• Listen, talk, and encourage – this can have a big influence on children’s learning
• Encourage your child to talk to you about their learning, what learning is happening at school and do what you can at home to build on that.
• Talk to your child about their strengths and interests and how they are progressing.
• Encourage your child to talk to you about their next steps in learning and find out how you can work with the school to support this
• Ask for help if you think your child needs it for any reason.
• Praise your child if he/she is working hard at something or has achieved something within or out of school.
• Encourage any reading.
• Look for opportunities at home to develop literacy and numeracy skills: money, number problems, time, measuring, matching, size, reading, writing, understanding instructions, questioning information.
• Encourage your child to take part in activities, for example hobbies or clubs which will provide opportunities to develop a range of skills.
• Help them work on tasks on their own and then talk about it with you afterwards.
• Do things together where appropriate – learn together, for example if your child has a project or task to do, take an interest and discuss with them what they are doing or offer support if this is needed.
• Help prepare for change, particularly at key transitions – talk about the change together.
• Talk to your child about how they are feeling.
• Work together with the school by taking part in discussions about your child’s learning and progress, for example at parents’ evenings or reviews.
• Talk about what you’re doing as you carry out everyday tasks like making lunch/dinner, washing up etc.
•  Point out all of the things you see around you when you’re out at the park, on the way to school, at the supermarket etc.
•  Look at your child when you and they are talking – it shows that you are interested in what they have to say.
•  If your child says something incorrectly instead of correcting, say it back in the correct way.

Parental Hints and Tips to Help your Child Achieve their best!

• Encourage your child to pack their own bag for school.  Give them a written or a verbal list of items to help them remember what they need! 
• Encourage your child to take responsibility for jobs around the house which are appropriate for their age e.g. make their bed, clean their bedroom, wash/dry the dishes, make their packed lunch/dinner with you etc.
•  If your child finds it hard to tidy their room, be more detailed.  For example, give them 3 or 4 tasks to complete: put dirty clothes in the wash basket, fold clean clothes and put them away, make your bed and tidy toys away into the box.
•  Swap time on the computer or watching TV for 20 minutes of reading.  A comic or a magazine or a book – whatever they fancy!
• Encourage your child to get involved in making decisions about things that affect them e.g. what you do at the weekends, what you have for dinner etc.  This will make them fell involved in family life and that their ideas matter.  If their suggestions are not possible, be honest and discuss them and where possible, incorporate some of their suggestions.  Use phrases including:

“So what do you think we should do?”

“The choice is yours.”

“What don’t you try that on your own this time?”

These are some things to think about when talking/spending time together with younger children:

• Read lots of stories, rhymes and songs together!
• Make up your own stories together. Use funny voices for characters and act them out!

These are some things to think about when talking/spending time together with older children:

• Play board/card games together.
• Watch Newsround together and talk about what you think/how you felt about one of the articles. We do this at school so your child will be used to and good at this and you can learn together!
• Talk about their day as you do things around the house together e.g. washing up, eating. This is more relaxing for your child and takes the pressure off them to speak as they’re also doing something else. If this is tricky to begin with remember two things: 1. Use the language they use and 2. Ask them to be more specific.

Try asking questions such as:

“What was the best question you asked today?”

“What was the best/funniest/strangest/most exciting/worst thing that happened to you today?”

“What are you looking forward to tomorrow?”

Was there anything that you didn’t understand at school today?

Ask your child to teach you something that they learned today because that’s the way they learn most effectively and they’ll remember 90% of what they’ve learned!