Top Tips for Supporting Your Child’s Learning at Home

This is a paid collaboration.

A child’s learning shouldn’t come to a halt as soon as the clock strikes 3pm and they head home from school. There are opportunities to learn everywhere they look, as long as they have the right attitude. As a parent, you can help your child with their home learning using many different techniques and strategies. Even just being there for them as someone to talk to about their academic accomplishments and challenges will help instil them with the right frame of mind. I have teamed up with a college in London to offer you some tips.

Talk About School

Most parents are familiar with the riveting conversation that occurs at the end of the school day when you try to ask your child how school was, and they can only seem to answer with one uninteresting word. The trick is to ask open-ended questions and mix up what you talk about each day so that it doesn’t become a mundane routine. Ask them which lesson they enjoyed the most/least and why, what they did during their lunchbreak, who they sat next to in maths and what they learnt about in science. Dig a little deeper and try and find out if there are any areas that you could potentially help them with, even if that means buying a couple of revision guides. It doesn’t have to be a long conversation but asking your child a few quick questions shows them that you are genuinely interested in their learning and are there to support them.

Provide a Space for Studying

Make sure your child has a desk set-up somewhere quiet in your home where they can complete their homework and other school related tasks. This space should be free from distractions, like a TV and a games console, because your child won’t be able to focus their full attention on their schoolwork if there’s something more entertaining lurking in the corner of their eye. Ensuring that your child has a suitable study space at home will show them that their education is a priority within your family.

Help with Homework

It can be difficult for parents to be readily available to help their children with homework when they’re trying to juggle a career, a home, and a family. However, if your child knows that you are there to ask questions when they get stuck, they will be far less likely to give up in frustration. You don’t have to be a pro at a particular subject in order to help them, sometimes all it takes is a little bit of encouragement. Perhaps you can teach them how to research on the computer so that they can find the answers, or just reassure them that they are doing the right thing. Just be sure not to take over and do the homework for them, because then their teachers won’t know that they need a bit of extra support.

Play Educational Games

There are lots of ways to support your child’s learning without them even realising. The trick is to disguise learning as a fun game. If they are struggling with their spelling, for example, you could play Scrabble or do an age-appropriate crossword together. If they are learning about human anatomy in science, you could play Operation as a way of exploring different internal organs and bones. Monopoly is a great one for maths because it involves basic sums.

Encourage Your Child to Read

Reading can be a great source of entertainment but is also fantastic for a child’s overall development. Not only does it help them with their spelling and grammar, it also teaches them how to concentrate for extended periods of time. Let your child pick out their own books so that they can engage in something that actually interests them, otherwise they will be reluctant to pick up a book again in the future.