Teachers - how can I prepare my children in the early years

[acupofteamakeseverythingbetter]

With so many teachers leaving the profession I want to know from teachers, or ex teachers, what parents can do to best prepare their children for education and support them throughout their education.

Has parenting really gotten worse over the years rather than better? And that's the reason they are out of control at school? Are we failing our children in any particular areas? What can I do to help my children and their future?

I have a newborn and toddler and try really hard with my parenting and don't want to mess it up!

Help your child learn to toilet independently, put on their shoes, put their coat on. Play turn taking games and sharing opportunities, follow instructions etc. once they’ve started, read with them every day. Give them opportunities to discover the world through play, strengthen their fine motor skills with cutting, sticking etc. make sure they see you enjoying reading yourself. Lots of opportunities to see why writing, reading, counting etc is a fun part of everyday life. Talk positively about school without overdoing it. Play hide and seek and give other opportunities for them to be separated from you.
don’t expect too much of them too soon.
get them to think independently ( so if there is lots to carry they help rather than leave everything to an adult).

have fun with them!

i’m sure there’s more, that was a bit of a chaotic list, written quickly!

'School readiness' is a term used in Education which covers many different aspects: when I have taught Reception and Y1, the children who could do the following were in good stead to settle well and make good progress:

Personal self care such as being toilet trained, being able to dress and undress oneself including coats and shoes.

Being able to follow instructions.

Being able to sit and listen to stories and complete short activities.

Being able to hold a pencil and use scissors

Enjoying a wide and healthy diet.

Coming from a family where the child is loved and well cared for.

Being socially mature e.g. knows to say please and thank you, can take turns and share.

Being good communicators. For example, being able to talk about their emotions and give reasons.

Being confident and resilient. Able to move on from failure, mistakes, upsets etc.

And slightly off topic but please name all their belongings!

All of the above with the addition of being their parent, not their friend. At school/nursery, get involved, follow the suggestions and guidance offered by the school and enjoy all of the excitement that school life will then offer you and your children!

Join the local library and let them take out whatever they want. This is an unpopular opinion on here, but I taught my kids basic phonics in the year before reception so once they started school they really flew with reading.

As they progress through school, read with them every day and do times tables or maths apps like numbers once a week. Teach them to take pride in doing well academically and that school matters, ensure any moaning about school/teachers by you is done out of earshot of the child and model respecting teachers e.g. by teaching your child to say thank you after a school trip, tutting when your child talks about other children misbehaving, and trusting that the school are professionals and your child is one of many in a school community.

school readiness wise, I would say the main things are
1.talk to your child. Sing with them, interact with them. Teach them how to communicate and what language is, don’t leave it to an iPad.
2.
instil good bedtime routines and ensure they get enough sleep.
3.
get outside together as much as possible, and do lots of physical play. Most importantly for mental health but also to build up the muscles children need to be about to sit and hold something to write with.

i think that has been the biggest shift for me since I started teaching, schools now have lots of climbing stuff in playgrounds as children don’t do enough of this at home and you can tell because they don’t have the core muscles to be able to sit on the carpet, they want to loll about. We now do a lot of play doh work as well to build up hand muscles which we never had to before. parenting is a lot more stationary and inside nowadays.

Thank you, we do read with DS every day and I always encourage buying and having books even if his attention span is limited at the moment. We flit from one book to another. I'm starting to write letters and he will recognise and say which they are but would like to look into teaching basic phonics but I wasn't taught phonics at school. @TigerOnTour do you have any phonics books or video recommendations I can use?

We're at the very start of toilet training but will try harder with getting himself dressed.

DS has very recently started nursery and has settled in so well. I always talk to him really positively about nursery and the children and teachers and about what wonderful things he's learnt so will continue with this

That sounds fantastic, your son is very lucky to have a parent who is so invested and caring. Thank you on behalf of his future teachers!

you could look up pre-phonics, which is all about teaching children to listen for sounds, then move onto oral blending of simple words.
eg prephonics game, have a tray with 2 instruments on he is familiar with. Make the noise of each one whilst he is watching. Then he closes his eyes, you make the noise of one, he opens eyes and has to point to the correct instrument. Repeat and build up more instruments/things you can shake. Let him have a go being the teacher. Extension, same but also in diff parts of the room so he says the instrument and points to correct corner.

oral blending, start saying things like we are going to the “c-a-r” the “car”. Then build up to you sounding out, him blending, so I would say where are we? In the “c-a-r” and he says car
build up to a blending game eg point to your “f-oo-t”

i highly recommend the 5 minute mum books for fun activities to learn letters, eg she has one where she makes a car park out of scrap cardboard with letters on and the child has to park toy cars on correct ones. She is an ex teacher, all take less than 5 mins to set up and do.

good rule of thumb for inputs is to do them one min per year of the child, so if he is 4 we are talking 4 mins only, then leave it out to be played with repeatedly and wherever the child wants to independently take it

I talk and sing all the time with DS and I definitely notice improved mood when we reduce screen time. He has a good bedtime routine and is always happy to go up to bed. We now also all sit at the dining table for every meal with DH which is great for talking about our days and discussions. Interesting about the physical element, we go soft play but could go to the park a lot more really. He absolutely loves play doh but I could do more crafty things with him to help with fine motor. Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. As a child I always enjoyed school but wasn't really pushed or guided very much academically and so would like to give my child more encouragement and guidance in their school years especially

Thank you so much for the suggestions - very helpful indeed. I will look into those.

The BBC Tiny Happy People website has loads of great ideas for parents to help develop their children's skills. It was developed in conjunction with the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists.

As a SALT, my tips would be to talk to your child lots - narrate your daily routines, name things that you see when you're out and about, talk about your own and their emotions. Leave the teaching of phonics to the teachers. It's their job and they're good at it. All schools have different phonics schemes and it can be harder to teach a whole class if there are children who have gone 'off piste' with different phonics learning.

What you can do to help both reading skills and talking skills, is lots of phonological awareness games - rhyming, clapping out the number of words in a sentence, clapping out the number of syllables in a word, and talking about the sounds that you can hear in a word "I can hear a 'm' at the start of 'monkey', for example). Use the sound, not the letter name. There's lots of evidence that good phonological skills support reading, writing and speaking.