What Teachers Wish Parents Would Do To Prepare Kids For The School Year

Store displays are filled with backpacks, shiny sneakers and piles of brightly colored notebooks. The smells of crayon wax, pencil shavings and pink erasers are in the air. It’s time to start thinking about getting the kids ready to go back to school.

You’re likely in the midst of all the shopping that the season entails, searching for the right kind of colored pencils and negotiating how much you’re willing to spend on one pair of shoes. Of course, it helps for kids to dress the part and carry the right supplies, but being ready for school requires something more. We asked teachers what they wish parents would do to prepare kids for this annual transition.

Here are their suggestions. Reestablish routines. “Whatever you can do to get them waking up and going to bed at a normal time — that alone is just huge,” Bryson Tarbet , a former music teacher who is now an instructional coach in Columbus, Ohio, told HuffPost.

The first weeks of school can be exhausting for everybody, Tarbet added, so anything you can do to help kids get back into the rhythm of the school year can make things easier. Read every day. With younger children, parents should spend a little time each day reading with them.

“It’s a great way to boost their reading skills and enjoy some quality time together. We often see a ‘back to school dip’ with children who haven’t read at all and have spent a lot of time on screens,” Lana White, a teacher and co-founder of We Tutor Young Minds , told.