Why is Southern Raised Learning Better Than Other Schools?
A few months into the school year, I had a parent express concern over the fact that they felt unable to track their child’s academic progress. Their concern was that when a particular homework assignment came home and was completed, it might be months before they ever saw that skill again. “Was the skill ever mastered?” This was a great question.
This inspired me to come up with a way that parents could reinforce skills that were being introduced at school, track the progress of these skills, practice the skills at home and rejoice when skills were mastered. In effect, this makes parents co-teachers. It’s become an awesome, interactive idea and certainly provides an opportunity for parents to be a part of their child’s education.
What I came up with was a notebook that focused on Math, Reading and English Language Arts. The notebook has three sections and at the beginning of each section is the list of skills that correspond to where the child currently functions academically. Behind the skills sheet is notebook paper for correspondence between teacher and parent. I named the notebook the “Skills Binder.”
Each section is chock-full of worksheets and laminated activities. The notebook travels back and forth with the child each day. There are two rules:
- Only one activity per subject area is done nightly.
- All worksheets are corrected with parents before being returned to their place in the notebook.
Once the worksheet has been completed and has my sticker approval, it becomes a resource for practice and review. Students are proud to show it off both at school and at home!