Summer vacation is over and schools have reopened. Again, a new beginning; new things to learn and new things to start with! Now mothers are busy with setting their own daily schedules and time tables after a long gap. 2 months have gone like a flash of second. For those worrying mothers’ attention – No need to search for tuition teachers for each and every subject. He has enough intelligence to observe from the surroundings and learn through eyes and ears. Only thing you have to do is to encourage his skills and provide a healthy atmosphere with everything sufficient enough for his bright future. If you are able to find those negative attributes that cause hindrance to his studies and rectify them, both teaching and learning are not big tasks – for both of you.

How to learn?

The most important thing to note is that parents should be able to cultivate a good learning strategy for kids. Vital part is to provide the knowledge to kids ‘how to learn’ than ‘what and how much to study’. If you are able to teach those primary lessons he will learn himself, ‘how to study’.

In kindergarten and primary school classes, mothers need to sit along with kids and teach them repeatedly with the help of pen and paper. You can do some model exams too. In these classes, the only thing noted is how much the kid is able to reproduce what has been taught to him and what is written in his books. It’s not significantly noted if the kid is learning bi-heart or does he really understands what’s written in his books.

But now, concepts of studies have totally changed. Now preference is given to observations, activities and projects too. Earlier, exams were to test the memory power of students. Now it’s the test of knowledge. So, in upper primary classes, the strategy to bi-heart things and sit in the exam hall may not always help. Integrate the modules, use imagination, mind mapping and catch the idea behind a prose or chapter – these ideas are integrated in modern studying tools to teach kids nowadays. If a kid learns stories it helps his imagination wings to fly a little bit. It helps them to repeatedly recall things too.

While he reads a book, mother can ask him to find the important idea or content of each paragraph he read. If he is able to do so, he learns to arrange the whole lesson and collect its important points and ideas easily. Try to link all paragraphs of the chapter each other. If certain questions are asked similar to, “Why did he said so?”, “Where has he gone?” etc, he recalls what he has read in the previous paragraphs. It makes learning easier and recalls already learnt lessons too. When such a recalling process is done repeatedly a kid learns a lesson with ease.

Till the age of 10, mothers spend more time in teaching kids. But things get difficult after that. By this time, a kid should develop his own studying method and parents should be able to leave him in his own studying world, after teaching him ‘How to learn’. If not, leaving kids in the ocean of studies suddenly looks similar to dive in a deep river without knowing how to swim. So, from early ages itself, teach him a few procedures so that he can learn taking less effort and time. 

If English is the problem

English is not our mother tongue. It’s applicable to all parts of our country. Now parents prefer English medium school for kids. But if the kid is not proficient in English and he struggles with the language, it can adversely affect his studies too. If so, even if he studies a lot and takes a lot of efforts, his knowledge may not reflect in his answer sheets. In normal cases, if we hear something in a language other than our mother tongue, our brain translates it first to our language and makes us understand it. Similarly when we learn/write English too, translation is done from our mother tongue to English. Here the problems of spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes and even less knowledge of English words can occur. So, if a kid is not proficient in English, easy alternative he finds is bi-hearting things without thinking too much or passing anything to minds.

So, the best solution is to supply him with simple English words at an early age itself. Just give him a few easy words to study and slowly build up his vocabulary. In addition to it, you can give him English short story books with pictures. Pictures help him to learn things easily and most kids are interested in tales and folk stories too. The best strategy to begin with is simple picture books with a few words. Though he may not identify all words, with the help of pictures he will learn them slowly. It is a bit difficult task to teach spellings of words. Instead check if he is able to identify those words and read. Such repeat work outs can automatically increase his vocabulary and slowly he begins to learn the spelling of those words too. Slowly you can promote the medium – from picture books to story books. Now you can ask him to read too.

While choosing books also, a few things are to be noted. Never choose too standard books, not easily digestible. Always begin with simple books. If not kid may find it bored and never finds interest in reading books. As he learns, you can increase its standard. Another simple strategy is ‘Make him observe and write’. Ask him to observe things around him and write in a sheet of paper, its English words. Teach him new words too. Such encouragements from parents can give him positive energy to observe his surroundings and learn new words. By this method, parents are cultivating a habit in kids to write things in English from an early age. Slowly, words can be changed to phrases, phrases to sentences and sentences to paragraphs and short stories. Then he will surely try to write things he learns at school, without your help. It can make his studies an easy job.

Kids and electronic media

It’s not at all possible for us to keep away from electronic media like mobile, television and computer. We need them for a lot of personal purposes. Kids are also not free of it. As it is not possible to keep kids fully away from electronic media, better option is to provide a few restrictions on them. Recent studies have already proved that too much exposure to television and cartoon networks can take away concentration from your kids. While you are on a family shopping, if your kid is fully interested in playing mobile games without personal mobile, he may not observe his surroundings and learn new things from it. It helps him only to live in an imaginary ‘virtual’ world far away from reality. If kids become slave of such games, he may loss his patience, concentration as well as his interest to spend time with his parents and family. He may constrain himself to a world of virtual games and its magic.

