5. Family Involvement in Education

Quick summary: Parent involvement in education makes a far more significant impact on learning than any other factor. Since they care so much and understand their child so deeply, parents are ideally qualified to teach their children. The growth of adaptive learning apps and mastery-based curriculum has made it easier than ever for parents to teach kids, without having to have subject expertise themselves.  By applying principles such as inquiry-based learning, praising process rather than achievements, and learning when to step back and let kids teach themselves, families can become truly exceptional home educators. 

1. The unfair advantages parents have over classroom teachers

2. Best Practices for parent-led instruction

3. Common objections to parent-led instruction

4. Best books on parent involvement in education 

Your child’s most important teacher is you.

Today’s parents love their children as much as parents ever have, but the love doesn’t always get through. We have just as much to teach, but our capacity to get our knowledge across has, somehow, diminished. We do not feel empowered to guide our children toward fulfilling their potential. Sometimes they live and act as if they have been seduced away from us by some siren song we do not hear. We fear, if only vaguely, that the world has become less safe for them and that we are powerless to protect them. The gap op5ng up between children and adults can seem unbridgeable at times. -Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., and Gabor Maté, M.D (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers )

At Modulo, we’ve written extensively about the pivotal role of family involvement in education. In this guide, we’ll discuss the “unfair advantages” parents have over even the best classroom teachers, some of the research around parent involvement, and a few best practices and pitfalls for parent-guided learning. We’ll also share our favorite books to kick-start parents on this path. While we use the term “parent,” these techniques apply to any guardian, relative, friend, or sibling who cares deeply about a child’s learning and success in life.

This section will help any family interested in taking a more active role in their child’s education, whether it’s helping with homework or full-on homeschooling. 

Parents don’t need to teach six hours a day to help their children learn well - and in fact, it is inadvisable. With effective 1-1 mastery learning, kids can learn more in 1-2 hours a day of focused, 1-1 parent or caregiver-led instruction than they can in a day of group instruction. 

The unfair advantages parents have over classroom teachers

• 1-1 instruction leads to better learning outcomes than learning in a group setting, regardless of who teaches

With 30-50 kids in a class, It’s impossible for a teacher to give 1-2 hours a day of highly focused 1-1 instruction to each child every day, or even 20 minutes for that matter. Parents can. 

• Families have unique expertise when it comes to their children. 

Teachers in most schools get a new group of 30-50 kids every year. They need to take time at the beginning of each year to get to know the group. In addition to spending a lot of time getting to know their children, families generally share a lot of common characteristics with their children, so they can relate personally to their strengths and challenges. 

While you might not have experience teaching big groups of children, you might have more experience teaching your own child than you think. You taught them how to walk and talk and maybe even read. You also have experience learning, having gone through school yourself, and seeing what worked and what didn’t work for you. The average US school student goes to school 6.64 hours a day, 180 days a year. If you completed a traditional K12 education and went to a 4-year college (attending class about 12 hours a week), you’ve probably observed over 15,000 hours of teaching. Is there any other profession, including your own, that you’ve observed others doing as much as that?  You’ve seen what worked, what didn’t, and maybe even helped peers and siblings with homework along the way.  

• Parents are invested in their child’s education

Parents have naturally higher levels of motivation when it comes to their children’s learning and success in life. While the best teachers care about their students, it’s impossible to bring the level of caring and support that parents do, especially over the long term. 

• Families have more time to observe and evaluate how children are doing relative to key developmental milestones. 

Parents spend more time observing their children. And can iterate freely based on those observations. They see changes as they happen and can adapt their learning immediately. Sometimes good teachers, especially highly intuitive ones, can pick up on the changes of individual students, but generally, they rely on quizzes and exams, which happen at intervals. If a child has a special need, often a lot of paperwork and legal hurdles have to be overcome to ensure the child gets special support at school. Parents are observing children more closely, which leads to greater accountability in homeschooling. 

• Families don’t have to answer to state-mandated tests or private school boards

In today’s schools, both the way teachers teach and the material they teach are largely constrained by the pressure they receive to ensure the students perform well on standardized tests. Likewise, in elite private schools, teachers experience pressure to ensure their students perform high on SAT and AP exams and get accepted to Ivy League schools. Ivy League admissions rates are a large determinant in a school’s ability to raise money and have lower acceptance rates (thus more prestige). At home, families can set their own learning goals to optimize their child’s current education, social-emotional outcomes, and future success, whatever that may mean to them (and their kids).  

