5 TIPS FOR HOME SCHOOLING AND SUPPORTING YOUR CHILD'S LEARNING

Image: Via Unsplash/@anniespratt

By Karen Green, education expert and co-founder of MAPPEN 

The COVID-19 global pandemic caused mass disruption to learning, with schools across Australia - and the globe - quickly shifting to distance education and online learning solutions. MAPPEN (online curriculum with class plans) alone saw hundreds of schools assign home learning to more than 50,000 students.

While kids were learning from home, it caused huge disruption for parents, many of whom were working from home at the same time, feeling burdened with replacing the role of their kid’s teachers.  

Here in Australia, our kids have since returned to the classroom (where hopefully they will remain), however globally many children are still learning from home at the hands of stressed, over-worked and out-of-their-depth (through no fault of their own) parents.

At MAPPEN, we’ve put our complete curriculum for primary schools (foundation to year 6) online and free to access for schools and parents, to ensure there are no gaps in learning about humanities and social sciences. We’re also excited to be launching a platform to educate kids about sustainability exclusively, called The Blue Marble. 

Whether your children have returned to school or are continuing to learn at home, ensuring you have access to the best resources is essential but there are also some helpful tips that can simplify distance education and help you support your child’s learning.

Here are my 5 best-practice tips:

1.    Create a school-time trigger

It can be very helpful at this time to create a ‘trigger’ for your children so they know when they are operating in ‘school time’. Traditionally this trigger happens automatically with the routine around kids getting dropped off at school, but if you’re at home you’ll need to create it artificially. Perhaps they still get dressed in their school uniform, and even help to pack a ‘school lunch’.  

Routines and preparedness are very important as reassurance for your child.

There are things you can do to make learning at home more productive and enjoyable for both you and your child, such as: 

• Create a chart with a timetable and goals for the week

• Display a clock to keep track of how long different tasks will take 

• Ensure there are set break times

• Make sure there is a variety of tasks – mix up those requiring intense concentration, with some that are open-ended and allow for creativity

• Provide healthy snacks and water

It’s also a good idea to punctuate academic learning with some physical activity – this can be something aerobic or it could be something like a nature walk to investigate your local area. 

2.     Developing Autonomous Learners

Learning in schools happens independently a lot of the time. Inquiry-learning is encouraged with students developing autonomy as learners; building a repertoire of skills that enable them to develop their own questions and seek answers through research. 

You can do this at home too. It’s about providing a stimulus and an immersion into an idea then providing time for your child to unpack and explore that idea or concept, with you as their guide.

You might like to pose questions about something that you think your child might be interested in and point them in the right direction to do some research to find out some answers – this may include locating appropriate websites; YouTube clips and blogs. You might also like to set up a time when your child can ‘present’ their findings.

There are a range of ways that students might like to demonstrate their understanding, including the following:

o   Speech - Prepare and deliver a speech to the family

o   Technological - Use a computer to create a digital presentation such as a slideshow, a website or a computer program

o   Report - Write a formal report outlining each of the questions that you had and the answers that you researched

o   Article - Write an article for a local newspaper about their research

o   Narrative - Write a story about a character that they learnt about

o   Multimedia - Create an audio recording or short film explaining their research

o   Model - Use materials to create a three-dimensional model to show what they have learnt

o   Poster - Create an informative poster to display what they have learnt

Other things you can do with your child that provide stimulation and enjoyment include:

o   Cooking that involves recipe reading, measurement of quantities and time

o   Set up a veggie patch - read when to plant certain veggies, set up a maintenance schedule for watering and weeding 

o   Use recycled products to make different things like a robot, a doll's house, a marble run, collages etc.

o   Set up a tea party for teddies

o   Set up a ‘shop’ with prices for goods – interact with your child as you ‘go shopping’ using money that has been created by your child

o   Create postcards or blogs to send to friends and grandparents 

3.     Questioning and wait time 

Ask interesting questions and help your child to do this too. 

What’s an interesting question? Students ask lots of questions, so do teachers. Questions can range from simple to complex.

Here are some question starters that can be used to develop questions.

Simple:

Find the meaning of…
Who/what was…?
Can you tell why…?
True or False?
Can you provide an example of what you mean?
Who do you think…?
Can you tell or write in your own words…?
Who was the key character…?

Complex:

What do you think will be the end result?
How does … connect with….?

What do you see as other possible outcomes?
What are some of the problems of…?
Can you compare your … with that presented in…?
How does this connect with your everyday life?
Do you think … was a good or a bad thing?
Is there a better solution to…?
How effective was…?
What questions still need to be addressed?
Can you give an example of what you mean by…?
Can you distinguish between…?

What is the correct amount of wait time after posing a question?

Answer: 3 - 5 seconds 

This is a simple one, but wow does it make a difference. Using the correct amount of wait time will greatly improve the responses you get from your child (and everyone else!).

Most often, having asked a question, we might wait until we believe someone has thought about the question before expecting an answer. If you practice wait time you will notice that your child will give better answers. Giving your child more time to think means that there is less pressure on an immediate response.

So often we ask children questions and lose patience and answer them ourselves.  Answering your own questions creates a negative expectation in your child that you already have an answer in mind. This habit is easy to fall into and very difficult to undo. As soon as your child believes that you will answer your own questions they will sit back in their seat and let you do all the work.

4.     Pace lessons

Mix up the types of lessons that your child is doing and don’t expect that they will concentrate for hours on end. Below is a chart that explains children’s attention spans. Childhood development experts generally say that a reasonable attention span to expect of a child is two to three minutes per year of their age. That's the period of time for which a typical child can maintain focus on a given task.

Average attention spans work out like this:

2 years old: four to six minutes

4 years old: eight to 12 minutes

6 years old: 12 to 18 minutes

8 years old: 16 to 24 minutes

10 years old: 20 to 30 minutes

12 years old: 24 to 36 minutes

14 years old: 28 to 42 minutes

16 years old: 32 to 48 minutes

Some developmental researchers put the upper limit at five minutes per year of a child's age, meaning a 2-year-old could be able to focus on a task for up to 10 minutes at a time. Of course, these are only generalisations.

Other factors affecting attention span:

• how many distractions are nearby

• how hungry or tired the child is

• how interested they are in the activity 

5.     Read, Read, Read, you can’t do too much of this!  

Drop Everything and Read (D.E. A. R.) 

This is a reading regime that is used in many schools. It encourages children to read and is a great way to refocus a child back into the learning space. To make this work, you must also be reading a book. Not working on a computer or texting. You may like to start with a short time and build up to at least 15 minutes. These 15 minutes are SILENT. This sort of program is sometimes known as Silent Reading. (The key is in the name). 

NOTE: It is ok for your child to be reading anything but a device – a comic book, fiction, non-fiction, a book on footy stats, a recipe … anything at all that encourages engagement with written printed material.  

For free access to best-practice education resources for primary students, visit www.info.getmappen.com.

The views expressed by the authors/contributors on this website do not necessarily reflect the views of NotSoMumsy. The nature of NotSoMumsy is to provide a platform for mothers to share their own personal journeys and are intended for entertainment purposes only.