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Learning how your child learns: making the assessment

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We’ve already provided some pointers in this blog that will help you learn how your child learns. Now it’s time to take the next step and make an actual assessment on the kind of learning style your child has. Before we get started, make sure you’ve already seen part one of this series, because everything we do here builds on that post.

Learning how your child learns

Tips on assessing how your child learns

Children often don’t have the knowledge or ability to tell us which category of learning style they fall into. During your one-on-one time, let your child decide what he or she wants to do. Take careful note of what they choose and what they enjoy. Remember, these may be two different things. Kids may choose something to please their parents, not necessarily because they enjoy it. Pay attention to the activities your child appears to be genuinely fond of.

As a starting point, Parenting.com has a checklist that could be invaluable for figuring out what kind of learner your child is.

The above site recommends looking at what activities your children seem to enjoy the most. Is their favourite board game Operation? Do they like making hands-on crafts? You may have a physical or kinaesthetic learner.

Does your child like Scrabble? Is she good with names? Does she like reading and writing? Chances are she may be a verbal/linguistic learner.

Does your child have a knack for humming melodies and remembering song lyrics? He may be an audio/musical learner.

Do your children respond to diagrams? Are they moved by pictures and photography? Do they daydream? They may be visual learners.

There are also some good online tests which you can have your child take.

Edutopia has what is called a multiple intelligence test that provides a percentage scale of how your child interacts with the world. There is also an explainer that provides details on the kinds of activities your child would find most engaging. This is useful for finding out what interests your kids and their potential hobbies or career paths.

Educationplanner.org has a test that tells you what kind of learning style your kids have. Once they finish it, the site also gives tips on what kinds of activities will help them study and learn.

These are just a few examples. A simple Google search will reveal many more. But be sure to check and see if the site appears to be credible.

If your kids are a little too young to understand the queries, try taking the test together. Reword the questions and ask each child yourself. And remember some of the questions may need adaptation. For example, older questionnaires may ask if your child listens to the radio a lot. Since this is 2015, you might ask your child if he or she downloads a lot of music or listens to podcasts.

How you can help once you figure out the learning style of your child

Once you determine the learning style of your child, it becomes much easier to assist them in their education. Some parents may even be able to inform teachers how to best school their child. And even if that’s not always possible, there are ways you can help your kids learn once they get back to the house.

Kurt Fischer of the Harvard Graduate School of Education says one of the best predictors for a visual learner’s success is the amount of books available at home. When it comes to auditory learners, Fischer says it’s best to keep audiobooks, music around the house. These children will also benefit from engaging conversation with peers and adults. Verbal instructions are also helpful when explaining things. And as for kinesthetic learners, Fischer recommends keeping toys around that help them learn by doing. LEGO is a great example. And don’t be afraid to ask them to re-enact passages of books they’re learning in class. Even getting them to play teacher could be a good idea.

Learning styles are not always set in stone

Children’s learning styles can change over time, so it’s helpful to schedule check-ups to see how your kids are doing. Be flexible and adapt to your child’s needs. If your child is a reader but develops an interest in music, perhaps in the future he or she will learn better by listening rather than reading.

A final word — learning assessments are not substitutes for careful observation

We have heard of a case where a child did not get diagnosed with a learning challenge even though he was tested by the school. The mother of the child saw her son was still struggling, so she started homeschooling her child. It was only then that she discovered her son was dyslexic. If it weren’t for her one-on-one attention with her son, her child could have fallen through the cracks.

The moral of the story? Make sure you spend alone time with your children before assessing them. Zero in on frustrations they have. Remember that checklists and tests are still imperfect tools and are no substitute for carefully observing your child.

Spending one-on-one time with your child to figure out how they learn

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Spending one-on-one time with your child

Life can get really busy, especially if you are running around driving your kids to soccer practices, music lessons, and other activities. However, it is very important to make sure you put aside at least a little time regularly to spend one-on-one time with your child. But making it happen can be hard, and recognizing its importance isn’t always obvious. We’ve got tips for spending one-on-one time with your child.

