Chip Smith, the Woodworking Teacher at The Carroll School, recommends that you:

• Use brainteasers to focus children's attention
• Provide children with the proper vocabulary
• Remember, confidence leads to academic success

Language Tutor Andrea Marks recommends that you:

• Reinforce children's success
• Read with your children and to your children
• With challenging material, model the pronunciation of words
• Play with the sounds that make up words

Joan Walker and Joan Snell, both Fourth-Grade Teachers, suggest:

• When reading, have children identify words they love
• Let children choose “delicious” words to use when writing
• Use favorite words in daily conversation
• Develop a personalized thesaurus with your child

Music Teacher Bruce Pasha and Drama Teacher Shea Schatell suggest:

• Try doing improv with your kids
• Engage children in activities that promote eye contact
• Boost self-confidence with group activities
• Empower children with choices
• Use tongue twisters to support articulation
• Try all sorts of dramatic play at home

Laurie Joy Haas, Executive Producer of Words that Cook!™ and co-author of Read it Aloud! A parent's guide to sharing books with young children, and Chip the Cookie-Bookie Bear suggest that you:

• Let kids make up their own tongue ticklers and repeat them together

Fourth-Grade Teacher Judy Ball recommends that you:

• Encourage children to vary sentence structure when writing
• Use games to make learning more enjoyable
• Recognize children's strengths
• Use children's strengths to help them learn
• Combine children's interests with learning experiences
• Consider participating in classroom activities
• Reinforce successful school practices at home

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