05.17.08
How to help your child learn.
As parents you are keen to help your child learn as best you can and have asked for a page where you can access some resources and games to help you with ideas for helping your child. This page is by no means finished or perfect but we’ll keep adding to it in order that you can make learning fun.
Check out the pages and links on this page for ideas and games.
If anyone has any comments, great ideas or brilliant links they’d like added to this page please feel free to send me a message via the comments box below and I will endeavour update the blog when I can! 
Some things to remember when trying to help your child at home:
- Be a good role model. You are the most important person in your child’s life and they want to be like you! If you read in front of them, they will read more, if you strive to learn new things then so will they, if you play lots of sports then they will follow your lead, but if you come in from work and sit on the sofa in front of the tv then that’s what they will want to do too. Remember – anything you can do, they can do better so get active with your kids and set an example of how you want them to learn!
- Your child has already spent 6 hours at school, they’ve been sat still and had brains taxed – that’s a lot of concentrating for young minds! Imagine how you feel when you get in after a hard day at work – now try and empathise with your child when they want a few minutes downtime before they do yet more work!
- Pick a time for homework when you and your child are relaxed and try and keep interruptions to a minimum. That way your child will want to work and you will be more willing to support them without either of you getting stressed or arguing.
- Set a time limit for homework (no longer than 10 minutes at a time ideally for both of your sanity!). Remember that children can only sit and concentrate for a minute for every year of their life.
- If your child does homework in a different way to you, ask them to explain how they are doing it and if their method would achieve the correct answer then allow them to work using that method – don’t try to force your way of working upon them or you will only confuse and upset them which is never conducive to a good learning relationship.
- Try and make learning as much fun as possible. Use the computer, do wordsearches, play games etc. If you want a good learning relationship with your child it must be built on trust and enjoyment – not hard slog and boredom!
- Some children pick things up at the drop of a hat and others take a long time to learn things. That’s ok, we’re all different. If your child is particularly struggling with something it is best to leave it and approach the topic again a few weeks later. They may not be ready developmentally for what you want them to achieve.