• Families can more easily adopt innovative teaching techniques

There’s groundbreaking research coming out every day about the science of learning. The projected skills we need for future jobs are changing daily.  Imagine if every time a new study was released, schools and teachers could immediately integrate that knowledge into their methods of delivering instruction. 

Unfortunately, teachers don’t have that freedom, and schools have to cut through a lot of red tape to change how things are done. 

• Parents are highly influential models

Just as parents are invested in their children, kids care a lot about what parents think (whether they show it or not). One of the main ways children learn is through modeling their parents. Perhaps you’ve observed that your younger child imitates everything you do. Or that your older child vehemently rejects every single one of your suggestions.  It may even be the case in your family, as in many families, that your child argues with you every time you try to teach them something - or talk to them at all. 

Whichever side of this you’re on right now, your child is exhibiting a high level of attention to how you feel about their learning and success. With a few helpful strategies, parents can overcome disputes and learn to communicate effectively with children around learning. 

Some surprising research that demonstrates the power of parent involvement in learning

• Parent involvement has more impact on a child’s education than any other factor

Whether it’s reading stories to kids or simply spending time with them while they do their homework, the research is clear that this makes a far more significant impact than their school, curriculum, or even the quality of their teacher. 

“There is no program and no policy that can substitute for a parent who is involved in their child’s education from day one.” -President Obama

• A parent’s educational background makes little to no difference in the level of impact parent involvement in education has on their child’s learning outcomes  

  
  The research on parent involvement in education consistently demonstrates that when families participate in children’s learning, children learn better, regardless of their educational background and socio-economic status. 

  This holds true in homeschooling.  

  A study of 11,739 homeschoolers from all 50 states by homeschooling expert Brian Ray revealed Homeschoolers scored 15 to 30 percentile points higher than public school students on standardized academic achievement tests, regardless of their parent's background. 

These were the factors that made little to NO impact on the standardized test scores of students

• Family income

The study revealed a parent’s socio-economic status had little impact on their child’s learning outcomes. Children in families who made under $35,000 a year performed an average 84% on tests, while children with families who made over $70,000 scored an average of 89%  (In contrast, family income is noticeably linked to student performance in public school.)

• Going to college

The study also showed that the parent’s educational background only had a small impact on their test scores.  In families where both parents had a degree from an accredited college or university, students scored in the 90th percentile. In families where neither parent had a degree, the average student scored in the 83rd percentile. 

• Having a teaching certificate

The study found that whether or not a parent is a certified teacher makes little difference in their children’s learning outcomes. Most surprisingly, in this study, students achieved only slightly higher scores if neither parent had ever had a state-issued teaching certificate!   

According to this study, the factors that DID make a difference in performance on standardized tests were the following: 

• Using a curriculum (vs. no curriculum)

• Having some structure (as opposed to no structure) 

• The amount of parent involvement spent in learning, suggesting more parent involvement is better. 

These results are astounding as homeschool parents, unlike school teachers, are not gearing learning towards standardized tests. 

Best practices for parent-led instruction (share these with caregivers and tutors too!)

Here are some more practices which have helped Modulo families and can help any parent improve their child’s learning outcomes. 

• Don’t teach. Instead, learn with your child.

With all the outstanding curricula and educational apps available, kids need co-learners more than they need teachers. By learning alongside your child, problem-solving, taking turns being the teacher, asking clarifying questions, and drawing on resources such as google, youtube, or the encyclopedia to solve complex problems, you teach your child the most important skill they could possibly develop, how to learn anything. 

• Model grit and a positive attitude toward learning

Since children learn through modeling, it’s always a good idea to model the behavior you want to cultivate in your child.  Display a genuine passion for learning new things. In conversations, highlight new things you are learning at work (or in life). Discuss times when learning was hard, how you pushed past your frustration and how great you felt when you achieved your objective. Get excited about failures and highlight how you learned from them. When helping with homeschooling, rather than teach your child, learn the material with them. 

