Friends often tell me how their child is struggling in school. I usually give them some ideas that could further their child’s achievement and, let’s face it, in the workplace far down the road. I would like to think every parent’s and every teacher’s dream is for the children in their care to exceed far beyond what the parent or teacher were able to accomplish.

I am a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District. For a long time, I was strictly a fifth-grade teacher. Far too often, I would get classes where the majority of students were reading far below grade level, some students at 15 words per minute. I can take the best curriculum in the world and teach it to the best of my ability, but if a student cannot read, then it is just a bunch of words in the air.

I had to get my students up to grade level. I made great strides with some of these strategies. I can brag that my lowest students who were reading 15 words per minute at the beginning of the year were at a speed of 99 words per minute when the year finished. I still feel I failed, since grade level at that time was 155 words per minute. But you must eat the elephant one bite at a time. I am hopeful the teachers to follow will build upon what the children achieved.

One of those students graduated highest in her class in eighth grade. I was more than shocked when the parents emailed me a video of her speech. In her speech, she thanked Mr. Lee, her fifth-grade teacher, for making her so smart.

I did not make her smart. Most if not all children are smart. The key is getting the child to see it.

Strategy No. 1: Treat your children as if they are smart. Early in their young lives, stop opening their milk in kindergarten. Let them open their own milk, even spill it. There is a direct correlation between intelligent children who do for themselves and those whose parents doddle over them. I know it is hard to let go, but it must be done.

Strategy No. 2: Talk to your child as if it you were talking to a friend, a stranger, or even your boss. A new study found that children are higher from the talk they hear from their fathers. Why? Fathers have a tendency to say it as it is, not thinking to dumb it down for the child. Studies are finding that children are forced to use their brains to figure out what dad is saying. They start using context clues in order to decode a word they did not know. How was dad standing? What were the words around it? What was his tone of voice? All these lead to intelligent and higher-level thinking.

Strategy No. 3: Get a list of words your child should know at his or her grade level. I use Fry’s word list when working with children. It can be found using a simple Internet search. Even if your child is in fifth grade, have him read first grade and work up. You might be surprised at how your child stumbles with the first-grade words. Invite your child’s friends over to read the words with your child. The more the better. Make sure to tell your child that the brain is so amazing that with practice, the brain will wire the patterns of the words into their brain. When they read similar words, the brain will automatically know the word based on its patterns. Read these words at least once a day.

Have fun. Take the words that your child struggles with the most and make cards out of them. Play the game of fish or Concentration with your child, making sure to use the words from your child’s list. Design the cards so that your child can read through the back of the cards. When playing fish, talk to your spouse or friend as you forgetfully hold your cards in a manner that the child can see them. They want to win, so if that means peeking at your cards, then let them peek. If the child pronounces the card wrong, he cannot get the point; you will take the card on your turn, saying, “You said ‘thorough’ when the word was ‘thought.’”

The desire to win will get more bang than anything a teacher can teach in the day. Be sure to make a scene when the child does get your card. Throw the card down, throw a mini fit, anything to make it fun for the child.

Strategy No. 4: Become dumb. All of a sudden you don’t know how to add, subtract, multiply or even divide. You worked 6 hours today and you got $11.35 cents an hour, but you don’t know how to figure it out. Let your kid try. Helping a parent is an effective way to learn.

If your child keeps missing the same step in math, then circle the ones the child missed. Write down the correct answer under each problem. Sit with the child and say, “I wrote down the correct answers under each one of your problems. I have looked and looked and I cannot figure out where the mistake is.” I have found this to be the most successful of all in math.

I had a child from Russia who was kicked out of another school. All I did with him was this one strategy. He looked and looked, and then with big eyes and a loud gasp, as if he had discovered another planet within our galaxy, he said, “Mr. Lee, I am not regrouping” (regrouping means carry over from when we were in school). I replied, “Is that it? Well, you might want to watch that.” All misbehaviors stopped, and he was my most successful student that year. Letting children discover their mistakes is much more effective then telling them their mistakes.

Strategy No. 5: Writing is much easier than anyone would think. But it is a process that takes practice. I will not cover all of the steps, but I will give one suggestion. Talk out the topic first. In discussion, write down all that is discussed about what the child knows. Once all has been said, look at what was written and start grouping it. Use a green crayon and circle all of the words or ideas that are connected in green. Then use a blue crayon and circle all of the related words or ideas in blue, and so on. You will find that this procedure will greatly help in the body of the paper. Maybe later I will write about how easy it is to put a paper together.

Strategy No. 6: Buy books that take any subject and put it into simple terms. A little secret few people know about teachers is that most of us bought these books in order to pass the state test for our credentials. These books are easy to find because the titles are pretty self-explanatory: “Algebra for Dummies,” “Everything Your Third Grader Needs to Know,” and so on. Talk about bang for your buck. In school I often struggled because the teacher could not tell me the “why.” Well, in these books, the “why” is there, and once a student knows the “why,” then all of a sudden a whole new world opens up.

You are in charge of your own destiny, and to a great extent you are in charge of your child’s destiny. Have fun and enjoy the tremendous ride as your children discover how smart and gifted they are.

One of my classroom parents’ biggest complaints at the end of the year is that they are tired. They are not tired of working with their kid, but they are tired of researching things their kid said in the day. They tell me their child has far exceeded their knowledge in subjects, and when their child is sleeping, they are busy trying to catch up to their child’s knowledge. I hope someday we all carry that burden.

Steve Lee a Val Verde resident and a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.