Your kids brought their report cards home last week, and you have spotted a few areas for improvement. If you and their teachers feel that their grades do not adequately reflect their true abilities as students, it's time to take some tangible steps to boost their performance in school. In order to help your kiddos improve their grades, check out the following tips:
Create a Routine
You probably have a before-school morning routine and a bedtime routine set up for your kids. In order to help them be successful and organized students, it's also important to establish a homework routine. Encourage your kiddo to have a healthy snack and a bit of downtime after getting home from school and then let them know it's time to hit the books. While your kids might beg to do their homework in the evening right before bedtime, encourage them to do as much as they can before dinner when they are still reasonably energetic and not as likely to turn a 20-minute math worksheet into an hour-long project.
Help Them with Organization
A student who is well-organized, both at home and in school, will typically get better grades than one whose backpack is a hot mess and who has no clear space to work. This is especially true if your child has low grades due to missing or late assignments—they may have done the work but then lost it somewhere.
Purchase color-coded folders for your kiddos so they can connect a subject with a color. For younger kids, help them clean out and organize their backpacks. Provide a quiet place to work and make sure it has basic essentials like pencils, pens, erasers and other necessary supplies.
Do a regular backpack check with your kids to be sure important papers are not getting lost and encourage them to load their backpacks the night before with everything they need for the next school day.
Provide Screen-Loving Kids with Educational Games
To help boost your kids' learning, provide plenty of educational apps and games that will encourage them to learn while having fun. For example, if you find that your child brings home a low grade in spelling, instead of drilling him or her on the weekly word list—which can be pretty boring for both of you—turn the words into a fun puzzle instead. For example, Busy Teacher has a free word search generator that you can use to create puzzles as big as 15 by 15 letters. In a few minutes you can make and print out a fun word search that will help your child learn the weekly words in a more enjoyable, and thus successful way.
Make Sure They’re Getting Enough Sleep
If you have to drag your kiddos out of bed each morning, chances are they could use some more sleep. As iMom notes, getting enough sleep can have a major impact on your kids' success in school. WebMD has a chart that shows how much rest children and teens need. For example, your kindergartener needs from 10 to 12 hours a night; your fifth grader needs 10 to 11 hours of sleep and your high school senior requires eight to nine hours a night. If your kids are falling short on sleep, cut back on or eliminate caffeine from their diet and establish an earlier bedtime routine.
