Elena Kamarovskaya - How to help a student? We develop memory, perseverance and attention. How to teach homework

All families live by their own rules, which were created not a day, not two, or even one month. A cell of society in which there are children of school age is a group of people with an established way of life. By the time the child begins to study, parents have already developed their own algorithm for influencing the child.

How effective and efficient their method is, the school will show. She will become a litmus test that will demonstrate whether parents are doing everything right when raising their grown-up baby. But if they are already wondering how to help their child learn better, then they are missing something somewhere. There can be several reasons for poor performance, and not all of them are the result of childhood shortcomings.

Rule #1

Don't know how to help your child learn better, be more responsible, independent, strong-willed? Let him go, give him freedom and the right to choose! Yes, at first he will make a million and another mistake, he will get a deuce for the reporting test, he will go for a walk in an out-of-season jacket, he will freeze and possibly get sick, he will someday remain hungry and lose his pocket money. All this will cause him to learn to survive on his own.

If he does not go through all these stages in childhood, when the psyche is flexible, and the child is able to adequately respond to problems, he will have to cope with all this in a difficult puberty period, or even as an adult.

Whose problem: mom, dad or baby?

Before solving a problem, it is important to define it in principle. Therefore, it is not always necessary to look for ways to help your child study better at school, you need to understand who needs it at all. Find out if the child really does not have time to master the educational process, or if it only seems to his parents.

The current educational program is very different from the one used by mothers and fathers, and even more so by the grandparents of modern schoolchildren. The approaches to explaining the material, the way of presenting the material, and most importantly, the grading system have changed. It is important for parents to understand this before demanding exceptionally high scores from their child in all subjects. In addition, they simply have to find out for themselves: who needs good grades - them or the child, for whom will this be a source of pride, proof of success, a “ticket to the future”? Perhaps their son or daughter is more comfortable being at the level of a solid good student, and by driving him (her) into the ranks of excellent students, parents make their own child an unhappy, exhausted and weak-willed person?

Briefly about the main

When a student really needs outside help, it is important to learn how to help a child learn better. We will give tips on solving this problem in the form of a list, and we will also analyze some points in more detail below:

  • improvement of independence skills;
  • organization of the correct daily routine;
  • creation of personal space;
  • complete nutrition;
  • filling educational gaps;
  • moral support and psychological assistance if necessary.

Having provided the child with these necessary conditions, parents are unlikely to return again to the question of how to help the child do well in school. Children who know how to solve their own problems without the help of adults and are not left alone with real difficulties grow up self-sufficient and purposeful, able to cope with feasible loads, which, in principle, depends on their parents.

Finding out the cause of failure

If parents do not know how to help their child study well and easily, they need to first determine the reasons for his poor grades. It is not always laziness or disobedience. In the case when a mother provided her baby with everything necessary, but his grades at school still remain at an average level, or even confidently strive for unsatisfactory ones, she needs to think about why this is happening.

Perhaps the reason lies in problems with friends, classmates, teacher. Finding this out is quite simple: if the child is silent and does not give an exhaustive answer to the questions posed, you can go to the class teacher and talk with specialized teachers. The problem can be very everyday and imperceptible to close circle - family troubles (divorce of parents or just a tense situation between them, other relatives), fatigue, illness, and even misunderstanding of one of the subjects, which entails self-doubt. But how to help a child study well in all these cases? Now let's find out.

When you need real help with your studies

Failure can unsettle any adult, let alone children, with their flexible, but rather fragile psyche. After graduating from relatively uncomplicated lower grades, the child is faced with many new difficulties and trials. The office in which he studies, the class teacher is changing, unfamiliar subjects appear, each of which is led by a separate teacher. How to help a child learn better if all these innovations have become an obstacle and a test for him?

You can give him something to take with you to the lessons that connects him to the simpler and more prosperous time of junior elementary school. During this period, it is especially important to monitor the progress of the child. The slightest gap in his knowledge, resulting from a misunderstanding of one topic, will entail problems with the study of the material in the future.