Plan for it!

Yes, life can be busy, but don’t make spending time with your child the last thing on your list. If you have to, schedule it in so that you don’t miss it.

Get rid of distractions

During alone time with your child, try to put away your cell phone and turn the TV off, to make sure you can both focus on each other.

Get creative!

Alone time with your child doesn’t have to be some formal time to sit down and talk. Do something simple yet fun (here are some ideas from motherscircle.net), and change it up! It could even be doing a puzzle, or taking a walk through a nearby park to search for wildlife. Maybe take them out to a restaurant for a ‘date’ with mom or dad.

Benefits of spending one-on-one time with your child:

Figure out how they receive information best

Through spending one on one time with your child, you will be able to notice how they learn best. Do they like to move around while thinking? Or are they a really good listener? Little details like this can easily be noted when you spend some time alone with your child.

Find out how long they can concentrate

When you spend one-on-one time with your child, you will also be able to get a sense of their ability to concentrate. Do they have a 10 minute attention span? Or are they fine to sit and focus for 30 minutes? Once you know what their limit is, it can help you plan when to have them take breaks from homework and studying.

Discover the environment they learn best in

You can even figure out what environment they thrive in. Do they love reading outside? Or do they get distracted when the room is full of things to play with? This way, you can set up a learning environment that will keep them focused and ready to learn.

Spending time individually with your children will not only make them happier, but it can also help you figure out how they learn best. So take note of these tips, and plan some one-on-one time with your child to make the most of their learning!

Should kids still learn cursive writing?

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kids still learn cursive writing

In this age of keyboards and screens, many people are wondering if kids should still learn cursive writing. As with most things, there are two sides to every story. The camp in favour of banishing cursive writing says it is an antiquated tool of little use in the digital era.

However, others who are for the skill say it can promote a better grasp of reading and writing. In this article we’ll examine some of the main arguments coming from both sides. So should kids still learn cursive writing? Let’s take a look.

Does learning cursive writing improve literacy?

Some research suggests cursive writing helps children read and write better. One study found children who learned cursive were better at spelling and reading than children who only learned how to write print. The researchers said this difference remained even though the groups were similar in most other ways. While the authors of the study weren’t sure what the cause was, they suggested cursive forces children to look at words as a whole. Cursive letters are literally joined together to make words but the printed alphabet is not.

Time magazine has also reported on its blog that cursive writing activates different parts of the brain where printed letters don’t. For example, the magazine says learning cursive improves children’s fine motor skills and generally helps students retain more information and generate more ideas.

But critics call into question some of the research suggesting cursive makes children smarter. For instance, handwriting troubleshooter Kate Gladstone wrote in the Stamford Advocate that most proponents of cursive misquote a study which found hand printed — not cursive — writing provided some developmental benefits over keyboarding.

Some people are questioning if children should learn cursive writing

Many people are wondering if kids should learn cursive writing in the digital age because services that used to depend on it appear to be phasing it out.

Take these two examples where cursive writing used to be the standard: signing cheques and signing forms.

In the former example, cursive was the norm. That’s because most money was transferred via a signed cheque. But cheques are becoming less common now. Many businesses use direct deposit to pay their employees, and that number is growing. Add to the fact debit and credit cards with pin codes or ‘tapping’ abilities have become more common and the argument becomes clearer. All you need to do is ask yourself when you last used a cheque to pay for something at a store or restaurant.

What about the cases where debit or credit don’t apply? Does the cheque still have a use?

Possibly, but given the growing availability of e-transfers, which allow you to deposit money directly and securely into another person’s account, it’s questionable if cheques will be needed at all in the near future.

What about filling forms? Shouldn’t cursive apply there? After all, we all need to sign our names on the dotted line, don’t we?

For now, that seems to be the case, but more and more organizations are using online forms. These forms can be signed with a digital signature rather than a stroke of pen, securing the document with cryptography. Some places such as the United States give these signatures the same legal weight as a traditional signature.

