Helping Your Child in Your Weakest Subject: English/Language Arts

Helping Your Child in Your Weakest Subject English Language Arts

The common wisdom is that people are either left-brained or right-brained, math/science or language arts/history. Ignoring the fact that this has been disproven by recent science, you can still be good at some things and not good at others.

Problem: Your child brings home-complicated English/language arts (ELA) homework. You were excellent at math or science, but struggled in English. You are intimidated and fearful that your help will actually hinder your child’s learning process. Instead, you send them to YouTube.

Solution: The common wisdom is that people are either left-brained or right-brained, math/science or language arts/history. Ignoring the fact that this has been disproven by recent science, you can still be good at some things and not good at others. But there are ways to help your child with homework in subjects in which you struggled.

  • The effort is half the battle
  • Remain positive
  • Let them teach you
  • Did it make sense?
  • You don’t have to be an editor

The effort is half the battle

Unless you are homeschooling, you are not responsible for teaching the content your child needs to be successful in school. What matters, and what they will remember, is that you made time to try to help them. If you give your best effort and focus on them, it will go a lot further for their confidence than the ability to give them the right answers or expertly edit a paper. A supported kid is very often a successful kid.

Remain positive

Many schools have something called the “5:1 rule”; every negative comment needs to be balanced by five positive comments. It’s something to keep in mind in your daily life, but especially when helping your child with schoolwork. They might produce work that doesn’t suit your taste—even if you don’t necessarily understand ELA—but voicing those sorts of opinions isn’t helpful. Keep it positive.

Let them teach you

The best demonstration of knowledge is when you can teach someone else what you know. Instead of just looking over their work, let them teach you about what they are reading or writing. In their words, a concept might make more sense to you than if you were to read something. Then offer positive feedback about the effort they’ve put in and how they’ve made the idea easy for you to understand.

Did it make sense?

No matter how inept you may be at ELA, anyone can tell when a written project makes sense, whether it stays on topic, and is organized in a way that a reader can follow. Those are the biggest pet peeves of English teachers and are the aspects in which a student is graded most stringently. The deeper aspects of writing (or reading, for that matter) are the domain of the teacher. But if you read something from your child and it simply doesn’t make sense, offer suggestions (positively).

You don’t have to be an editor

Your child is not expecting you to get out the red pen and start marking up a paper. In fact, they’re probably glad if you don’t. Chances are, with today’s technology, those kinds of errors have been corrected already. If not, that’s also the domain of the teacher. Don’t put that kind of pressure on yourself.

 

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