Not all learning happens in school. It has always been that way. While teachers are responsible for children’s learning of curricula, and held responsible for more than they really should be, parents have always been their children’s first and most important teachers.

It is in those years before school that children learn many of their attitudes to life and learning, develop language and, hopefully, a love of reading. It is parents who are the primary influencers in the early years. And that doesn’t change once they start school. Ask any teacher.

Now that many schools are closed and parents are required to support their children’s learning at home, many parents are feeling anxious and lacking in confidence about their ability to do so. It is understandable when, for so long, it has been the expectations that, at age five or six, parents will pass over the responsibility for their children’s academic progress to teachers.

 Parents, you’ve got this.

Parents, I say to you, for these, hopefully, few short months out of school, you’ve got this.

The most valuable things — read, talk, play

Continue reading: Ideas for learning at home when you can’t go out – readilearn