They are listening

As a parent, you may experience times when you think your fourth grade student is not hearing anything you are saying. You find yourself repeating directions ... you don't see immediate change to the most basic of life lessons ... and then there is the look and body language that "answers" your spoken words ... your parenting is a work in progress ...

Experience tells me, that your children ARE LISTENING. When parents and teachers share the same message, students hear and learn.

For example, today, Mr. Greninger's class wrote their first SOTW (Student of the Week) paragraph to make a book. Ms. Leom's class completed this project on Monday. With both classes, Ms. Leom modeled each step very clearly on the board. She had a checklist ...

for students to check their work before they turned it in. She emphasized on the previous assignment (Types of Sentences) and this assignment, that capital letters and punctuation marks are VERY important.

After checking student work ... she experienced that parenting phenomena where it appeared students weren't listening. Many students forgot capital letters and punctuation marks. In fact, fourth grade students started learning about these writing rules in KINDERGARTEN (Ms. Leom has a fourth grader, she has paid attention to these details).

So what happened? Why isn't Ms. Leom surprised? Sixteen (starting her seventeenth) years of teaching have proven, that it isn't until PARENTS AND TEACHERS tell students THESE DETAILS MATTER that students BELIEVE and make changes.

In fourth grade, we use A-B-C-D-F grading. So as a third grader, if your child was at 70%, your child was earning an "S" for 'Satifisfactory'. Your child was on track for the third grade goals. In fourth grade, 70% is a "C". If your child misses one period (those little dots that the tip of any pencil can make in a fraction of a section), the grade immediately drops. For many families, the grades matter.

Check School-view. Watch your children's learning on a regular basis. Look in the comments from Mr. Greninger and Ms. Leom. What is your child missing? Mr. Greninger and Ms. Leom can encourage students to make changes and rework assignments. They can post checklists, ask students to check for specific details before they turn in their work, but for some students, until the adults at home place a value on the details, fourth graders do not appreciate the significance of "one little dot".

For families, a single period may be questionable and picky. After all, we all make mistakes. At this point, we have a responsibility for EACH child to meet the state standards, for each child to work to the best of their ability, for each child to work to their potential. There are assignments when the placement of a period isn't the "point" (pun intended), like answering a math story problem. When the assignment is "paragraph writing", and the goal is to write five sentences, punctuation matters.

We care for your children's progress. As often as time allows, we will pull your child aside and encourage him or her to make corrections. We know some of the best lessons are learned when you fix a mistake. We aren't always able to communicate individually. We are thankful for the tools of School-View and the resources of our parents, our students' first teachers, who can get to the "point" and encourage their students to keep striving for the details.

Thank you in advance for all those times you are talking and believe you aren't being heard. They hear you ... we often hear, "My dad / my mom said ... ". You may not know where your words were applied (and many times, your advise is used by a friend or another classmate too), but the fifth, sixth ... high school ... and future employers are thankful for your efforts.

Your child is listening. Your thoughts matter.