Most promising students have acquired the skill of good learning through several practices. Moreover, any student with basic competence and receiving the appropriate encouragement can become a good learner.
One of the biggest mistakes teachers and parents can make when trying to improve a child's learning abilities is that they only teach through the classroom. While the classroom can be the primary source of learning, the student must gain intellectual, social, and academic experiences outside the classroom.
12 Tips to Motivate Your Child to Learn and Make It Fun
If you want to boost your child's ability and willingness to learn, in this article, you will find 12 proven tips that motivate your child to learn while making them feel fun in acquiring information.
1. Create an atmosphere that encourages your child to read
Some people insist that reading is the secret to success in life. Some may think that something else is the decisive factor in success, but what is not disputed by two is that reading is at least the main factor for success in the learning process. Children who develop a love of reading also develop a love of learning. On the contrary, children who find it challenging to read find it difficult to learn.
Reading helps children learn new vocabulary and enhances their ability to deal with concepts and communicate with others. The skills children acquire from reading go beyond improving their performance in language classes to improve their learning abilities in all subjects, including applied subjects such as science and abstractions such as mathematics. Therefore, if you want to develop your child's reading skills, you must provide them with an atmosphere that encourages reading, whether by providing the right books or reading to them and making them read aloud.
Make time for the whole family to read - each of you will read for 20 minutes. By setting an example for your child or students as a reader and providing reading resources from novels, newspapers, and posters - whether in the classroom or at home - you can create an atmosphere that encourages reading and demonstrates its importance.
The secret to making children and pupils good readers is to make reading fun instead of boring because if a child is bored, they will not want to read, and their ability to learn will be diminished. So, to avoid this problem, it is better to allow the child to choose the books they want to read while helping them to read and to create activities that make reading fun.
2. Give your child as much freedom in the learning process as possible
When discussing educating children, it is necessary to be in control for the educational process to succeed. Still, the child's feeling that they are entirely under control leads to abandoning the attempt to learn.
The solution is to guide the child through the learning process while giving them control of the experience, whether through the classroom or at home. You must provide the child with the ability to provide their direct views in the learning process. The best way to achieve this is to provide options for children. For example, when you ask children to write about something, allow them to choose the topic they will write about.
It is also advisable to allow children to choose activities. The more freedom children feel with attention to the environment, activities, and educational style, the more enthusiastic they are to learn.
3. Encourage your child to communicate honestly and openly
Encourage the child or student to express their opinion regarding the educational process. This requires creating an atmosphere of openness in which the child can comfortably express their obsessions, likes, and dislikes.
When they express their opinion, show them you value their feelings even if you disagree with them because if the child feels that you do not care about their point of view or that there is no room for renewal, their enthusiasm for learning will likely decrease. One factor that makes the child good learners is their awareness of the importance of their opinion and their sense of reassurance, as they know they can express their opinions about the educational process comfortably without being judged, ignored, or neglected.
4. Focus on your child's interests
When the style of education attracts children to participate in areas and materials that fall within their interests, learning becomes a fun activity for children that excites them. So, if you seek to improve your child's learning abilities, encourage them to discover topics and areas of interest. For example, if they like dinosaurs, help them choose books and stories about them, and then ask them in a challenging way to determine their best five dinosaurs while explaining why they prefer them.
5. Use different methods in teaching
Every child has methods that they prefer to learn because they are more suited to their method of acquiring information. Some children have a primary learning method, and others combine several methods. Therefore, an effective method with a child may not be the same for another child, and it must help the child discover the method they prefer so that you can use the techniques that underpin this method and then improve the speed and quality of their learning.
There are seven main learning styles: visual style, auditory style, verbal style, physical style, logical style, group style, and individual style.
For example, suppose you explain the occurrence of a phenomenon to a group of children; children who prefer the visual method will learn better when seeing how the phenomenon occurs, while children who prefer the auditory method of learning will understand better when you talk to them about the phenomenon. So, it is helpful to make young children discover different learning methods and then employ them to improve the quality of the educational process.
6. Show your enthusiasm for learning
Our enthusiasm decreases, especially when we are trying to learn something new. Still, when a child or student feels that you have a real enthusiasm for learning, they also feel great enthusiasm for the experience. Whether in history, science, reading, writing, or even mathematics, you must make the child feel that learning is a pleasant journey of continuous discovery.
Take every opportunity - without exaggerating or appearing dominant - to encourage the child to discover new information with them. When the child sees how learning gives them life pleasure and excitement, they will also be excited to learn new things.
7. Make learning fun by integrating play with learning
Game-based learning is not a new concept; it has existed for a long time and is very useful for many reasons. Using games as an educational tool provides the possibility of learning qualitative information and developing non-cognitive skills and encourages children to learn in general. When children participate in a game, they enjoy learning its rules. This applies whether the game is recreational, such as video games, or realistic, such as simulated war games, through a natural environment.
Games provide the added benefit of motivating children to participate in learning and increase their desire to learn more. Learning through games is an effective method of learning through the team, which can be especially useful for children in the classroom. Add to this that children usually spend more effort in game-based learning than learning through the curriculum because games are more attractive to the child.
There is also the competitive side: children try to win individual or team competitions and strive to perform better to earn more points or for fun.
For all of the above, learning through games is an excellent way for parents and teachers to introduce new ideas, concepts, rules, and knowledge in a way that motivates children to learn.
8. Concentrate more on the learning process than on the test results
Instead of asking the child about their performance on the math test as soon as they return from school, ask them to teach you what they learned in math class today.
Focus on what your child is learning rather than on their performance. While performance is important, focusing on learning experiences will convey to your child that actual learning is more important than test scores, that results are not the most important thing, and that you are more interested in them than in their performance. At the end of the school day, when you focus on what your child has learned instead of their results, you allow them to reframe what they have learned in their vocabulary and consolidate what they have learned.
9. Help your child arrange school supplies and homework
Helping your child arrange their papers, books, and tasks helps motivate them to learn. Lack of organization is common in school-age children but can lead to fatigue. Overworked children waste more time feeling frustrated and anxious than they spend learning.
Be patient and persevere in helping your child arrange school supplies and organize their homework. This helps them feel disciplined, get rid of fatigue, and be more motivated to learn.
10. Observe and reward their achievements
Recognizing and rewarding your child's accomplishments is essential, no matter how great they are. This is especially important for elementary school children who need constant positive reinforcement to stay motivated to learn and give their best.
We do not mean to praise your child's regular performance. Instead, we appreciate and celebrate their achievements. For example, your child deserves special treatment when they pass a difficult test. If they do well on the math test, you can take them to eat ice cream. The idea is to use positive reinforcement to motivate your child to learn.
11. Focus on their strengths
Focusing on your child's strengths can be difficult when your child has a lot of learning difficulties, but concentrating on your child's strengths is critical to developing a healthy emotional and academic personality. It's another form of positive reinforcement that motivates them to continue learning.
Conversely, focusing on your child's weaknesses leads to frustration, discomfort, and an unwillingness to learn.
Suppose your child failed a math test but scored highly on a science test; give them extra help in the first subject but praise their scores in science.
12. Make learning a daily process
This advice may sound exaggerated, but it isn't if you do it correctly.
Encourage your child whenever they can explore the world around them, ask questions and connect ideas, and help them categorize their thoughts and think critically about what they see and experience.
Turning your child's day into a learning opportunity will help improve their self-motivation to learn in the classroom, at home, or wherever they may be.
In conclusion
By applying these tips, your child will feel a constant enthusiasm for learning in and outside of the classroom and will invest in every opportunity to gain more information while having fun.
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