Parents Involvement in Childs Education is Single Most Important Factor in Academic Success, says Bonnie Adama, National Board Certified teacher and Co-Founder of Support Your Student.

The support of a parent is the single-most important factor in predicting success in school for young children. All other factors, including socio-economic status and general intelligence level are important but secondary.

Redlands, CA. September 24, 2003. This is true no matter what personal factors are at work: the number of parents raising a child; the familys economic situation; the parents familiarity with English; the size of the family; the parents education; or a childs own interests, talents, and abilities. Research about the familys role, a parents influence, and the relationship between school and home has produced clear-as-a-bell results: nothing affects the academic outcome for a child as much as the involvement of a parent or other adult caregiver in that childs education.

Many other important factors, including school funding, teacher qualification, student resources, child nutrition, and a host of others can swamp the considerations of what affects academic success. But the bottom line is that whatever the academic or cultural background, the family situation, or the many pulls on adult time, Mom and Dad (or Grandma and Grandpa) are in the most influential position to shape their childs future.

Decades of educational research state that an involved parent contributes overwhelmingly to his/her childs grades and test scores, school attendance, quality of homework, positive attitudes and behavior at school, likelihood of graduation, and desire to enroll in higher education. In many ways, parents are the essence of their childs education; parents have the power!

Parents and other adult caregivers are their childrens first and most enduring teachers. The best teacher a child encounters in school will only be with the child for a year, or perhaps two. Even after children enter school, they spend seventy percent of their waking hours outside of the school setting. Parents have greater opportunity to make a difference, to teach, model, and guide their childs learning, than anyone else. They have a more intimate knowledge of their childs needs and talents. They have a keener interest in their childs schooling and future, and deeper motivation to help their child succeed. No one is better placed or more qualified than parents to make a difference in their childs academic and lifelong education.

Knowing that high quality parenting can predict academic success, two local elementary school teachers have begun to offer workshops for parents of young children. Bonnie Adama and Jennifer Shields know firsthand that the experiences parents offer their children during early childhood not only influence their functioning in school, but also have positive lifelong implications.

Bonnie Adama is a master teacher of many years with experience at Kindergarten, First, Second, and Third grades. She has been an elementary mathematics mentor for her school district. She is presently co-teaching a multi-age classroom of 40 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade students. She has a Masters in Elementary Education and is a National Board Certified Teacher.

Jennifer Shields has taught Kindergarten, First, and Second grades and is presently teaching a 1st and 2nd grade special education class. She has also taught after-school programs for at-risk students. She earned her Masters in Education in 2002.

Recognition of this importance of the early years has led them to formulate a workshop for parents that offers high-quality, developmentally appropriate ideas for supporting and enhancing the academic development of their pre-schoolers through third graders.

The goals for these workshops are to help parents:

• maximize their childrens interest in literature, reading, and writing in nurturing, fun, and appropriate ways.
• learn how to support their budding" mathematicians by challenging their children to think and apply the skills they have learned at school.
• use strategies for science that expand their childrens problem-solving abilities, self-responsibility and creativity.
• make homework time easier on the whole family

Their workshops offer demonstrations, methods, activities, an extensive handbook, and an opportunity to buy some of the materials parents will find most helpful.

The next workshop will be Saturday, October 18, 2003 from 9:00am to 12:00noon at the Sea Country Community Center, 24602 Aliso Creek Rd., Laguna Niguel, CA. The cost is $59.00 per person. To sign-up, parents can call 800-342-8793 or register online at www.SupportYourStudent.com.