School Is Not a Four-Letter Word: How to Help Your Child Make the Grade - Softcover

Johnson, Louanne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 078688312X ISBN 13: 9780786883127

Publisher: Hyperion, 1998

Synopsis

Out of print.

About this title

Review:

Attend your child's school's open house, writes Louanne Johnson, and your child will do well in school. Her suggestion is not as simplistic as it sounds; studies show that parental interest and involvement in education are key to student success. In School Is Not a Four-Letter Word, Johnson, author of Dangerous Minds, teaches parents both why they should be interested and how to be involved.

Johnson has a background in the military as well as in education, but though she is tough-talking and firm, she is never cruel or rigid. She can think like a kid, understands kids, and believes in kids, and she has a tremendous amount of insight into their motivations. Johnson's suggestions in this down-to-earth and practical book will work. Kids will do whatever is necessary in order to get what they need, Johnson asserts, and defining those needs is integral to changing behavior. Tricking parents (such as lying about homework and report cards) is a strategy children employ not because they are purposefully being bad, but because they are scared of not doing well. By providing both clues to their children's behavior and suggestions for changing it, Johnson will have parents breathing a sigh of relief. --Ericka Lutz

From Booklist:

For parents, as for teachers, Johnson says, effectively monitoring children's educational progress is a matter of believing that education is important, reviewing homework assignments, charting academic progress, enforcing rules, and rewarding good work. Useful supporting tactics, she adds, include improving reading ability, responding to preferred learning styles, motivating for success, identifying and accommodating learning disabilities, and discouraging sex, drugs, smoking, and drinking. Johnson potently blends psychology, educational theory, and parenting skills and then attractively presents the mixture in savvy, street-smart, no-nonsense style, with case studies and examples that are engrossing, realistic, and illustrative of her many tips, techniques, and strategies for improving children's educational performance supportively and sensibly. Kathryn Carpenter

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 078688312X
• ISBN 13: 9780786883127
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304