Here is a very good recommendation on how to help your child do well in school - you need to "pull up" the level of his knowledge where it is insufficient. Each mother will decide for herself how to do this - on her own or with the help of a tutor.

Learning by playing

A surefire way to help your child learn better is to turn a boring educational process into a game, at least in part. Of course, it will be difficult for parents who are not teachers in their specialty and spiritual vocation to turn the solution of each problem into a spectacular action, and writing a dictation into an amazing fairy-tale journey, but they can, in a playful way and in a familiar home environment, raise the level of knowledge of their child. What do I need to do?

  • remember word games familiar from childhood, cities, a damaged phone - they perfectly stimulate memory, logic, speech;
  • buy good board games like Scrabble, Scrabble, Monopoly, Understand Me;
  • conduct elementary lessons in chemistry, physics, biology, as well as demonstrate simple but visual experiments (visualization of the diffusion process using water and potassium permanganate, growing crystals from ordinary salt, identifying cells on an onion scale will convince any child that science can be interesting) .

In addition, it is better not to load children with the same type of toys like cars and dolls. Puzzles, kits for creativity and needlework will bring him much more benefit.

Time management is not a childish concept, useful for a child

No way to help a child learn better will not be effective in practice if the student's day is overloaded with tasks, and the time of his study, extra classes, hobbies, rest and idle doing nothing is not agreed upon. In the children's routine for all things you need to find the right time:

  • rise and morning exercise;
  • studies;
  • rest;
  • circles, sections, hobbies;
  • homework;
  • evening affairs, communication with parents, games;
  • going to bed.

These points can be adjusted for the personal regimen of a particular child, but it is important that this very regimen be established in principle. The lack of a daily routine and chaos in life tire children, as a result, they cannot concentrate on their studies, do not do their homework and begin to lag behind more organized peers in the school curriculum.

Not only the excessive employment of the baby, but also an excess of free time has a negative impact. In the first case, the baby has to experience simply colossal loads that exhaust him mentally and physically, and in the second case, you have to deal with the fact that the child begins to think of things on his own. Of course, children should be given a few hours of the day, which they will spend only on their own, but when they have to spend the whole day in this way, it rarely ends in something good.

The path to successful study through the stomach

It will not be a secret to anyone that a growing body needs to eat rationally and variedly. If a child does not receive any microelements, is malnourished, he not only does not gain weight, but his brain directly suffers.

Therefore, before helping a child to study well with the help of a variety of pedagogical methods, moralizing, punishments or rewards, you need to feed him well. Many have heard that fast carbohydrates improve brain function, but they give a short-term positive result.

Chocolates and sweets will not give children the mind, but they will “give” significant health problems. The diet should include foods enriched with B vitamins (dark bread, greens), and the menu must also include cereals, milk, chicken meat, fish, beef liver, fresh vegetables and fruits, nuts.

Organization of space is important

Considering tips on how to help your child study better at school, it is impossible to ignore the problem of normalizing children's life. What does it mean? And the fact that it should be easy for him to study, relax and sleep. Parents should worry about the conditions in which their child lives: what kind of bed he sleeps on, how good the lighting is in the room where he reads and writes, whether the desk and chair are appropriate for his height.

Healthy sleep allows the child's body to rest, which means it gives the child the opportunity to gain strength for the normal assimilation of new information, in addition, during the night's rest, the skills and abilities acquired during the past day are systematized. The children's bedroom is not a place for the included TV and family gatherings.

Motivation and demotivation

Should I pay my child for good grades? What parent hasn't asked themselves this question? The problem of monetizing good grades in school is currently very acute in many families. Some parents believe that this is an excellent way out of the situation, explaining their point of view by the fact that the child, wanting to get more pocket money, will study well. Others think such an impact is one-sided, they say, what to take from a schoolchild if he is not trying hard enough? After all, simply not giving him money is not an effective enough punishment.

Is this motivational method good at all, and what to do if it no longer works? How can you help your child study well? Psychologists' advice on this matter is quite unambiguous - it does not make sense to buy a child's grades from the very beginning. This will not cultivate healthy ambition in him, on the contrary, it will sow in his soul an unhealthy interest in money, and he will perceive receiving a normal education not as a means of achieving future life goals and plans, but as a duty for which he must be paid. And what will happen when parents cannot allocate the necessary amount from their own budget for such a “salary”?