Given that cursive appears to be less applicable in daily life, some people are saying cursive is a waste of school time. Some say that time would be better spent on keyboarding and other computer-related skills, which are more relevant in today’s age.

For example Morgan Polikoff, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California, wrote in the New York Times preserving cursive would be akin to resurrecting the abacus and the slide rule.

Another fun fact — handwriting troubleshooter Kate Gladstone says in a 2012 teachers’ conference held by Zaner-Bloser, a company that publishes cursive writing textbooks, only 37 per cent of the educators surveyed at the event wrote in cursive. If even cursive writing teachers don’t use cursive, why should we?

The bottom line – benefits of writing in cursive are still hazy

It’s still unclear whether writing in cursive is useful for children. Conflicting research and opinions on the skill make it very difficult to determine whether this is a tradition worth preserving. However, most research appears to agree that students must learn some form of penmanship.

A reasonable middle-ground would be to teach children how to read cursive but not to force them to write in it. According to the Stamford Advocate column of Kate Gladstone that we mentioned earlier, teaching the skill takes only one 30 to 60 minute session in the span of the child’s lifetime, so it won’t be diverting time from other pressing activities. Keep in mind this applies only if the student has already learned the printed word. If the child expresses a desire to learn more, teach them cursive and give them a few activities to start them off. We’ve suggested some ideas on our blog such as journaling. But if they don’t feel a need to learn how to write in cursive, there is little to suggest much harm will come of it.

Photographic memory and how to help kids improve their memory

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photographic memory and improving kids memory

Many of us are able to recall a familiar scene, say, the street your house is on. But how many people can actually recall every single detail of that scene? The ability to do so is referred to as having a photographic memory. But is photographic memory an imaginary concept? Or is it really possible? Keep reading to find out, plus learn how to help your kids improve their memory.

Photographic memory: is it real?

Some believe that people who are able to recall a picture with great detail simply have not lost their eidetic memory from when they were a child, as mentioned in a DNews video. Unfortunately, there have not actually been any studies that prove that photographic memory is real.

However, according to the video mentioned previously, there was one study done on the brains of eleven different people who have similar cognitive abilities. The results showed that these people actually had different brains than most people, which aided in their memory abilities. So, while it might not be proven that there is such a thing as photographic memory, some people are naturally better at remembering things than others.

Nonetheless, our memories are known to not always be reliable. John Green, a famous teen novelist discusses his experience of flashbulb memories and memory storage in this video. In short, his very clear memory of a dog pooping in a Nintendo was actually not what really happened. This of course becomes a problem when ethics are involved, such as in the case of court disputes. This TEDTalk explores the “fiction of memory” and “false memories, when people either remember things that didn’t happen or remember them differently from the way they really were” (as it is put in the description of the video).

How to help your kids improve their memory

One way that some people have a better memory is by following certain memorization techniques, whether they just know them subconsciously or practice them once they learn them. In his TEDTalk on memory, Joshua Foer explains that many people who compete in memory competitions actually consider themselves to have an average memory. However, what sets them apart is that they have trained themselves to perform ‘miraculous’ memory tricks by following ancient techniques. So, it is definitely possible to train a so-called ‘average’ memory.

One way to help your kids improve their memory is by approaching it in the way they learn best. For example, if your child is a visual learner, colour-coding notes may help them remember the important points. Or, if your child is an auditory learner, saying something over and over again that they need to memorize will most likely help them get it stuck in their head.

Another approach you can take is to play some memory-boosting games with your kids. This could mean playing a simple game of memory, where your kids have to make pairs out of different pictures that are flipped over. Or, you can find some fun games online, like at http://www.photographicmemorygame.com.

How to help students overcome homework excuses

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Students overcome homework excuses

From the classic “my dog ate my homework” excuse to more clever excuses like, “my backpack got stolen” or, “I left my binder in my mom’s car,” there are endless ways students can try to get out of doing and handing in homework. Here are some ways you can help students overcome homework excuses like these.