While parents plan the schedule of their kids, they often fail to add interests of their kids. Instead they give preference to their tastes and interests. Parents always give first preference to books while kids give it to games and toys. So, it’s better to discuss with kids before you prepare his timetable. Give him a little time to play as it is most needed for his physical and mental growth. You can provide a little time to watch television as well. But add a daily activity also, in which he finds interest thus cultivating his other talents too.

Games like problem solving and reasoning are found in plenty. Instead of giving preference to car races, ask them to do paint, solve jig saw puzzles or similar logical problems. As kids are interested in such things, their brains also develop along with it. It is always a better choice of logic/arithmetic related games than race games that needs less effort of brain. Though arrow keys give them better idea of direction and fast action, they are not advised for kids always. 
Now take care of these points too:

• Allow him to play outside home along with friends instead of playing alone inside home.
• Before studies and sleep, avoid computer and mobile games.
• Switch off your television as soon as you have seen your favourite program. When you spend too much time before this idiot box with remote in hand without any reason, your kids also learn new bad lessons from you.
• Kids learn mobile applications and computer programs easier than adults. So, while giving him your mobile or computer to play keep an eye on him. Be aware of what he is doing.
• You can teach arithmetic calculations with the help of computer games. So give preference to reasoning games.

Identify the learning defects

“In all matters he is just intelligent. He assists his father to repair electronic instruments. But when we come to the process of studies, he is a big zero. When I ask questions he answers perfect. But he forgets everything in the exam hall, full of spelling mistakes too. He can’t read fast and hates reading aloud too”, many mothers often complaint so. But in most cases it may be due to the neglect of a learning disability in him. Parents often blame him as lazy too, without knowing the real reasons. It’s to be noted that such kids have more brain development than normal kids and they hide some extra talent also. But they face problems in reading and writing. Some kids face problems in arithmetic calculations too. Normal school life makes their studies more uneasy. Dislexia, Dysgraphia and Discalculia are those three wide divisions of learning disability. Dislexia is related to reading defects and Dysgraphia is the difficulties faced by the kids while writing. As the name suggests, Discalculia shows the disability of kids to do or write simple arithmetic calculations like addition or subtraction.

In certain kids, learning disability is born along with them. If so, it’s difficult to treat it completely. If kids show symptoms of such learning disabilities, consult a doctor as early as possible. In most cases, parents do neglect them thinking that such errors will be corrected as he grows up. But it is not at all the right procedure to deal with this situation. Your kid certainly needs help. When he grows up, talents and abilities required for that age are also high and gap between the real abilities and what needed may be a big gap by that time. It is crucial too, in the growth phase of your kid as he may miss many important things he and his age actually need. Take note of these following points.

• When your kid reaches 8 (third standard), he should read and write well. If not, it is doubtful. Teach English phonetic words and their relationship with sounds. It can improve his condition a lot.
• Such kids may miss symbols while writing regional Indian languages too. It becomes difficult for them to choose letters to write a word as their minds are not proficient in connecting alphabets with sounds. In the case of such kids, make them read other magazines of same standard of their learning books. It is an efficient treatment.
• Multi-sensory method is another easy method to teach such kids. That means ‘make them feel the object by touch and sound’. While teaching an alphabet, make a model of that letter. Place his fingers on it and make him know, how to write. Make him read those letters loud and while teaching too, write in big letters.
• If you are doubtful never hesitate to consult a psychiatrist. He may ask you to do a few tests and therapy. It can surely increase the self confidence level of your child.

Is he a victim of ADHD?

Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder – Due to the present life style and food habits of the society our kids may often suffer with this disorder. To do anything, the most essential factors needed are patience and concentration and the kids suffering from ADHD lack both these qualities. It is almost impossible for them to stay at a particular task for a long time. They feel restlessness and loss their interest so suddenly. Such kids may face problems in studies and behavior too. They often fail to stay with attention in an activity if that activity is for a long period than they expect.

Difficulty to sit at a place for a long time, dropping pen or pencil in the ground and picking up frequently, words without thought, sudden change of mood and anger, forgetting daily activities, loss of things and non-acceptance of even simple failures are the common symptoms of ADHD. Kids suffering from ADHD are very talented. But they are not patient enough to make use of their real talents. Either at classroom or at home – lack of concentration can affect their studies a lot. As they are not willing to listen to their teacher’s lectures for a long time, they may miss many important lessons taught by their teacher. Instead they go to a day dreaming world filled with their own imaginations. They may never complete their class works and not even patient to write everything they know during the exams! The reason is – they can’t sit at a place for a long time.
Learning disability is of different types. So it’s needed to know the real reasons before starting treatments. If you are able to point out the correct defects or problems that trouble your child, its solving is also easy. Many training programs are conducted in learning disability centres too.

Conclusion:

A kid never loves punishments, bad words or failures. He always tries his level best to avoid these possibilities. Even then, if he finds troubles while learning, it means we do not understand his real problems. If you are able to find why he is not able to learn his lessons, finding solutions are so easy. That’s why I told, first step is to learn how we should teach them. 

Image source: Wikipedia

• Written by Sandhya Rani.
• In category Parenting and Child Development.
• 11 years ago.

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