Angela Duckworth is a leading expert on Grit. Her Ted Talk and Book - Grit: The Power and Passion of Perseverance are invaluable resources for families and caregivers interested in how communication styles can encourage self-directed learning. 

• Inquiry-based learning: Ask questions, then wait…)

• Great teachers ask questions. They don’t give answers.

Master teachers ask questions much more than they give answers. As you go through the material with students, ask them questions about what they learned to help deepen their understanding. Have confidence that they can master a concept if given enough time to process the information. If students problem-solve, they are much more likely to remember information than if they’re spoon-fed answers. 

• Wait, wait and then wait some more.  

At Modulo, we often have to remind parents to give students huge amounts of time and silence to respond to questions. Many people are uncomfortable with silence, so they’re not willing to wait quietly for 1-2 minutes while students think about questions. This time is so vital for helping children learn how to problem solve.  Families may be surprised that students answer a question they asked the day, week, or month before. 

• Strengthen problem-solving skills through trust and silence

 Asking questions and giving students time to answer will also help students develop highly refined problem-solving skills that are unique to the way they learn.  If the answer they come to is wrong, rather than correcting it, families can ask more questions and encourage students to talk through their process until they come to the correct conclusion on their own. 

• Trust your child and their amazing brain

 Whatever you do, don’t underestimate the incredible power of your child’s mind to solve problems and learn new skills. We’ll talk more about the benefits of leaving long periods of time for self-directed learning, but this can also be integrated into your one-on-time through asking questions, followed by long pauses for reflection.  By not spoon-feeding answers, you are also sending your child a powerful message that you believe in their capacity to teach themselves. What better way to boost confidence and motivation? 

• Cultivate a growth mindset

To encourage self-efficacy and perseverance in students, praise their process and hard work, not their character or achievements. When parents highlight the process, it gives students a sense of agency over outcomes.  Students don’t have control over how smart they are or how lazy they feel, but they do have control over how hard they work. Praise the moments they choose to push past frustration or look at a problem from a different angle. Praising process encourages independence and improves mental health. 

Parents can also cultivate a growth mindset through modeling. Celebrate your own failures (I failed, but I learned something!), share how proud you are for pushing past frustration when you encountered a difficult situation at work (or with a friend), avoid modeling perfectionism to your kids. Your children are watching you all the time, and they will do as you do, not as you say. 

Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, has an excellent Ted Talk about Growth Mindset, which provides great tips for parents and educators. 

• Apply 1-1 Mastery-Based Learning: 

If you read the section on 1-1 mastery-based learning, hopefully you’re already convinced about what a powerful tool this can be and how conducive home-based instruction is to this type of instructional strategy. 

• Use mastery-based curricula

• Give children all the time they need time to master one concept before moving on to the next.

• Personalize learning by changing curriculum and teaching styles to suit your child.

 Mastery Learning is naturally amenable to a homeschool environment, so above all, trust your instincts on what works best for your children.

• Differentiate instruction

In a nutshell, change it up. To learn the material well, it’s helpful to see it from different points of view. Depending on the concept, kids might benefit from doing a hands-on project, watching a video, hearing a story, remembering an experience related to the concept or singing a song. 

• Student as a teacher

 It’s said that the final stage of mastery is teaching. Through teaching a concept to you or another sibling, the child will become aware of weaknesses and gaps in their understanding and deepen their knowledge.  This teaching style can even be applied effectively if a student has no prior knowledge of a topic. Motivated by their desire to solve the problem and teach it to you, they’ll find resources and information to get the information they need and break down concepts in a way you’ll understand. 

This can be an especially valuable tool for learning math, as some students race ahead answering questions intuitively, but may not be able to articulate how they solved a problem in a certain way. This can lead to problems later on when students have to solve increasingly advanced topics.   

• Don’t be a helicopter parent

If you help your child with everything they do and watch over their every move, you may be sending them a subtle message that they can’t do it themselves. It’s important for kids to fail, feel frustration and experience the natural consequences of their mistakes. Kids need time alone, unobserved, where they can tinker and explore. 

When writing my book, “How to Raise Successful People,” I received so many questions about different parenting approaches. But what everyone really wanted to know was: “What is the worst parenting style?” Based on my experience and research, I believe “helicopter parenting” is the most toxic. - Esther Wojcicki, author of “How to Raise Successful People” and mother of three girls, a doctor, the CEO of Youtube, and the CEO of 23andME. 

