Supporting Your Child's Learning
You are your children’s first teachers. Your influence continues to be important throughout your child’s school years. There are many ways you can extend your children’s learning through support, encouragement and practice at home.
Homework strategies
- Here are some tips for turning homework time into a productive, positive experience.
- Once your children are in intermediate grades or higher, they will need to develop good study skills. We offer some study tips for your child to follow.
- An experienced teacher gives suggestions for hassle-free homework activities parents can do with their children, which helps them practice skills and make learning connections.
Learning games and activities
Our Reading web page offers more tips and suggested materials.
Confidence and self-esteem
Self-esteem and confidence are very important factors in children's progress at school. A child who is generally confident and who has high self-esteem is more likely to ask questions, participate actively, express their ideas, and take on new challenges. They are also better able to learn from mistakes, handle constructive criticism and to generally push themselves harder in learning. Conversely when a child's self-esteem is low they are more likely to be negative, withdraw and experience failure more often. Here are some suggestions to help your child grow in confidence and higher self-esteem.
Gender stereotyping
Parents and teachers are very aware that girls traditionally excel in the humanities, while boys tend to do better in the sciences. In recent years, girls have begun to catch up and, indeed, to surpass boys in many aspects of school performance, including exam results, graduation rates, scholarships, and post-secondary enrolment.
What is "boy culture"? Is it different today from the good old days? What can we, as teachers, parents, and community do to raise well-rounded individuals who contribute to society? The BCTF presentation on Raising Confident Boys (and Girls) is available for parents.
The Federation commissioned an extensive research project into these crucial issues of gender stereotyping in schools and society. The result is G.I. Joe meets Barbie, software engineer meets caregiver: Males and females in B.C.'s public schools and beyond.
Other articles
Brochure for parents of ESL students
The English as a Second Language (ESL) Provincial Specialist Association of the BC Teachers' Federation has produced a brochure for parents of ESL students in BC public schools.
The brochure explains the following to parents:
- what ESL support might look like for their children,
- what is involved in learning a new language,
- how school in British Columbia may be different from what they experienced in their home countries,
- ways they can know how their children are doing at school, and
- what they can do to help their children learn.
The brochure had been translated into fourteen most common languages spoken by students in BC public schools:
- French
- Chinese (simplified characters)
- Chinese (traditional characters)
- Hindi
- Japanese
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- Korean
- Persian (Farsi)
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Punjabi
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- Russian
- Spanish
- Tagalog
- Vietnamese
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Each translated brochure is labelled in English to help you identify them for easy distribution.
We hope that this brochure will be useful to schools and community groups. Please feel free to print, photocopy and distribute it.
Parent presentations
The BCTF has developed presentations for parents link that provide opportunities to learn strategies, gain knowledge and explore concerns.
Links
Note: The web site links listed below have been selected for the suitability of their content. They do not necessarily reflect the policies and positions of the BCTF.
Canada
United States