Basic study tips for parents and family:
How to prepare for OC and selective school tests?
How to help your child to achieve higher academically?
“Discipline inside the family and high expectation from a child” are the first and most important factors which produce high achieving children in the long run.
Spending time with your child from earliest age, reading just 15 minutes a day will improve your child’s English and other language skills greatly. It also develops a good study habit. Spending time with your child reading or talking makes children feel that you care. This time invested today, will give good harvest in the long run. If you read and talk to your child when they are very young, they will listen to you when they are in their teens and will love talking to you when you are older.
Develop a regular study and home-work time. Even if there is no home-work from school, let the child just read a book or draw at that time. It is really a good idea if no one watches TV at the study time.
A parent supervising at the time of study is far better than sending children to a coaching centre. One can buy cheap home-work books for (1) maths, (2) reading and comprehension, (3) writing, (4) spelling, (5) grammar and (6) logical reasoning. Books are much cheaper than coaching centre fees. 15 minutes on each home-work book daily is good enough at the early stage of Primary school.
One to one and half hour of focused home-work and reading time is good enough for Primary school age children. Continuous study of more than one hour is not advised. Make sure you give children small breaks. Children should get enough time to play and relax. Children love playing with their parents more than anything else.
Coaching centers aren't a replacement for Parental supervision of a child’s study. If you can’t supervise your child’s study at home, then sending them to a coaching centre is not a bad idea. Outsourcing parenting to coaching centres is not a good idea.
Good and cheap Mathematics and English home-work book:
1. Targeting Mental Maths (Pascal Press) is good for Primary School Children
This book is about $15 and will last for 3 to 6 months at least.
2. Most advised home-work books are on Reading and comprehension, Writing, Spelling, Grammar, logical-reasoning.
NAPLAN preparatory books are good resource for home-work too.
Basic skills Home-work books from Jim Coroneos Publications are also very popular.
3. One can go to the popular publishers on internet and find resources. Popular ones are:
(a) Pascal Press,
(b) Pearson Longman,
(c) Hinkler Books Pty Ltd.
(d) Jim Coroneos Publications.
(e) Excel books Australia.
One can buy most of these books online.
4. One can find books from many publishers in book stores and also in Officeworks. Just drop into any book store and look for something that is on special. Sometimes home-work books on special are for less than $5. All the books are good value if you compare the cost of $40/hour tuition teacher or more than $1000/per term for coaching centre fees.
Too much home-work on any day can lead your child losing interest. Please be reasonable in how much you expect from your child. Every child needs time to relax and play. If you don't give them enough time to play and relax, you might be causing long term damage to your child.
Send emails to info@southasian.org.au if you need any specific help with your child’s study or guidance regarding preparation for selective school test.