Parenting is hard, and navigating the perfect balance of helping and letting go can feel impossible. The first step is awareness. Let kids play independently with friends, work on projects without help and give them one-on-one time with tutors, mentors, and older peers (no side coaching). When they meet new adults, don’t answer questions for them. Through trust, compassion, understanding our child’s needs at different developmental stages, and giving space for independence, we can raise resilient, respectful, self-motivated kids. 

For families interested in going more in-depth on this topic, Former Stanford Dean, Julie Lythcott-Haim, has written an exceptional book called “How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success.” For those who prefer videos, her Ted Talk is also great.

Common objections to parent-led instruction

“I can’t teach because I’m not a teacher”

We’ve already established that just because you don’t have formal teaching experience doesn’t mean you can’t be an effective teacher to your own children. You may even be better. With the emergence of so many mastery-based curricula and adaptive learning apps designed specifically for home-based instruction, it's easier than ever to guide your child’s learning. 

At Modulo, our team has over 100 years of combined teaching experience in seven countries. Many of us are 2nd or 3rd generation teachers. We love teachers.  Like most good teachers, we appreciate the profound impact of parent involvement in learning and 1-1 instruction - and are constantly trying to get parents more involved in their child’s education for these very reasons. 

See our blog, where we expand further on this homeschool myth. 

“I can’t teach math because I’m not a math person”

 One of our earliest adopters at Modulo is Rachel Thomas, P.H.D. A world-renowned data scientist and teacher, Rachel has written extensively about the myth, “I’m not a math person.” Decades of undermining confidence in math have led many students, especially women, to believe they’re bad at math. Rachel demonstrates that a great deal of this has to do with the way math is taught in school. Fortunately, with high-quality math materials like Beast Academy or Right Start Math, any parent can teach their child math and learn more math themselves in the process. Rachel’s talk “not a math person” is an essential homeschooling tool for any parent who thinks they can’t teach math because they’re not a math person. 

“But what about other subjects I don’t understand, like French - or physics? 

As an adult, it must be clear to you that you can learn any subject in the world from the internet or books. You don’t need to hire a tutor to learn French or physics, and your child doesn’t need one either. The best way to teach these subjects to your child is to learn with them, together. Take the journey with them and use parenting as an opportunity to pick up new skills. As your child grows older, they may also benefit from connecting with mentors and teachers in the community or online. If you decide to go this route, and have the resources, the world is your oyster when it comes to hiring homeschool tutors. Even if you are on a tight budget, there are plenty of ways to find free tutors or trade skills within the community. 

“My kids don’t listen to me. Whenever I try to teach my child, we get in a fight.” 

We hear this one a lot. Don’t worry, dear parent, you’re not the only one :(  There are two important things to keep in mind here.

• Helping a child with school homework is very different from helping with homeschool curricula. 

School homework is not designed for parent-led instruction. Parents don’t have the context for what was taught in class - or how teachers want them to do it. Kids might not understand why they need to do the work they’ve been assigned, how it will benefit them now or as a gateway to a future career (and to be honest, it's often busy work).  Homeschooling curriculum is specifically designed for untrained teachers educating their own child at home. Over the years or even decades, the best curriculum creators (many who are teachers ) have iterated their curriculum to serve parents better and ensure learning is fun for kids. Schools can force families to do homework. Homeschool curriculum designers have to make sure their curriculum is easy for parents to follow and that kids learn and enjoy it - or they’ll go out of business.

• Secondly, whether or not you choose to homeschool, it’s valuable to improve communication with your child. 

Practicing reflective listening, paying attention to self-care, trying to understand what your child needs that may be prompting them to “act out,” and learning how to set clear boundaries (with love) at different developmental stages are all well-established tools that can help improve family relationships. 

• We highly recommend the book “How to Talk so Kids Can Learn,” as an indispensable starting point for any homeschooling journey. Our workshop on Communicating with Children with Bank Street Professor Deb Vilas provides a framework for families on how to communicate with kids.   Janet Lansbury also has wonderful blogs and a podcast on parenting.
  