The role of the school in the educational process

Teachers often complain that children do not want to learn at all. They are restless, self-willed, often hyperactive, and parents do not want or cannot influence their offspring.

In the modern system of education, the teacher has ceased to be an educator and mentor, he is perceived only as a person called to present the subject to the student. The role of the school as an instrument of pedagogical influence was practically leveled; mothers and fathers themselves are largely to blame for this, jealously protecting children from punishment and criticism from teachers. Only a parent meeting can clarify the scope of what is permitted. How to help a child study well, both the class teacher and other teachers will tell you, because they see all the children in action, notice their mistakes and shortcomings.

No matter how much the parents complain about the school, but the bad grades of their child, rather, he himself is to blame. Of course, it is impossible to completely exclude the unfair and biased attitude of the teacher towards the student, but in the vast majority of cases, teachers are interested in their ward to master the material being studied to the maximum.

Not action to guide, but food for thought

Finally, we will give readers the opinion of an experienced family psychologist, who has proven in practice the thoroughness and rationality of his approach to both children and their parents in solving a variety of problems, including with studies. His name is Mikhail Labkovsky.

How can you help your child study well? - this is a question that Mikhail has to answer almost daily. In his opinion, the child should simply stop being controlled and patronized, give him the opportunity to choose his own path, even if it is fundamentally wrong and harmful (from the point of view of adults).

Labkovsky believes that the main thing is the happiness and self-realization of the child, and not how he learns; that good grades are often the desire of parents, but not of the children themselves; that kids should not be executive and obedient, because this indicates their depressed psyche. The best punishment, from his point of view, would be the temporary seizure of gadgets - a phone, a tablet, a game box and other toys that do not carry practically anything useful, being just a way of entertainment. He is also convinced that modern children should be more involved in active collective games.

If the topic interests us, the hunger for knowledge becomes insatiable and the number of facts that we can remember is almost immeasurable. But at school, student preferences and curriculum material often don't match.

It is quite early to notice that boys and girls have different attitudes towards school subjects. From year to year, girls lose their craving for mathematics, boys - for their native language and literature. Research, however, shows that antipathy can change - thanks in part to good case examples.

So, dads who read fiction can help mitigate the bad attitude of boys to books, and it is enough to convince girls that they also have abilities for the exact sciences.

The way the teacher presents the topic of the lesson also affects the readiness of children to learn. It is easier for them to learn the material if it is interesting and clearly explained. A dry report will not be able to interest, for the brain it is objectively impossible. Boring lessons and low demands bring the reward system in the brain into a stupor, the neurotransmitter dopamine does not splash out. This often happens even with outstandingly developed children who become "passive", begin to get bad grades. A change of activity could help them: working on their own project, collaborating in groups, workshops with experts or excursions.

Parents can also set the stage for their child to be ready to discover new things. If there are not enough cultural impulses in the family, children's motivation to study will remain low, it is up to you to change this!

Overabundance of media information harms the child

Today, the school as a provider of information and a source of knowledge competes with the mass media, which attract the public with compelling visuals, music and special effects. What is presented emotionally has a much stronger effect, so teachers and any picture drawn in chalk lose to television. Many children and teenagers get used to fast-paced plots and lightning-fast scenes due to computer games and TV. Patience is not required here: frames change every eight seconds. This period of time is not enough to understand a complex sentence. Subsequently, the child lacks perseverance and the ability to concentrate, and problems begin at school.

It is very bad if the computer or TV becomes the daily main activities of the child. There is a threat of language and motor deficit. The brain tunes in to what is supplied to it, and enhances the work of channels aimed at games. Others, little used - perhaps for memorizing English words - perish. The brain craves excitement and adapts to the tasks and rewards that computer games offer. These information highways are so busy that no other information just gets through. The short-term, quick rewards of computer games - such as bonus points, an extra "life" or the joy of defeating an opponent - appeal to many children much more than academic achievement, which requires long and hard work.

