EFFECTS OF HOME ENVIRONMENT ON STUDENT LEARNING

Vincent Liu

The limitation of School

"School age children spend 70% of their waking hours (including weekends and holidays) outside of school." (Michigan Department of Education, 2002).

Schools cannot provide a complete and overall care and education that children need.

Their first skills are learned within the nuclear and sometimes extended family.

Who should be responsible for student learning beside school?

The answer is parents.

"86% of the general public believes that support from parents is the most important way to improve schools."(Michigan Department of Education).

Students spend much more of their time connected with their parents than what they spend with their teachers.

The involvement of parents

“Family level supports in the first two years of life help predict achievement years later, in elementary school”(Ferguson, 2009)

“Students who achieve the highest test scores among blacks, Hispanics and whites had parents who were both responsive and demanding” (Ferguson, 2009)

Future success in education relies on a positive home environment, and parental attitudes are a key factor for children to develop good learning skills.

The involvement of parents

The videos “Parental Involvement” demonstrate that many students’ achievement are a direct result of parental support.

Benefits for student learning

The article posted by BirtMums on Twitter suggests that research has demonstrated that the more parents participate in their child’s education, the more success their child will achieve at every level.

Benefits for student learning

Better attitudes towards school and educators

Higher grades and test scores Creating a learning culture and helping

skills and confidence

(UK Department for Education, 2012)

Benefits for school

Parents' involvement is an ideal supplement to school education.

“A student’s home environment has significant effects on learning and school performance” (Hill, 2010).

Questions

Some people believe that the role of parents in the education is overestimated. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Do you think that parents have more power and influence over students compared to the influence of school education systems or do you think they just supplement school education systems?

Questions

What are conflicts that you think may exist in the involvement of parents in student learning?

Do you agree that governments should pay attention to the home environment and student learning rather than focusing on the development of the school education system?

What are ways the government could support and supplement the involvement of parents in the children’s learning?

The summary

We cannot understate the importance of parents on education.

Parents who participate whole-heartedly in the education and development of their children experience less discipline issues with their children and, as a result, the children become self-motivated to learn. It is important that parents realize how positive the impact will be when they provide strong supportive interaction with their children.