How partnering with your child’s teacher benefits their learning

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Partnering with your child’s teacher can have a positive impact on their learning–from increased academic success, to instilling a sense of confidence and encouraging your child to self-advocate for their needs.

Here are some tips on how to collaborate with your child’s teacher to support learning, from Understood:

How Working With the Teacher Can Help You: You know your child best. But partnering with the teacher can give you an even better understanding of your child. It gives you the chance to share with the teacher the concerns you may have or things you are seeing at home that she’s not seeing in the classroom.

You can share information about what’s happening at home and how your child is doing there. Your child’s teacher can fill in information about how things are going at school.

By keeping each other informed, you can come up with consistent ways to respond to his frustration. When you’re partnering with your child’s teacher, it’s easier to create common messaging and to help your child understand the point of an assignment.

How Working With You Can Help the Teacher: Understanding your child’s learning and attention issues can help his teacher develop a more personalized approach to his learning. It can help her predict what might be difficult for your child and to determine what type of accommodations might be necessary and helpful for him.

It’s always helpful for a teacher to get more insights into your child. Because her time with him is limited, it can take a new teacher awhile to get to know your child. The information you share will help move this process along.

You can even get your child involved in this process by downloading and using a 3×3 card to introduce the teacher to three of your child’s strengths, three of his challenges, and three strategies that work for him.

How Your Partnership With the Teacher Can Help Your Child: Building a partnership with your child’s teacher can benefit him, too. Knowing that school and home are working together to help him succeed can help him feel more confident.

Having shared expectations with the teacher and a common language around your child’s challenges can help him feel like everybody is on the same page. That can make life less confusing for him.

And if you’re working with the teacher, your child may be more willing to self-advocate and ask for help when he needs it. That helps him be a more empowered and independent learner.

How to Start Partnering With Your Child’s Teacher: If you’re unsure how to start partnering with your child’s teacher, parent-teacher conferences are a good time to get the relationship going. But if you’d like to speak to the teacher sooner, you can also call her, drop off a back-to-school letter or send an introduction email. You may also want to ask the teacher what her preferred mode of communication is.

Source: Why It’s Important to Partner with Your Child’s Teacher | Understood