The COVID-19 Pandemic will always have a permanent place in our memories for the way it altered our lives. There’s little doubt that most parents and teachers would also add that COVID also changed the way we schooled our children. Distance learning separated students from teachers, homes became classrooms, and parents were required to create learning environment in their homes.
Of course, parent involvement has always played a crucial part of our children’s education, but remote instruction found moms and dads asking a whole new set of questions about how to help their kids learn. Luckily, there is finally an answer, and it’s called The Distance Learning Playbook for Parents: How to Support Your Child’s Academic, Social and Emotional Development in Any Setting.
Education authorities Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie (authors of the bestseller, The Distance Learning Playbook, K-12) teamed up with New York Times bestselling author and parenting expert Rosalind Wiseman to create a consummate guide to support children’s academic, social, and emotional development in any learning environment – while not overwhelming parents in the process.
The Distance Learning Playbook for Parents outlines supportive strategies for navigating virtual environments to ensure effective and impactful learning that aligns the needs and expectations of teachers, parents, and students alike. This essential guide will arm you as a parent with the tools and insight to:
• Create an environment conducive to learning, establish routines, and most importantly, take care of yourself and your child.
• Maximize the time you spend supporting learning by focusing on what is proven to work best in education.
• Help your child develop the cognitive attitudes and habits that foster creativity, critical thinking, and increased responsibility for their learning.
• Support the development of your child’s social and emotional learning skills, including the ability to navigate social interactions, build friendships, and regulate emotions at a time when they have never been more important to have, and more challenging to maintain.
Here is just a sampling of this valuable book’s contents.
1. THE BASICS…
- Establish Routines and Create a Learning Environment
- Learn the Learning Management System
- Zoom Etiquette and Monitoring Screen Time
2. THE VALUE OF . . .
- Reading, Vocabulary Games, Oral Language Development
- Foundational Reading Skills: Phonemic Awareness, Alphabetics and Phonics
- Writing Across the Day
- Mathematics and Supplemental Mathematics Instruction
- Guiding, Not Telling
- Wait Time and Practice
3. THE PRINCIPLES OF WELL-BEING
- Understanding Emotional Regulation and Anxiety
- Emotional Granularity andSelf-Compassion
- Managing Conflicts
- Friendships in COVID-19 and Bullying
- Pod Teaching: Learning Pods
The Distance Learning Playbook for Parents is brilliant, timely and practical. The tips in the book are fabulous—they are exactly what every parent needs right now. In fact, every educator should be recommending that parents get a copy.
The last section of the book is one of my favorites. It provides ten valuable Mindframes for students and parents that help ensure productive, successful experiences whether the learning is distance or in-class. Here are the ten the authors suggest parents use.
THE 10 MINDFRAMES FOR FAMILIES
Family Mindframe 1: I am an evaluator of my impact on my children’s learning.
Family Mindframe 2: I see the power of collaborating with others in parenting our children.
Family Mindframe 3: I value what my child brings to the family and world.
Family Mindframe 4: I understand the centrality of my child.
Family Mindframe 5: I have appropriately high expectations.
Family Mindframe 6: I listen, build trust, and know how to gradually release responsibility.
Family Mindframe 7: I know the balancing act between developing autonomy, relatedness, and competence.
Family Mindframe 8: I appreciate the power of feedback and the place for praise as well as errors.
Family Mindframe 9: I know how to work with the school.
Family Mindframe 10: I am a parent, not a schoolteacher.
More About the Authors
Rosalind Wiseman is the founder of Cultures of Dignity and New York Times bestselling author of Owning Up: Empowering Adolescents to Create Cultures of Dignity and Confront Social Cruelty and Injustice, Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Masterminds & Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World.
Douglas Fisher is Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College.
Nancy Frey a Professor in Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College.
John Hattie is an award-winning education researcher at The University of Melbourne, Australia and best-selling author.