Parents should be very careful if their child compensates for frustration or sadness by playing on the computer. This is an inadequate processing of negative feelings, and it leads to the emergence of addiction, which leaves the same traces in the child's brain as drugs and alcohol.

Dangers to the brain during puberty

The most powerful attack on the child's motivational system is experienced during puberty, when "I don't want to learn!" becomes the main motto in life. Dates instead of studying physics, computer games instead of learning English - that's what the student focuses his energy and attention on. Alcohol, drugs and other artificial agents are especially dangerous at this age: when they enter the body, the teenager's brain changes greatly and can no longer perform many functions.

When parents or teachers tell teenagers what to do, teenagers in general take their words with hostility. They can't stand it when things are forced on them. Friends and hobbies are much more fun than lessons. The attitude towards teachers and the school as a whole is becoming colder and more critical. At school, attention is focused on grades, which often causes a teenager to have a negative attitude towards his own abilities. As a result, pessimism arises - it seems to a teenager that it makes no sense to study and try.

As long as the child still has an incentive to do something useful in their free time, meet friends, or even work on certain subjects, parents can be relatively calm. But it is worth considering if the apathy drags on. If a teenager, both at school and in his free time, shows a lack of desire to do anything and is indifferent to everything, serious mental or physical illnesses may be hidden behind this. In this case, you should consult a doctor or an adolescent psychologist.

How to increase the internal motivation of a student?

What is motivation and what factors can reduce it, we found out in the previous chapters. Now we come to the central question: how can you help your child get on the path to motivated learning?

Unfortunately, there is no button that could turn on the desire to learn, but parents can contribute to the child's inner motivation to do so. In this chapter, you will learn how to create a comfortable learning environment and the necessary conditions for a child to develop a desire to learn, and at the end of the book you will find an "Action Plan" that will clearly show you what you can do right this week, during month and next semester.

A world full of love

Even when your child was young, with every smile, every encouraging nod, and every gentle touch, you triggered a release of motivational neurotransmitters in his body, thereby laying the foundation for further interest in learning. Therefore, the emotional climate in the family is so important, the atmosphere of warmth and attention, as well as the correct intonation when praising and criticizing the child. In addition, children should be able to discuss with their parents their thoughts and feelings, as well as current events.

Motivation researchers believe that the key to a child's independent motivation for learning is so-called "authoritative parenting". Parents who adhere to this style of parenting know how to properly combine love and control. They set clear boundaries and rules that are clear to the child and work invariably. At the same time, such parents are always ready to support the child if it is difficult for him. In such conditions, the child receives enough free space for the development of independence, and parents actively support him in this.

You can not deprive a child of love or punish for bad grades. If a child is afraid of getting a bad mark, next time he will not get the joy of studying. It is wiser to think together what was the cause of the errors and how the situation can be corrected. Children need confidence that they will thrive despite low grades. They should not be given the impression that they are studying for the sake of grades. Parents should be primarily interested in the topics and content of the lessons, and not the results of the child's progress. In this way they show the child what they give great importance what is taught in school.

In daily communication with a schoolchild, you have many opportunities to influence him, using your reaction and personal example. The reactions of the parents show the child how he should perceive himself, thus the child forms an idea of ​​himself. Encourage him when he is having a hard time, support him so that he finishes the job and does not give up. Help him if he does not know what to do next, praise him if he has achieved success, give him an impetus for further development with reasonable criticism. Tell him that everyone makes mistakes, and this is a completely normal phenomenon - they learn from mistakes.

Of course, it is not always easy to respond correctly. We often lack time and patience, but there are some tricks that can help you. Sometimes five minutes of silence or listening to jokes from a physics lesson is enough. Or a reassuring look at a child who is reflecting on an essay. Your task is to let the child know that you are interested in his overall development, and not just in his performance and success.

Free space within reasonable limits

Motivated children are independent children. They put in more effort to cope with a task, even an unpleasant one, because they themselves understand why they need it. The need for independence is one of the three basic psychological needs of a person, as we have already found out in the first chapters.

