Parents of public school students will receive individualized assessments of their children's strengths and challenges — and suggestions about how they can help — when the latest individual scores go home in the coming weeks, according to the Department of Education.

This is the second year that families will receive a detailed breakdown of how their child has done on the Hawai'i Statewide Assessment and the Stanford Achievement Test, and how he or she compares with the rest of the school and the rest of the nation.

"In parent-friendly language, it tells 'This is where Johnny's strengths and weaknesses are,' " said Robert McClelland, director of the DOE's Planning and Evaluation office.

"And (it says) Johnny can do better in this, and these are the kinds of things you might be able to help your child with at home.

"It's not just a score anymore," McClelland added. "It's a specific identification of the child's areas in which they can improve and specific examples (of how to help) in parent-friendly language."

McClelland said he hopes parents will act on the individualized suggestions of ways to help their children at home, but there's no way to know how many do.

Kahalu'u Elementary School parent Annette Lewis has found the suggestions that came home with her third-grade son last year to be helpful, especially in his reading.

"They had suggested reading in little increments of maybe five or 10 minutes with books that he can read, and are easier for him, and then going on to harder books," Lewis said. "He doesn't enjoy reading, but when we're all reading he does sit because we're all doing it.

"We have family time in reading and I've always read with him when I'm home, but I'm normally working on night shift."

Lewis said many families face those same kinds of issues — parents working several jobs, or single parents caring for children alone, and not having a lot of extra time to work on individual learning issues.

What helps in those kinds of situations is finding books in subjects, such as sports, that her son is particularly interested in, or having him pick out books himself as both the school and her physician suggested.

Because her son is a "hands-on" learner, he responded well to a book about a fire station because his class had visited one.

"When he read the book he said 'Yeah, I saw that.' He went there and can relate to it," Lewis said. She feels that's one of the most important ways to encourage her child's reading.

She has already found that books about basketball or stars such as professional player Yao Ming or drag racing interest him, just as books on Hawaiiana interest her daughter.