I said like baking and board games or set the table and count how many forks you need or go to the library and find a nonfiction book.
[9:47] Count out how many teddy bears you have at home. I don’t know. I don’t remember off the top of my head, but just things that kids can do in their everyday life that complement the learning they’re doing in school. You can get those bingo boards from my homework activity packet. I will link all of these below, but if you are thinking like all these would be helpful, you should definitely check out my homeschool communication bundle because it has it all included at a really good discount. So definitely recommend checking that out.
[10:14] So if you’re concerned about kids learning, if they are struggling with a certain skill, bring the family in, see them as partners, tell them how they can help, but keep in mind that they are busy, they are tired, they might not know how to go about supporting a child with what you’re asking them to do. So give them simple, concrete, playful ways that they can practice at home. And our quote of the day, eight-year-old boy at lunch said, one day aliens will come to earth and tell us that vegetables were never meant to be eaten.
[10:48] I’ve never related to a boy so much. Vegetables were never meant to be eaten. If you know me, you know I have a secret where I really, I don’t like cooked vegetables, specifically cooked vegetables. Anyway, that’s what parents are dealing with. They’re dealing with kids that don’t eat their vegetables. So make sure when you’re sending work home for them to practice,
[11:09] it can be done within their busy, busy lives. So thanks so much for listening to today’s episode if you found it helpful send me a dm you can use the code word families let’s go families and let me know that you enjoyed it share the episode with a friend and please please leave a review it really really helps the podcast sorry you had to listen to that very long please all right thanks so much and have a great day.
[11:36] Music.
[11:41] Thanks so much for listening to the kindergarten cafe podcast be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies if you liked this episode the best ways to show your support are to subscribe leave a review or send it to a friend i’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips see you then you.