By: Beanie Geoghegan
In recent years, it has become popular for teachers to create and share “Amazon Wishlists” to help them equip their classrooms with necessary items to optimize student learning. Lists that include everything from tissues to Ticonderoga pencils help ease the burden many teachers face when educating students. Still, there are several other things every classroom teacher needs that can’t be ordered on Amazon. It’s a list that must be fulfilled by parents, and the items on it optimize learning far more than even the best pencil.
The first item on this “wishlist” would be daily parent-child reading time. Ideally, this special and important time would begin at birth and continue throughout the child’s time at home. (Yes, even high school students enjoy reading with their parents.) Teachers can spot the students whose parents made reading a priority and a joyful experience almost from day one of the school year. It matters.
Research shows that “young children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than kids who were never read to.” Those words equate to knowledge, and, thanks to cognitive science, we know that background knowledge is key to learning and connecting new knowledge.
As Natalie Wexler so eloquently puts it, “The more knowledge a child starts with, the more likely she is to acquire yet more knowledge. She’ll read more and understand and retain information better. Because knowledge, like Velcro, sticks best to other related knowledge.” When parents fulfill this “wishlist” item, they remove obstacles and set their children up for success in the classroom in ways few other things can.
High school AP Psychology teacher and author Blake Harvard uses the image of a spiderweb to illustrate the importance of background knowledge. In his Substack, he writes, “An actual web that has more connections and links will be much stronger than a web with fewer and will do a better job at catching bugs. The web that has very few attachments is more likely to break and simply doesn’t have the same ability to trap any bugs that may fly into it.” In other words, every time parents read to and with their children, they are adding more strands to their children’s “spider webs,” which enables them to “catch more knowledge”.
Additionally, children who are read to regularly at home tend to develop positive attitudes toward reading and learning, and tend to associate reading with happy, pleasant experiences. This practice helps classroom teachers by alleviating the need to convince reluctant children why reading is important. The excitement and eagerness of a few can be contagious in the classroom and can often offset and alter the indifference or apathy of others.
Another item on the “wishlist” for parents would be to limit their children’s screen time at home. What happens at home regarding screen time has a tremendous effect on students’ ability to focus and pay attention in school. “Research has shown that excessive screen time can impair attention spans in school-aged children, potentially impacting their academic performance.” Teachers already have a challenging enough job passing knowledge on to their students effectively; they shouldn’t also have to overcome habits that make sustained attention more difficult.
Next on the list would be enforced (screen-free) bedtimes. Sleep deprivation in children impacts every aspect of their development, but it can be absolutely detrimental to their academic success. Parents who let their children decide their own bedtime are setting them up for negative consequences such as memory and attention issues, behavioral problems, and even health issues. They are also making teachers’ jobs much more challenging.
One final necessity on this “wishlist” would be daily, on-time attendance. When students aren’t in school, teachers can’t teach them. Students, at least until they are old enough to drive, are reliant on their parents to ensure they either catch the bus or get a ride to school. Enrolling your children in school is futile if you don’t actually ensure they attend. During COVID, many parents begged and pleaded for schools to reopen. Now the roles are reversed, and schools are begging parents to send their children to school. The losers in both instances are the students.
If teachers could add some “extras” to this list, they might ask parents to prepare breakfast at home and pack healthy lunches for their children rather than sending them to school with a bag of Takis. They might also ask parents to make family mealtimes a habit so they can discuss what their children are learning, who their friends are, and any issues they might be dealing with. None of those things will ensure academic success, but they definitely make the path smoother for the students and the teachers.
So, parents, when your children’s teachers send out their Amazon Wishlists this year, consider helping out by purchasing an item or two off of it, but don’t forget to attend to the items listed here that can’t be purchased online. These are the items that teachers and your children will benefit most from.
