Data shows that the Filipino population pays great attention to education. According to the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, 12,000 children are educated solely at home. And it is no surprise that 98.27% of children in the country are already enrolled in primary school.

How can you help your child be more interested in learning? You can adopt other measures to support their education. These are some suggestions to help lead the way.

1. Get the right study materials

School fees, buying stationery, and so on are just a few duties you must fulfill to support your child’s education. However, apart from stationery for school, it would be a good idea to get them for home use too. This will be an excellent way to support your child’s education from home. This approach offers several opportunities to practise what is taught at home and be abreast with your children’s school work.  

Your involvement at home also reassures them about your genuine interest in what they learn. Although they may not immediately understand your actions, it helps build confidence in them. Young children often like to have their parents and guardians involved in their activities. Therefore, this approach can help build a strong bond with them. Educational materials can be in the form of storybooks that encourage reading or kids’ documentaries that simplify complex subjects. It is advisable to purchase age and grade-appropriate materials for these young ones. For instance, if you have a 12 or 13-year-old, you may want to add seventh grade worksheets to the list. The purpose is to complement lessons offered in school, so keep this in mind.

2. Bring tutors on board

When a child is not doing well academically, the teacher is usually held accountable. However, it may not always be the teacher’s fault. It would be best to remember that your child’s education is a concerted effort between the school and the home. Therefore, regular communication with your child’s teacher(s) helps you understand what is going on regarding their academics. A continued dialogue shows your active interest as a concerned parent who wants the best for their kids. The teachers will be better positioned to give ample feedback on your child’s weak and strong academic areas. 

This is the type of information you will need to decide how to help improve your young ones’ performance in school. This approach will require attending Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meetings and other related activities. Moreover, most schools allow parents direct access to their children’s teachers. Therefore, if your youngster’s school has this system, it will be more convenient and easier to stay in touch. You will realize that the more involved you are, the easier it will be for your kids’ teachers to approach you and offer relevant information about your kids’ academic performance.

3. Create fun ways to assess their progress

Assessing your children should be fun without making them feel the stress of writing an exam. Testing is a useful way to confirm your children’s comprehension of school lessons. While this test will not be conducted at school, you can help your child understand its purpose. Testing and fun seem like contrasting activities. However, with a little creativity, you can make an assessment enjoyable. For example, you can offer a reward or incentive for every correct answer. The prize should not always be something tangible. It can be an experiential activity that motivates your child to look forward to these weekly or monthly tests. The tip is to test them at regular intervals. 

If you’ve been monitoring their homework and other project assignments, it will be easy to know how to set relevant questions. Another thing to take note of during these tests is to train your kids to explain simple concepts off the top of their heads. Children between the ages of eight and thirteen may have already been introduced to simple concepts in science, arithmetic, and so on. It would be helpful if you guided them to understand and explain them using their own words. Memorization is not always advisable because it limits comprehension.

4. Plan affordable educational trips

As the saying goes, all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. The average time a child of school-going age spends in school is eight hours. Older children may spend more if they are in junior or senior high school. These hours in the school week can get tiring and may sometimes demotivate children. This is where fun trips come into the picture. While the focus is on having a good time, it is recommended to gear it toward something educational. Historical heritage sites, zoos, museums, and other places can make it onto your list. 

These trips shouldn’t always necessarily be outside the Philippines, especially because there is so much to see in the country. Moreover, planning internal educational trips will be cheaper than going abroad. However, if you can afford it, that will be a plus for you and the kids. These excursions are meant to support your child’s education. It is also an opportunity for them to experience firsthand things they have learned theoretically. You can go further to ask them to write an essay or a report about the trip, so keep this in mind. This is possible if they can already read and write. The objective is to get the most out of these educational, fun trips.

5. Introduce basic online research

Parental involvement in homework is highly recommended. However, sometimes, there are extreme cases. This is when adults teach their kids the answers to homework questions. There is a thin line between guiding and providing answers. Doing the latter does not help your child’s education in any way. Indeed, there is always the temptation to spoon-feed when helping with kids’ assignments. However, experts say the best thing to do is to provide guidance while being cautious, so feel free to consider this.

Sometimes, in guiding your children to complete their homework, you may need to resort to the internet. The objective is to create a wide pool from which to source information learning and, at the same time, introduce them to digital research. When they learn how to find information relevant to their homework, studying becomes more fun, and the internet becomes a helpful tool. One online platform that helps you do this is Kiddle. It works just like the search engine Google. This time around, however, Kiddle targets minors. Therefore, information in the search results will be in a simple language that is easy to comprehend, so keep this in mind.

6. Monitor your kids’ screen time

Research in the Philippines has reported that children’s screen time has increased by 3.8 hours since 2020. The reason is attributed to the pandemic and when schools were closed to manage infection rates. Two years later, the problem remains, and children spend 7.7 hours a day playing digital games or watching television. Filipino teenagers spend an additional three hours on social media platforms. This, therefore, calls for increased monitoring of your kids’ screen time.

The more time they spend behind the screen, the less time they are likely to commit to their studies. A creative way to get value from your kids’ screen time is to download educational apps. Currently, in the Philippines, educational apps like Gauthmath, Brainly, Lingomate, and Desmos Graphing are trending. If you adopt this approach, your child’s screen time can have a more positive outcome, so keep this in mind.