But how can you help your child develop independence? The answer is paradoxical: by setting reasonable limits. Children need guidelines, frames within which they can freely turn around. First of all, it is a clear, detailed daily routine in a certain rhythm suitable for the child, which ensures a healthy lifestyle. It should include time for homework and shared lunches or dinners with the family. American psychologists have found that children who sit at the table at least seven times a week with other family members receive significantly higher marks compared to other children, in addition, they have a reduced risk of becoming drug addicts, and even their general physical condition. it is better. This effect is also achieved if parents spend a lot of time with the child at home. Joint meals and joint leisure with parents are very important for the child.

You need to agree with the child when and where he will do homework, when to go to bed or sit down at the table. If the time for classes is set and it is constant, there will be no tense arguments, it's time to do homework, or you can watch another cartoon. At the same time, a simple and constant schedule is perceived by children more easily than numerous rules.

You need to establish the following school rules for your child:

School attendance is the responsibility of the child, as is the housework that you and your child have agreed upon. Shirking is not welcome unless the child is sick. The child must get up on time in the morning and collect all the things he needs at school;

The issue of doing homework is out of the question. How and when they should be done, you can decide together with the child;

The child must report grades. You can always calmly discuss everything and, in case of failure, sketch out a plan to improve the situation.

If the rules are broken, you must respond consistently. If a child, for example, does not meet the time allocated for lessons, take appropriate measures. They should be reasonable, logical and understandable to the child. For example: “If you don’t turn off the computer in ten minutes and don’t sit down for lessons, you won’t go for a walk after lunch.” Remain firm in your decision, even if it is sometimes difficult.

To the best of their ability, children need to take responsibility for their own learning as early as possible, and they need to know that their parents will always support them. Independence does not mean that children should be abandoned to their fate. Help as needed, but as little as possible.

Who collects the portfolio at your house, who opens the book with homework, who reads the problem out loud? If this is not your child, change the situation as soon as possible.

Explain to the child how he can plan his own learning by asking him leading questions: “In what subjects do you have assignments today? What do you want to start with? - "How will you learn the poem?" Check assignments only when he finishes them.

Never prompt your child for answers. The experience of success from an equation that was independently solved after much torment remains in memory longer than the answer that mom suggested. Consistently lead the child on the right path and incline to independent thinking. Give him everything he needs, encourage him to use his own learning strategies, help him try new methods.

Give your child the opportunity to test their performance and challenge themselves.

At the same time, show him your trust: “I know you can do everything on your own.” Make high demands, but corresponding to the capabilities of the child, avoid underestimation and overestimation.

Faith in one's own abilities

Academic success depends not only on innate talent, but more on self-confidence. To achieve good results, children must believe in what they can do. They must feel that they can cope with the tasks assigned or independently chosen.

The idea of ​​their own development and talents, which develops in a child, has a huge impact on his willingness to try his hand at difficult things. Every child is born with a certain genetic potential, but its development is strongly influenced by the environment, so the built-in potential can either increase due to incentives or decrease due to their absence. The intelligence level of children who are not properly stimulated at home decreases.

Already at the age of 10-12, children have a clear idea of ​​​​their mind and their shortcomings: those who understand that abilities can be developed achieve better academic results. The child's opinion about his own intellectual development and talents can be changed. It is enough to explain to the child that the human brain is constantly improving in the course of learning, new nerve cells and connections between them are formed in it, which means that the brain can be trained like muscles, and this training makes sense.

Helping your child understand how his efforts lead to the desired results will also help him develop a dynamic self-image. Emphasize what he achieved through exercise, learning, perseverance, or the right strategies. There should be no phrases like: “I was just lucky” or “The assignments were easy”, and even more so such: “German is such a subject where either you are lucky or you are not lucky” and “Either you are a mathematician or you are not”.

Encourage your child to set realistic goals, while assessing whether he can achieve them. This enhances the feeling of self-efficacy. Remind him of his past achievements, compare your child with him half a year ago, and not with other children.

