Learning isn’t an overnight process. Before discovering their fullest potentials, children have a very long way to go. And, if you are wondering whether there are ways you can help your kid learn smarter and faster, you are at the right place.
In this post, we’ll dive deeper into the different ways your child can learn faster and study smart. But, you never know, maybe you’ve got a little Einstein in your child. Below are the ten proven strategies you can adopt to help your child learn faster and score straight As. To give your child an experience of the methods below, why not bring them to Newtonshowcamp, a kids camp in Singapore where they will be encouraged to learn? The instructors use playful and fun ways and state-of-the-art learning methods to ensure your kid gets as much knowledge as possible.
1. Gamification of Learning
Using gamification is a great strategy to make your child’s learning an efficient process. In gamification, the learning process is turned into a process. For instance, you can teach your child how subtraction and addition work by playing a shop with your child being the customer and you being the shopkeeper. Your kid will learn how to subtract and add through working out whether the change is correct.
Children learn best when having fun and are stimulated, making gamification of learning an effective strategy. That is why in our Easter camp, we will have different interactive learning games to teach your kids mathematics, chemistry, languages, and even sciences.
2. Ensure They Get Enough Sleep
If your children do not get enough sleep, regardless of the number of hours they put into religiously completing their or reading every night, all that excellent work will be in vain. Sleep is incredible and powerful for helping a child study. Hence, ensure you’ve created a sleeping schedule that your kid follows religiously. They should get at least eight hours of sleep each night.
To show you how critical sleeping is to a kid’s learning, the researchers have established that the child loses about two years of brain function by missing an hour of sleep.
Research has also established that an A student sleeps 15 minutes more every night than a B student and 30 more minutes than a C student. Therefore, to help your kid become a star student, ensure you set a strict bedtime each night. Make sure the child has got eight hours of sleep. Prohibit them from using devices or a screen one hour before they go to bed.
3. Using Learning Frameworks
To help your child study effectively, you must understand the learning process and use frameworks. The “Learning Pit” is among the most effective learning frameworks. It describes the learning process when your child starts overconfident; they realize they aren’t understanding and quickly get discouraged. However, they begin to understand and comprehend through encouragement, dividing the concept into several simple parts and repetition. After conquering the new knowledge, your child feels triumphant. We’ve implemented this framework in our Easter camp, and it works very well in all students.
Through understanding the learning pit, you enhance your child’s learning process, preparing them for the struggle ahead, reassuring, and helping them move past the difficult stage to learn.
4. Instilling Self-confidence
Self-confidence is a vital value for your child. Anything starts from believing, and smart children first believe they are smart long before they become so. Self-confidence is a powerful value where an average kid believes they can do something better or are good at something. Therefore, they spend more time performing it and aren’t intimidated by the difficulties. They get a lot of satisfaction from the activity to the extent that they overachieve.
By believing that your child can succeed and instilling self-confidence in them, you can make your child a star student.
Although this might sound far-fetched, it has research backing. Researchers Lenore Jacobson and Rosenthal did an experiment in which they told teachers they had several gifted students in their class while these students were randomly selected. When the “gifted” students’ IQ was tested one year later, their IQ was found to have improved by 22 points. By partaking in various activities in this kid’s camp in Singapore, your child’s self-confidence will be enhanced through multiple multilevel activities.
5. Enroll your Child Into Music Lessons
Teaching your child to play musical instruments is a highly effective method of boosting how they perform academically. Through learning how an instrument is played, your child enhances their short-term memory, reasoning skills, and concentration abilities. All these have one thing in common; improving the academic performance levels.
In research by researchers from VU University, Amsterdam147 children in a range of Dutch schools were put through a structured musical curriculum featuring practical and theoretical instruction. Two and a half years later, the researchers analyzed the results and established that the academic outcomes of the students who participated in musical lessons improved considerably compared to students who didn’t. So, if you want to help your kids learn faster, pick up a guitar, violin, piano, or any other instrument and teach them to play.
