Routines at home help kids succeed in the classroom

School supplies now fill the aisles previously occupied by squirt guns, beach chairs and goggles. It’s officially back-to-school time for parents of school-age children.

We work hard as families and as a community to ensure our children are well-supplied and academically ready for success in school.

Before those busy school days begin, everyone should take a moment to ask not just if our children are ready for school, but if our families are ready for success in school.

We manage Head Start and Early Head Start programs in Fort Worth and Tarrant County — with roughly 450 early childhood professionals providing high-quality early learning for more than 2,300 lower-income infants, toddlers and preschoolers.

We help ensure that these young ones from disadvantaged families arrive ready for school. Not surprisingly, we have learned that children in families with strong family routines and rituals perform better.

Activities such as a regular bedtime or a family mealtime strongly support children, especially younger children, to develop needed skills such as self-control and self-confidence.

Research supports these strong correlations: Family activities, especially bedtime routines and book reading with a child, strengthen children’s early language and literacy skills.

Language and reading development start well before children ever harness a backpack and enter a school building.

Additionally, we all know a good night’s sleep makes it easier to rise and therefore supports a child’s attendance. Consistent school attendance, including on-time arrivals, correlates with academic success.

In Head Start and Early Head Start, we work with a wonderful and diverse array of families on a daily basis, and we’re familiar with the challenges that lower-income families face.

Children from disadvantaged families typically arrive at kindergarten more than one year behind their advantaged peers. By age 4, low-income children have heard 30 million fewer words than children from more affluent families and have vocabularies that are half as extensive.

However, there are significant steps to school success that begin at home with the family. All families want better for their children, and it starts with some simple, no-cost “tweaks” in how one’s family operates.

▪ Consider “no screen” time (TVs, computers and mobiles) for both children and parents after a certain time. Use that quiet time to introduce books or family reading.

Books in the home are strongly correlated with school success. For families speaking a first language other than English, be sure to read, read, read (in any language).

Check out books at your local library, share among friends and neighbors, or ask your local elementary school, child care program or church for assistance in obtaining children’s books.

Tell a story or read daily to your infants, too; infants flourish when being held and spoken to.

▪ Try your best to have the children in bed on time. It’s the consistency of regular sleep in addition to the number of hours that impact children.

While sleep needs vary, the Center for Disease Control indicates preschoolers need 11-12 hours or more per night, and elementary-age children need at least 10 hours.

Cut out some activities that interfere with a standard bedtime for children.

▪ Family meal time is hard, especially for working families. When feeding your children, join them (turn off the TV, put away mobile devices) and talk together.

No family is perfect every time, but establishing family rituals is not unlike starting to exercise — just start small and get moving.

Rituals are vital to family life and communicate security and support to children, especially young children.

Try setting a schedule that reinforces some regular family meals, reading times with young children, a standard bedtime and a morning ritual to help get the tribe out the door for school and work on time.

Kara Waddell is president and CEO and Maribel Arambula is family and community engagement coordinator at Child Care Associates, which manages Head Start and Early Head Start programs in Tarrant County.

This story was originally published August 13, 2015 at 5:56 PM with the headline "Routines at home help kids succeed in the classroom."