With most parents having to facilitate their children’s remote learning at home, it can get tedious and sometimes even ineffective—after all, everyone is still adjusting. But one way to make this beneficial for your children is to hone the skill of self-learning. So if you haven’t already started, here are five strategies you can try at home:
Identify learning goals
Before your children jump to a new lesson, help them identify their learning goals from the beginning. With these things in mind, your children will know what they need to understand and pick up from their lessons.
Don’t forget to encourage them to reach these goals as they go about their lessons. Once they tick off one thing from the list, congratulate them so that they feel they accomplished something—and know that they are on the right track.
Go through an example with them
Children, no matter how intelligent and self-learned, will need to learn through examples first. When your children come across a particular problem, walk through it with them so they can see and understand how to tackle it. Be patient until they can keep the steps in mind and do it on their own; be their training wheels.
Use real-life situations
When you see that your children are getting the hang of a lesson, whether that’s addition or fractions, try to incorporate these into real situations you experience daily. At the end of the day, you can ask them how many minutes they spend before bed if they schedule 20 minutes of TV time and 5 minutes for getting ready for bed? Or, before cutting through a cake, ask how many pieces they would need to cut in order to feed the entire family for two days.
Encourage questions
It should come as no surprise that your children are likely to ask questions beyond the coverage of their books and their teacher’s lesson plans. In these instances, do not brush them off, as doing so will discourage their inquisitive nature. Asking questions—no matter the subject and whom it is directed at—is proof that your children are aware that their lessons cover more than exams and activity sheets.
Provide them with the necessary tools
All these things said, as a parent, you need to provide your children with all the tools they’ll need to practice self-learning. This means having papers, pencils, and access to required study lessons ready and at hand. It also means providing more challenging problems once your children master what is required of them. Their learning, because of the additional material, never stops.
The limits of education will cease to exist once you encourage your children to self-learn. So maximize remote learning and other learning opportunities to support their continuous learning journey.
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Kumon is celebrating its 25th anniversary as a supplemental learning program that develops the academic skills and character of students of all ages. You can celebrate with them by availing of The Online New Student Promo Triple Treat! Enroll your child from January 21 to February 28, 2021, to avail of Free registration fee worth Php500 and a Free Kumon Bag. Also, if you start your child’s Kumon study from January 21 to 27, 2021, you can get up to one week of Free Kumon study. Take note that the additional free Kumon study will depend on your child’s first Center day. Contact the nearest Kumon Center near you for more details: https://ph.kumonglobal/find-us/.
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