6. Sports and Exercises
Most parents that want their kids to achieve academic excellence believe that sports distract and make their kids too tired for effective studies. However, this is a mistaken belief that might take a toll on the child’s academic performance. While it might make sense intuitively, scientific research shows the contrary. Children who exercise regularly and participate in sports can focus for extended periods, overcome daily challenges effectively, and outperform their inactive peers in standardized tests.
In a study conducted by a group of researchers from Germany on people’s ability to learn post- and pre-exercise, it was found that after exercise, people had a 20% more effectiveness of learning new vocabulary than before the workout. Hence, to ensure that your kid has a higher sense of well-being and learns more effectively in the class, ensure they exercise several times a week and participate in sports.
7. Memory Development
Ensure you use various techniques to develop your child’s memory and cognitive sense. It doesn’t matter the amount of effort your child puts into learning if they can’t recall information under pressure. Fortunately, there are several known hacks to improve the memory ability of your child, like mnemonics. Below are the best known and effective mnemonics:
- Method of Loci: You can associate words or things with places your kid has strong memories of.
- Acronyms: Every letter in the word begins a phrase, and every phrase describes a certain concept.
- Rhymes: Teach your child to create rhymes by tapping into their musical sense. This will help them recall key pieces of information and concepts.
Start using these mnemonics and teach them to your child. Then, they will never struggle with remembrance during an exam.
8. Ensure Your Kid Doesn’t Fear Making Mistakes
It has been commonly said that “you aren’t learning if you aren’t making mistakes.” One of the main reasons a child’s learning stalls or regresses is that they fear making mistakes or looking stupid. However, that avoidance of making mistakes or fearing to appear stupid hurts your child’s ability to learn.
The only way of learning and improving in any skill is by adjusting and trying new things. At Newtonshow camp, kids interact with robotic materials and even assemble one themselves. They also participate in various Lego competitions to boost their confidence. Whenever your child tries something new, it is normal to find setbacks and make many mistakes. Always remember, the more mistakes your child makes, the higher the opportunity to improve.
Therefore, to ensure effective learning in your child, make them know that failing and setbacks are all part of learning. Actively encourage your kids to take risks, fail, and adjust. Never let your child fear failing. Whenever they fail or make a mistake, correct them calmly and repeat the task until they understand and improve their skills.
9. Ensure That Your Child Associates With The Right Crowd
Do you worry that your child may fall into the wrong group and pick some bad habits? It is a concern for many parents. Most parents fear their kids will turn to other unhealthy activities and stop learning/studying. Although this was purely on the parent’s intuition in the past, science has proven that the worrying parents were right.
According to a study of Dartmouth college students, it was found that whenever a poorly-performing student having low grades started sharing rooms with top-achieving students, they also started performing better. The poor student is inspired by the star student, leaving their old habits and striving to achieve their very best through learning hard.
10. Reward Your Child
Associating positive emotions with learning is among the most effective methods of getting your child to study. But, how can you do that? The simple answer is through rewards. If getting an A in mathematics means your kid will get their favorite thing or a toy they’ve been dreaming of, they will put an extra effort into their studies.
However, physical treats aren’t the only way of rewarding your kid. Compliment them and celebrate their small wins. For example, if your kid has solved a mathematical problem, compliment them and show or tell them how proud of them you are. At Newtonshow Camp, whenever a child finishes an activity, they are rewarded in various ways, and there is a grand reward for the overall best camper.
Your child wants to make you happy when all is said and done. Hence, by setting up a good reward structure, your kid feels extra affection, and knowing they will be appreciated after achieving something, they might turn into a star student.
Conclusion
All the above strategies and methods of helping your children learn faster aren’t a one-size-fits-all method. Some parents might choose another route while others may try them. Before using the above methods to help your child learn more quickly, ensure both of you have a conversation surrounding them. Remember, learning isn’t an overnight process, and every step is vital in building your child’s fun learning Journey. Newtonshowcamp is the one place where your child may experience most of the above strategies first-hand.
