Top 10 Strategies to Motivate Children to Learn
By Amenah Manzoor
Apptitude of all the children is not same.Some children are quick learners and some are slow.For some children learning is a boring process they get overburdened and lose interest this is the major factor that leads towards the flaws in learning process.Parents should understand their child's apptitude and make a perfect environment for learning in accordance to child's mind set.
There is a big conflict when it comes to the child's learning .Parents and teachers misunderstand the fact that learning is not confined only to the classroom instead it extends out of the classroom inclusive of the enviroment where a child spend time.No doubt classroom is the primary source of learning but we cannot neglect the importance of secondary learning sources like home,garden /park and the influence of peers during sports.
In this article your are going to get idea about how to motivate your child to learn.If you follow these strategies you would see your child's learning getting better day by day.
◾Create learning atmosphere
Focus is the key to learn.Child would be more focussed if the environment is learning friendly.Children would only be interested in learning if the amtosphere is good.Provide your child with all the learning supplies like story books,puzzles,material for creating and solving activities.Children should be free to read and solve activities on their own.
◾Understand your child's interests
When children are involved in the subjects related to their interests learning becomes fun and they learn more.If you want your child to learn let him explore his interest.If your Child is interested in fishes.Tell him/her the stories about fishes.Give your child a task to tell the name of body parts of a fish.It would be a great source of learning and your child would not take it as something boring.
◾Explore different learning techniques
Every child respond differently to each learning technique.You should apply all learning techniques to understand which technique is best for your child.You should choose that technique to which your child respond more actively and quickly.Here is the list of different learning techniques that you can employ to know the best for your child.
- Distributed practice
- Map
- Flashcard
- Cooperative learning
- Mnemonic
- Feynman Technique
◾Make learning a fun activity
Children learn more through games.They take keen interest in games and play.Their mind experiences the joy thats why they recieve information and instructions with happy minds.Games help children in developing the non-congnitive skills, motor skills and interpreting the fact practically.Their experience and interaction during the games make the learning long lasting and even everlasting.
When you would engage your child in games and make learning a fun they would learn and understan better.Games are necessary for brain's health.Many researches show that the lesson learned through games are more effective.
◾Teach your child to stay organized
Children get frustrated if they are not organized.Teach your child to organize his books , stationary and toys.This would save alot of time and energy.children who are more organized are good learners.Disorganisation leads towards the hassle and distraction from the subject.Help your child in organizing his/her books ,school supplies and toys and teach him how to organize it, soon he/she would be able to do it by his/her-self.
◾Allow you child to share his/her opinion
If your child have an opinion it means he is thinking about the things ; if he is thinking it means he is learning.So encourage your child to express his/her opinion, likes,dislikes,views and perspectives.Its not essential to always have a perfect and right opinion as the children are in learning stage they can have imperfect and vogue perspectives of the things.You should not hinder them to express themselves instead you should encourage them and then explain the things in nicer way if you think they are not getting the right opinion of something.
◾Recognize Child's achievement
Recognition and appreciation works as a booster for the person being appreciated and motivates him to do more efforts.Appreciation is vital for the children ,when they get positive responce and appreciation they become more enthusiastic and learn more.When your child learns a new skill a new grammer rule or anything even aside from the course work appreciate him/her and encourage him/her to do even more better.On getting good grades celebrate the achievement it would definitely motivate your child to do more.
◾Develop a healthy communication with your child
Communication is the key to develop a strong relationship with your child.If there is communication gap between parents and children things would get worse.Make sure that your child is communicating with you sharing his/her feelings,emotions,fears and stories with you.You should listen to your child and respond in relative way.Don't ignore him/her when he/she is try to tell you something.Don't just make assumptions and start shouting on your child if he/she is mistaken in anyhow.Try to resolve each issue by patience.If children don't develop a sense of good communication with their parents they disengage from the learning process.
◾Learning should be the real Concern
When it comes to the learning focus on the learning of a child not the performance.Undoubtedly,performance is no less than learning but performance is sometimes effected by certain circumstances.To understand this lets take an example.If your child understands addition and he can solve any sum given to him.On the day of math test he was feeling sick and was attempting test slowly and his questions of addition remained unattempted.He scored 60%.Could you say that his learning was poor? Offcourse not.Although his perfermance was not up to the mark but his learning was at the point.So parents should understand this and not to pressurise their children about getting good score neglecting the learning process.
◾Share your stories with children
When your children can relate to you they get motivated.Share your learning story with your child tell him/her the difficulties you faced in learning something or when did you learned a specific concept so quick.In this way,your child would somehow relate to you or get motivated.They would tell you how they are learning where they are getting failed.They would tell you which concept they just picked up in seconds.This would highly motivate your child to learn.
