Tips for Helping Children Achieve Academic Success

Make a Schedule

Set a standard time for dinner to be served, and try to make dinner a family event. Once dinner is over, make it a rule that this is when your child must complete his/her homework. If your child is not involved in athletics or other school events, then on some days your child can do homework before dinnertime. If your child finishes all his homework before dinner, then after dinner study time should be used for reading or other educational activities.

Apply this sort of order to other aspects of your child's life as well, but don't overdo it.

Monitor Homework Assignments

Teach your child that learning is more important than just memorizing facts and completing an assignment. Ask your child after completion of each homework assignment to write down a couple sentences about what he/she learned, not facts, but broader concepts. This will help your child put his/her learning into perspective.

Encourage Note Taking

Developing proper note taking skills are vital to your child's learning success. Rather than have your child try and write everything down as fast as possible, teach your child to search for the teacher's main point and summarize it in your their own words.

After the lecture, encourage your child to rewrite the notes, expand on them, and organize them in a meaningful way.

Learning Resources

Have the appropriate learning resources handy. It used to be that keeping a home dictionary, thesaurus, and encyclopedia in an accessible place was imperative for your child to complete homework assignments. Now all your child needs is an Internet connection. It is worth the investment to get a high speed DSL or Cable Internet connection so information is more accessible. Also invest in a quality flat panel monitor. If your child spends lots of time researching, writing, and reading on the computer, it will be a lot easier on your child's eyes.