Child education is the journey from birth to adulthood that builds children’s cognitive, social and emotional skills to thrive. It includes learning to learn and the skills needed to navigate adversity such as poverty, malnutrition, disease, isolation or natural disasters.
It also teaches them the value of work, the importance of building resilience and the ability to set goals and achieve success.
Learning Styles
Although parents, teachers and children all want to believe that students can be organized into a single learning style, no substantial evidence exists to support the idea that people have distinct dominant ways of learning tied to a particular modality. Despite this lack of empirical support, many schools promote the learning styles theory in an effort to better tailor education.
Our findings show that the learning styles myth likely influences young children’s thinking, in particular by influencing their judgments about how smart or skilled their peers are at core school subjects like math and language arts. It may also affect their evaluations of athleticism.
For example, kids who enjoy jumping around and using their hands while studying are often described as kinesthetic or tactile learners. However, we find that children who are told a peer is a tactile learner judge this student as being less proficient in non-core school subjects such as science and social studies.
Communicating with Your Child’s Educators
In order to foster a productive learning environment, you must communicate well with your child’s educators. Teachers need to be able to share information with parents in a way that makes sense to them, and parents need to have the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback.
This two-way communication is crucial to helping your children thrive at school, and it will also help you stay on top of any issues that may arise. If there are problems at home that affect your kids’ ability to learn, or if your child is struggling academically, it is important for you to communicate with your teacher about it as soon as possible.
Remember that teachers receive a lot of information about students from the school administration, but it is important to share any additional information that could be beneficial for your child. This includes general updates on family life (such as a divorce or the addition of a new sibling), as well as any major challenges that you have seen your child deal with.
Supporting Your Child’s Curiosity
Curiosity is innate in children and should be nurtured. However, the educational system has become too focused on targets, tests and league tables which has led to teachers not allowing children to be curious and seek answers.
Encourage your child’s curiosity by pointing out things and asking questions. You can also take them on adventures such as trips to museums or a nature walk.
Asking your children questions, allows them to learn the value of their opinions and ideas while helping to establish their knowledge. Try using words such as who, what, where, when and why.
Help your children understand the world around them by staging experiences that elicit discovery, such as finding out how red and blue make purple. This will allow them to evaluate tradeoffs and make their own decisions. It’s also important to support their natural curiosity by giving them space for unstructured play and letting them choose the activities they wish to participate in.
Encouraging Critical Thinking
A big part of critical thinking is evaluating information, and that requires kids to question aspects of it and relate those questions to what they already know. To do this, they need to be curious and internally motivated.
In one experimental study, kids given critical thinking lessons showed significant improvements in language comprehension, inventive thinking and even IQ. It’s a skill that takes time to develop, but there are ways you can encourage it.
For example, when your kids ask questions, don’t just pass them to Google! Try asking your own questions in return, and help them think through their answers by using this thinking hats big discussion activity. Similarly, when your kids are playing with dolls or using their imagination in any way, let them explore and experiment. This is a great opportunity to foster their curiosity and creativity and help them develop critical thinking skills. For older children, regular conversations about things that interest them will help them think critically.