Home Life and Academic Success

 Study on Family Factors Affecting School Performance 

Family and home life have a significant impact on how students perform in the classroom. This is such an important aspect to study about your students. In order to be a sufficient teacher, one must recognize the diversity of lives of their students and take this into account when assigning materials/homework. From looking at a study done that researched the effects of home environment on academic performance, it yielded some interesting results. The results found show that home environment is the most significant factor affecting academic performance followed by family member's interaction, facilities available, and self esteem. This study is important to consider, because all these factors affect how a child will enter the classroom that day and subsequently how they will academically perform compared to their peers.

My Thoughts:

Image showing an overwhelmed student
leaning on a pile of books for some rest.

I have had the opportunity to work as an intern in a 4th grade mathematics class and see how the teacher chooses to address the topic of home life. In this 4th grade classroom the teacher had already met and made contact with all the students' families to learn what environment they are coming from when they enter her classroom. This significantly changed how she approached homework and parental involvement with her students' work.  I could see the difference in the students coming from a serene home life compared to those coming from a more complicated home life just by looking at their work. For students coming from a more chaotic environment they had trouble focusing in the quiet because it is not what they are used to, and vice versa for those coming from a serene home life. This goes to show that teaching involves learning who students are as people and where they are coming from before looking at their academic standings to determine who they are. By making modifications to assignments for students that need more time or a different way of completing an assignment it levels out the academic standings and that is when teachers can truly see what their students are capable of. As said in an earlier blog post, students are not standardized so we need to stop treating them like they are and this starts with equity over equality in the classroom.