September 3, 2009     Parents and carers of public primary school students will soon receive their own purpose-written guide to help their children with mathematics.

WA Education Minister Liz Constable launched the booklets today at Inglewood Primary School as part of National Literacy and Numeracy Week 2009. Dr Constable said parent engagement in education was a major factor in a child’s success at school.

“Research shows there are strong links between parent support and involvement and improved student achievements, attendance and behaviour,” she said. “A child’s performance in the classroom can be greatly enhanced if they are exposed to maths in their daily lives from an early age. “These books give parents and carers some easy, useful and practical tips for involving maths in everyday life.”

The booklets - ‘Counting on you 2’ (for parents and carers of children in Kindergarten to Year Three) and ‘Helping your child with maths really adds up’ (for parents and carers of children in Years Four to Seven) will be distributed to every parent in public schools with a child in the relevant year.

The Minister said that the new numeracy booklets were among a number of resources produced by the Department of Education and Training to support parents to help their children to learn.

“Parents don’t have to be good at maths themselves and our research has found that using the ideas from the booklets helped strengthen their relationship with their children, and even improves their own skills,” she said.

“The literacy booklet ‘Raising a Reader’, which was distributed to parents of Kindergarten and pre-primary children, was an overwhelming success with more than nine out of 10 parents reporting they felt it gave them more skills and confidence to help their child read.

The booklets can also be downloaded from Schools And You.

From a media release from the Education Minister's Office - WA.

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