Think about how your child thinks about school and certain "hated subjects". Perhaps, after a few badly written tests, he became convinced that he was not good at English or that he was too stupid for math, so that there was no point in trying anymore.

emotional development

The ability to cope with negative feelings not only plays an important role in learning, but in general helps a person to successfully go through life. If a child learns to overcome anger, irritation and fear, he will develop into a happy, strong and motivated person. In school life, the child experiences a lot of emotionally difficult situations: disappointment if the test is not successful, anger and irritation if the math equation does not converge again, excitement when a difficult exam is ahead.

Children can only learn to deal with their feelings when they are no longer afraid to express them. How people live with feelings, how they cope with unpleasant situations, how they express anger and joy - children observe and learn at the same time, and first of all, you, their parents, are an example for them. In matters of expression of emotions, you are the model that the child is guided by, therefore:

1. Express your feelings clearly. For example: "I'm angry with dad because he came so late."

2. Pay attention to what worries the child.

Watch his gestures, facial expressions and intonation. How does he behave when he is busy with some business - is he attentive, restless, angry or afraid? Ask him how he feels if he is not sure that he will be able to cope with the situation.

3. Talk about feelings and explain why others react or behave in one way or another (“maybe Dasha offended you because she was jealous of you for Igor - you played with him, but completely forgot about her”). Introduce your child to his own different emotions. Help him express his feelings and understand the feelings of others.

4. Respond intelligently to the child's emotions - comfort if he is sad, do not ridicule if he is shy, and so on. Express understanding, for example, by nodding in agreement. Do not intervene immediately, first give him the opportunity to cope with his feelings.

5. If you notice that the child underestimated the situation and is about to fall into a rage or despair, you should help him. Influence his feelings, for example, switching his attention to something else, calming, cheering or hugging. When the crisis has passed, the anger will disappear and it will be possible to calmly talk to each other, explain that he behaved incorrectly.

6. If a child is puzzled, for example, by some unpleasant incident at school or a quarrel with a brother or sister, he is not up to learning. Such situations need to be clarified before he begins to do homework so that negative feelings do not "pass" to the desk.

7. Observe your own feelings: are you already on edge when the child finally sits down to study? Do you lose patience if he doesn't understand something right away? Do you scold him for not wanting to learn? Carefully! First, try to cope with your own irritation, and only then calmly and kindly explain to the child that homework is not so difficult and he will definitely succeed. In this way, you can to some extent prevent your child from being in a bad mood.

8. Help your child overcome negative feelings. Sometimes it’s enough to just say: “Next time you will definitely succeed. Just try again." If the child received a “deuce” for the control, console him, and do not scold him: “Just think how many more tests you have to write - is it worth it to be upset because of one failure!”

9. Teach your child to manage their feelings. Explain to him how...

Correctly work on mistakes. Instead of worrying endlessly about a poorly written English paper, it is wiser to think about why it happened and do better next time;

Develop problem solving plans;

Rethink unpleasant situations;

Fight negative feelings by distracting yourself with other thoughts and giving yourself a break;

And who to ask for help if he himself can not cope with the problem;

Calm down by counting to yourself (or out loud) to ten, especially when it seems that you are about to explode with anger;

You can blow off steam by swearing loudly, so that later you can calmly continue working;

Encourage yourself by remembering past successes;

Do not be distracted while working. The ability to focus is extremely important in learning.

Endurance

Endurance is as important for good academic performance as mental development or talent. People who know how to achieve their own, become the best in school, and in the profession, and in other areas. Good grades are not presented on a silver platter - you need to try to get them. At school, children gradually understand that success does not come immediately, it takes work and patience.

To teach a child to control himself and go towards his goal, first of all, stop fulfilling the desires of your offspring immediately, learn to say “no” to him. Explain to the child that those things that require a lot of work are also necessary and do not give up just because it is difficult. Children learn to suppress their baser instincts through the example of their parents. If dad forgets to iron his shirts and has nothing to wear to work in the morning, and mom misses a parent-teacher meeting at school, although she promised to be there, is it worth expecting their child to be responsible for their duties? And how often do you sit in front of the TV instead of reading a book or at least talking to each other?