  I want my role to be “mom” or “dad,” not “teacher”

Homeschooling families love that they get to spend more time with their kids. If families focus on learning with kids and cherishing that extra time together, rather than trying to replicate classroom instruction, roles can be fluid. When parents read bedtime stories to their children and ask them questions or have discussions about politics at the dinner table, they are not taking on the role of teacher. Just because it’s math doesn’t mean mom needs to be on a teacher hat. 

That said, a big challenge stay-at-home parents face is having to be “on” all the time. It’s critical that both partners are sensitive to the needs of the stay-at-home parent so they can push the off button and take care of their own needs. Single parents will do well to organize childcare swaps or hire a babysitter to get needed breaks from parenthood. 

“I don’t have time to teach my child.” 

1-1 Mastery learning is a highly efficient way to learn.  Most successful modular learners structure 1-2 hours a day of 1-1 mastery learning for their kids. The rest of the time is spent doing extracurriculars, social time, and independent study. Due to many facets of homeschooling that encourage self-efficacy, as homeschool kids grow up, they often become more and more independent, needing less help from parents with homeschool study. 

Hmm (sounds a lot like a parent to us). 

• “But I want my kids to be exposed to other mentors & teachers besides me.”

It’s invaluable to surround your child with positive role models. Just because you’re involved in your child’s education doesn’t mean that you can’t involve other teachers and role models as well! 

In a homeschooling community, there are lots of extraordinary adults (parents and teachers) who can inspire your kids: scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, teachers, and artists, not just one homeschool teacher or classroom teacher. Older children take an active role in mentoring and teaching younger kids. In the extra time they have, many homeschoolers do internships, take classes at community colleges, volunteer, or help with research. 

If you think your child might have a learning or social-emotional challenge, it can be helpful to reach out to a learning specialist. 

Our section on How to find and recruit the best homeschool teachers, we explore this topic in more depth. There are so many great options for high-quality, free tutoring, including Khan Academy’s schoolhouse.world and our own non-profit, masteryhour.org. 

Pro tip! Teach other kids! 

As you can see, you have a lot of advantages over classroom teachers, just by being your child’s parent. And there are opportunities to develop those teaching skills further. Once you get good at it, you can even teach other kids! Many homeschooling families share their skills for free or for extra income. Teach your neighbor’s child how to code, and maybe he’ll teach them how to paint in oil pastels. 

Many families are so scared of the idea of teaching their own child that they can’t imagine teaching people’s kids. It turns out that for many, teaching other kids in the community is one of the most gratifying aspects of homeschooling! 

Best books on parent involvement in education

Family involvement in education has a myriad of benefits, including access to personalized 1-1 mastery-based learning and healthy bonding, laying the groundwork for strong self-esteem,  social skills and peace, and harmony within the family unit. Families interested in learning more about this subject may be interested in reading some of the books that have inspired parents to take a more prominent role in their child’s education. 

1. How To Talk So Kids Can Learn: Learn how to communicate with children at different developmental stages:

2. Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers: In this parenting classic, a world-renowned therapist discusses the vital importance of parent-child interactions and invites parents to re-imagine the dominant paradigm.

3. The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling: A homeschooling mom of ten years gives an in-depth look at the myriad social benefits of learning with parents. 

4. Dumbing us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling: NYC’s Teacher of the Year John Gatto inspired thousands of homeschoolers with this groundbreaking book which empowers parent educators and remains as relevant today as when it was first published.

We’ve created a number of resources for parents, caregivers, and teachers wanting to improve their skills for teaching modular learners. Families interested in going more in-depth on this topic are welcome to explore our teacher training manual (created for volunteer tutors at our sister non-profit, masteryhour.org, but with helpful insights for any parents, caregivers or teacher), and our blog with teaching strategies for parents and caregivers. Our training playlist for volunteers at Masteryhour.org also includes a large selection of great videos to help anyone improve their teaching skills no matter where they’re starting at. 

It’s so valuable for families to engage often with children in their education and their life. But it’s perhaps equally important that kids have time and space to direct their own learning. Modular Learning provides just that opportunity. Learn more about the many advantage of self-directed education in the next section:  Self-Directed Education : Giving Kids the Time and Space to teach themselves.