How to Help Your Child with Secondary English

How to Help Your Child with Secondary English

Moving into Secondary or high school can always be a daunting task for parents and students alike. Often as a result of this transition, families often ask how best they can support their child with this new educational endeavour. Simply put there are many options out there that can help you and your family transition from primary to secondary school and ensure that your child is heavily supported in English. We will try to at least illuminate two quick tips that can help you facilitate the support you want for you child.

Expose Your Child To Different Text Types & Mediums.

As your child moves from primary to secondary English, he or she will be exposed to a plethora of texts and will be expected to respond to all of them. According to current outcomes laid forth by the NSW syllabus, students are expected to understand and comment on the linguistic or visual features of the text and have an appreciation of these set features.

Essentially, Secondary or high school English aims to create lifelong admirers of the text types exposed to their students and ensure that they are proficient in commenting on these text types. In turn, it would be highly beneficial for you as a parent to expose your child, to plays, dramas, documentaries, poems, narratives etc. You need not teach your child the techniques associated with these texts but merely exposing your child to a diverse range of texts will help them appreciate and understand the differences within these texts. Remember, the syllabus aims to instil an appreciation of these texts on your child, exposure to these texts will go a long way with that goal.

Ensure That You Make Your Child Practice Their Overall Writing Prowess.

The secondary English syllabus has multiple parts, but we can simplify this to two aspects discussing the literary and thematic considerations of a text and the act of writing within those texts. In this simplified example, writing makes up at least fifty percent of the work your child will do in schools in high school English. Therefore, it is important that you allow your child to write frequently. Writing is like any other skill, meaning you need to practise it and only through practise can you properly master the art. This form of practice can range from making your child do a paragraph summary of the work they do in school or if they are in year 11, encourage them to make practise essays for themselves. The more you make your child write, the more it will help them in school.

Moreover, you need not meticulously read over their work critiquing their style and flare, but you simply need to make sure that it makes sense. By just finding and highlighting spelling, grammatical and expression errors, your child makes in their writing, will help them self-reflect and possibly re write the piece, in turn practise their writing. Writing is highly essential to high school English and if you want to ensure maximum support for them in English, always give them an opportunity to write!

In conclusion…

Secondary English can be a challenge for you and your child but if you do these two tips, you will make this easier for you and your child. Essentially, the best way to support them through this high school English journey is to somewhat join them on it. Maths Words not Squiggles is eager to join all students on their journey through their English learning. With personalised English lessons that build confidence, we aim to unlock the creativity within every student!

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