You can help your child by doing a little endurance training at home. Introduce a tradition during dinner to remain seated at the table until everyone has finished eating. Give your child some household chores. For example, have him take out the trash every night, clear the table, and do the dishes. Cleaning your hamster's cage and feeding him in general should become a matter of course for a child. When children get used to doing certain chores regularly, it comes as no surprise to them that school homework also requires daily completion.

If you want your child to finish school with excellent marks, help him with this! But help with software should not be reduced to paying for tutors, buying homework that has already been completed, and searching the Internet for a finished report.

Talk more with your child

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Our speech is the basis of everything. The ability to correctly formulate one’s thoughts, express one’s point of view and defend it, attract attention to oneself with the logic of presenting the material - all these are important skills that, if developed from an early age, will be useful in any sphere of life.

It is necessary to accustom the child to the use of libraries from an early age. This is especially important at the present stage, when almost everyone in the house has a computer connected to the Internet. The World Wide Web makes it easy to find what you need. And we need the child to delve into reference books and books, draw up his report or story based on them, highlighting the main ones. When he learns to look for answers to his questions in encyclopedias, dictionaries and textbooks, he will not only develop his horizons, but will also read more, enrich his vocabulary. And this is a direct way to improve academic performance!

Read along with your child and fiction, poems, sing songs, even if he is over seven years old. Only literature can show the true beauty and richness of the Russian language. Only parents can teach a child to see this beauty. Discuss what you read with him. Let him retell you the plot, draw an illustration for the episode he liked the most, memorize and recite the poems of his favorite poet.

Buy more newspapers and magazines. If your child is still in elementary school, read news articles together and explain to him the essence of what is written. He may not understand many things. However, interest in the events taking place in the world is an important factor in successful learning, and it is necessary to teach the child to follow the news.

Find out more about school affairs

The more you know about what is happening at school, what students are doing in a particular subject, how your child is doing in the program, whether the teacher is good in this class, the more opportunities you will have to improve his level of knowledge. Learn homework, check the correctness and timeliness of their performance by the child.

But don't be a warden and a tyrant! Be with the child in a trusting, warm relationship. Help with solving a difficult problem or preparing an essay. If you support him, and not reproach him with bad grades, he will strive to increase his level of knowledge.

Do not scold for "deuces"! A quarrel will not lead to anything good. It is better to talk with your child, find out why he got a bad mark, analyze the situation with him and find ways to solve the problem. It is important to explain that an unpleasant mark can easily rise and turn into an "excellent", you just have to make an effort.

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Correctly distribute the workspace of the student

Pay attention to whether the table is well lit, whether there is enough space on it to do homework, whether the room is often ventilated, whether the TV in the living room is turned on loudly ... Correctly allocate time for lessons, for relaxation, active games, walks.

If you see that the child is tired, let him rest, do not load things. A tired head is not able to remember information, and no matter how you swear, no matter how you follow your homework, a tired child will still bring a “two” or “three” the next day. Remember that any person needs to rest, and even more so for a child!

Proper nutrition is the key to successful learning

Modern research has shown that the brain is one of the organs that suffers from malnutrition in the first place. Therefore, if your child has become irritable, gets tired quickly, does not remember educational material well, has begun to get lower grades in school, look at what he eats.

In most cases, these symptoms occur due to malnutrition. A significant place in our diet is occupied by fats and carbohydrates, and today's children and teenagers are crazy about fast food - and all this is unhealthy. Limit your child's consumption of sodas, chips, hamburgers, and other similar foods.
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The most important group of vitamins for the brain is the group of vitamins B. The vitamins of this group are responsible for memory, attention and learning ability. To improve memory, it is necessary that foods such as nuts, milk, fish, chicken, meat, liver, buckwheat, fresh vegetables and fruits are present in the child's diet. If something from the products seems tasteless to the child, do not force them to eat. Try to approach this issue creatively: decorate the dish beautifully, look for new recipes where this product can be presented in a favorable and tasty light. Develop yourself, and your child will develop with you!

