How to help my child to study? 10 practical advices

Tips and tricks to enhance your children's learning from their childhood years.

The role of parent is extensive, in the sense that it encompasses various responsibilities and these in turn change as our children grow older.

One of the responsibilities parents face in fulfilling their role is helping their children with academic activities. Therefore, many parents tend to ask themselves the question how to help my child to study properly?

How to help your children to study

In this article we will see a series of tips that can be of great use at the time of getting ready to do homework with your children, so that you can make them learn in the best way and develop their full academic potential.

1. Meet regularly with your children's teachers.

The second place where our children spend most of their time is at school, along with their classmates and teachers.along with their classmates and their teachers. That is why to answer the question "how to help my child to study?" we must be concerned about having a good relationship with our children's authority figures at their school and not make homework for the little ones or spare them the efforts they need to make to learn.

Communication with our children's teachers is of great importance for our collaboration with them at home, taking into account that it is the teachers who will tell us which are the areas where we need to reinforce our child's knowledge at home.

Apart from the teachers' meetings planned by the institution, try to meet with teachers to discuss your child's performance and behavior in class.. It can be when you go to pick him/her up at school; before leaving, from time to time, talk for a few moments with the educators.

As well as the teacher will let us know what are the strengths of our child, to be able to enhance them even more from the family nucleus.

2. Attend all meetings scheduled by the school.

Attending parent-teacher conferences will allow you to meet not only your child's teachers and other staff working at the school, but also the other representatives, which is important to get an idea of your child's classmates.

3. Find out how your child is doing in his or her subjects.

Aside from the attention teachers give your child, it is important that you also take care to encourage your child's that you also take care to encourage your child's academic performance.. Remember that parental figures are the most significant for the child and it is from them that he gets his motivation and self-esteem.

The more you know about your child's performance in his course, the better you will know about his personal abilities, so you can take care of reinforcing his skills and prevent his difficulties from limiting him.

4. Use private tutoring

If necessary, you could enroll him in some private classes with the intention of overcoming some specific academic limitations that he is taking at school.

The personalized attention of a private tutor is a great help for your children to study better, but even if you take this step, you should not discourage them from taking private classes. even if you take this step, you should not neglect their progress.Their success is still, in part, your responsibility.

5. Review their notebooks together regularly

With their permission, review together the notes they have been making in their notebooks. This habit is good to have a clear follow-up of how our children's regularity is during the weeks of study at school, and also to be able to see first hand which subjects are more complicated for them. to be able to see first hand which are the subjects that are more complicated for them..

6. Help your child to find his or her study method

Keeping in mind that no two people learn in the same way, it is important that you work with your children to find the best study method for them at home.

Help them prepare for tests and establish which techniques are more efficient than others. This way, after a while, you will be able to decide which ones to keep and which ones to discard.

7. Take advantage of the potential of multimedia

Some of the most useful resources for studying are YouTube videos, the creation of outlines and summaries (by your son or daughter). Supporting textual information with images and video that illustrate what is expressed in words makes it easier to understand the study material, since this knowledge is "archived" in the brain through various senses, generating richer and more nuanced memories. richer, more nuanced memories are generated..

8. Gives support in the management of the moments of rest.

Alternating moments of rest, moments of study and moments of testing oneself is fundamental.. You must help the child to understand that rest times do not have to be wasted time, as long as he/she uses them well, including just before and after study sessions. In fact, if he or she does not get enough rest, he or she will be better at concentrating and memorizing.

To achieve a perfect balance, make him/her take it as a challenge to alternate small breaks of ten or fifteen minutes with study sessions of half an hour; this will ensure that during those thirty minutes, he/she will have incentives to not get distracted, besides not experiencing psychological wear and tear.

9. Get actively involved in school activities.

Parent activities at school help your child understand your commitment to their learning, as well as being an effective way to keep in touch with school staff.

This also refers to contact through social networks or some other means that the school may use to stay close to the representatives, find out if there are WhatsApp groups that may be of interest to you and ask to join them (although, obviously, you should only claim their time for really important doubts and that you think are significant in helping your son or daughter to study).

10. Don't underestimate their need to play

Children should not spend most of their free time studying; it is crucial that they have play time, even if they are not reaching their academic goals.

School progress should not overshadow the fact that children are people with the right to be happy and develop. the right to be happy and develop in a healthy way through leisure time..

On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that through play their implicit learning is also boosted, given that it is a context in which they can socialize and imagine combining different ideas with each other.

Bibliographical references:

• Andrade-Lotero, L.A. (2012) Cognitive load theory, multimedia design and learning: a state of the art Magis. International Journal of Educational Research, 5(10): pp. 75 - 92.
• Castorina, J.A. and Lenzi, A.M. (comps.) (2000). The formation of social knowledge in children. Psychological research and educational perspectives. Barcelona: Gedisa.
• Karpicke, J. & Roediger, H. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319, 966-968.
• Lillemyr, O.F. (2009). Taking play seriously. Children and play in early childhood education: an exciting challenge. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
• Pashler, H.; McDonald, M.; Rohrer, D.; Bjork, R. (2009). Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest. 9 (3): 105 - 119.
• Winch, C. y Gingell, J. (2008). Philosophy of Education: The Key Concepts (2nd edition). Londres: Routledge.
• Zimmerman, B.J. (1990). Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: An overview. Educational psychologist. Taylor & Francis.