By Gavin Mackintosh And Lucy Caulkett
Primary School parents need to do more to motivate their children to work harder.
Our research into primary school education in the UK suggests that children would be better motivated if their parents encouraged them to read more often, and offered rewards after assessing their progress.
After communicating with parents of 500 primary school children between the ages of 8 and 10, the eye of media.com found that only 43 of those parents actively encouraged their children to read. Active encouragement means providing good quality books to them to read, and testing them to see that they are actually learning.
Offering rewards are a recommended way of keeping primary school children engaged and interested in learning. However, some children respond to positive encouragement without rewards. Rewards are recommended not just for reading, but for demonstrating a lot of learning within a given period.
An 8 year old who reads 10-15 pages of an educational book a day, and can demonstrate that they have learnt over 80 % of what they read deserves a reward of some sort.
The problem is that there are many parents who barely read themselves, or who grew up without a love for reading. Parents with limited education usually do not value the habit of good academic development at an early age. However, the eye of media.com have been encouraging many parents to inspire their children to read. The response has been positive. Establishing the good practise of reading is best at the tender age of 6 or 7 until it becomes a routine before children are prepared for their Sats exams at the age of 10/11. The stronger children are mentally at a young age, the more confident they are in their secondary school years, more especially if they attend schools with like minded ambitious and confident children. Many have frowned at the standard of the sats exams and the government’s plans for more secondary schools. Now, Theresa May’s government may not be perfect, but the high standards and vision they have for education is positive. The quest for more grammar schools aimed at furthering a selection process should stir parents and primary school teachers to train and motivate their children better.Even children from less privileged backgrounds can be pushed to apply themselves better if the standard of teaching and level of seriousness in primary schools increases. The cuts to funding in many UK secondary schools is a shame, but when secondary schools produce high failure rates and drop outs, what can one expect?Nobody wants to invest money in places that don’t produce adequate returns. This is not necessarily an endorsement of the government’s funding cuts in many schools, although for those failing schools subjected to cuts, it is hardly surprising. Schools with very high pass rates that have been subjected to high funding cuts are a different matter altogether. If we can get a majority of our primary school students to raise their standards through proper and sustained drilling, it will be all the better.
AMBITIOUS
Ambitious parents need to expose their children to more advanced material than the very elementary contents given to them by their school. This should be followed with letting the children know that this type of development will give them a head start, provided they are actually learning what they read.
Our research has shown that about 9% of the relatively few children between the ages of 8 and 10 who read regularly, are diligent enough to use a dictionary every time they come across new words. Only about 20% of children spoken to said they were motivated about learning, with much lower at 15%, saying they felt their parents were a source of motivation for them.
Most children are a product of their environment at home. Children of parents with degrees or parents who love reading, are more inclined to respond to encouragement to read. There is also a tendency for children from educated or very intelligent backgrounds to pick up from their parents.