Try to understand why students don’t do their work

There are many reasons why a student may not do their homework. These might be:

  • Procrastination
  • Lack of interest
  • Wanting to get it perfect or a fear of failure
  • Being surrounded by distractions
  • It’s too difficult
  • It’s too much to do at once
  • It’s not as important as another task
  • They forgot
  • They didn’t have time

Help students overcome homework excuses by taking different approaches on assignments

We’re not talking about bringing the difficulty level down here. Although that could be the case with a student who is struggling, it might be helpful to simply lessen the amount slightly or break it up into smaller chunks.

Or, take a different approach with the homework. For example, if a student is experiencing a lack of interest in a project, try allowing them to take a creative approach on it. If you are a teacher or tutor, give them ideas of different options like turning an English project into an art project, a song, or a skit.

You can also have your students do some partner or group work so they are held accountable to someone else. This also avoids excuses about not having the right supplies, because even if one child doesn’t have their books, someone else in the group likely will. Another option is to schedule an assignment that is done in class or during a tutoring session. This will avoid the excuse of not understanding something, or finding it too difficult, because help will be readily available.

If you are a parent, talk to your child’s teacher or tutor about what other options there are to allow your child to take a creative approach on a project.

Other ways to help students overcome homework excuses:

If your students are not struggling with the assignment itself, but just have trouble doing homework in general, there are few things you can try to help them overcome homework excuses. If they seem to be struggling with procrastination, try giving them some study tips to follow. For example, turn off all devices when doing homework!

You can also encourage students to set earlier deadlines. Or, you could even have a deadline for a first draft before the final deadline for a paper. This will help them get the paper done early so that they don’t feel pressed for time on the final copy. It will also allow them to have more time to get feedback on their first draft before they submit the final copy.

And finally, encourage your students to have a space they can study in without distractions. If they don’t have a quiet space at home, recommend a library or a study area at school.

Whatever problem your student has with completing homework, try figuring out what it is and help them overcome homework excuses. A creative approach or changing up the usual ways may encourage them to get things done. Good luck!

Benefits of teaching kids music at an early age

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Music plays a large part in human culture, and can be heard throughout the world. Here in Canada, music is often taught as a class in elementary school. But what really comes out of the time your children spend in music class or other music lessons? Read on to learn about why you should teach kids music at a young age.

Teaching kids music at an early age

Music is a language, and children learn languages easier. Just like it is harder to start learning French or Italian when you’re older, it is a lot harder to learn to read music and play an instrument as you age. Children are oriented towards learning language, so they will be able to pick up the language of music faster and easier.

Teaching kids music for memory retention skills

Learning music helps improve memory. According to Musikgarten, one of the leading companies in early childhood music education, when children learn melodic and rhythmic patterns, it develops their memory. Music helps develop the left side of the brain, which means it also helps with processing language and new information. Putting new information to a tune can also help your child to remember it. Just think about the ABC song!

Music makes kids’ brains work harder. The growth of neural activity in kids is actually heightened due to music, since you are using more of your brain. This will help kids with things like problem solving and math.

Teaching kids music to advance culture and society

Music channels culture. This is why it is good to expose your kids to local music. Vancouver musician David Vertesi is a strong advocate of this, and he recently touched on the matter in an article he wrote for the Huffington Post. He mentions that if kids have a positive experience with local music, they will grow up to be a generation that cares about local arts and culture.

Music brings kids together, and helps them socially. Through group music making, kids will learn to listen to each other and share their creativity. In a world that values collaboration, this is a great skill to start learning at a young age through music.

Your child may have started taking piano lessons, be enrolled in a group music tutoring, or simply be in a music class at school. Whatever it is, the music they are learning is definitely beneficial to many aspects of their life, and will continue to have a positive impact on them as they grow. So, keep encouraging your kids to learn music, and they will thank you in the future!