And remember: loving, caring and wise parents are a guarantee that the child will not only study well, but also grow up as a thinking, educated person, a real Personality! Therefore, take your time, do not push the child away if he comes up to you with a question or wants to talk heart to heart. Monitor his health and encourage his success. Be friendly with your child. You will succeed, you just have to want!

The key to improving student achievement is understanding how the learning process occurs, which factors contribute to the assimilation of new information and creative thinking, and which prevent the child from concentrating on learning. In this book, we will try to explain in detail how a child perceives educational material, how his memory works, and what role motivation and concentration play in learning.

We want to help parents understand that even if a child does not cope with the fairly high requirements of a modern school, this does not mean that he is doomed to "threes" and "twos" and in the future will not be able to get a decent higher education and master an interesting profession. You have the power to make a difference and help your child! Very often, academic performance suffers in smart and talented children, because they cannot reveal their abilities or simply do not know how to study. Fortunately, this is not an innate gift, effective learning strategies can and should be learned, and you, the parents, play a major role in this.

Many parents believe that discipline and a desire to learn should be instilled in the child by teachers at school. Of course, much depends on the talent and experience of the teacher, but the basic skills that children need to succeed in school are laid down in the family, starting from a very early age. By their example, correctly chosen upbringing strategies, love and care, parents lay the foundation for the future intellectual and mental development of the child. And in school years, children still need your support, understanding and guidance.

Often, with the best of intentions, parents make mistakes that their children have to pay for in the future. The good news is that it is not too late to fix them, while the child is still amenable to your influence, listens to the advice of elders and wants to succeed in life. You just need to slightly push him in the right direction, support his faith in his own strength and suggest the right decision in a difficult situation.

In the first part of the book, we will tell you about the importance of motivation for successful learning. You will learn how to get your child interested in learning, increase their desire for knowledge in various subjects, you will learn how to identify their strengths and weaknesses and help when needed.

The second part of the book is devoted to such an obviously useful and important learning factor as a good memory and the ability to concentrate. Both play a decisive role in a child's school performance, and often the lack of these qualities becomes an obstacle to successful learning. We consider these phenomena as a complex, since they are closely interconnected and mutually determine each other. Memory training is impossible without concentration, and we will tell you in detail how to achieve it.

At the end of the book you will find convenient and informative tests for memory, motivation and concentration. They will help you better understand in which areas the child has problems and what exactly prevents him from successfully studying.

In the part "How can parents help a student?" specific recommendations were given for parents for a short-term period (for a week), for a medium-term period (for a month) and a long-term period (for six months). Some of these simple and easy to follow tips may seem obvious and self-evident to you, while others may show you the way to solve problems that previously seemed insurmountable.

This program will not require much effort from you, and it will bring a lot of benefits. Teach your child to learn!

Motivation

Why is motivation important?

For many students and their parents, the time allotted for homework becomes a daily test of patience. Parents have to call the child to sit down for lessons many times before he ends up in his room at his desk. If after ten minutes to look at him, it turns out that he is already busy with a completely different matter. Instead of doing homework, the student looks out the window, draws little people in notebooks, or chews on a pencil. Parents begin to make comments, and - word by word - a scandal erupts. The child is increasingly moaning: “School is hard labor!”, And it is increasingly difficult for parents to find arguments against this statement.

This happens to many children, and it's not a lack of ability, but a lack of motivation. Not only the indicator of the mental development of the child is responsible for school success and failure, but also a whole bunch of different factors. Academic success is skill plus desire. Underachieving students often lack, above all, an interest in learning. They study only under pressure from their elders and prefer to master knowledge superficially without delving into the material.

Studies show that in school every year the desire for academic achievement is steadily declining for the majority of students. And this process starts earlier: today, teachers are no longer only dealing with unwilling teenagers at the age of puberty, but also with elementary school students who have no incentive to learn. The consequences of the progressive lack of desire to learn are very dramatic: about 8% of primary school students regularly skip classes, among secondary school students this figure reaches 15%, 10% of all students of the same year of birth leave school without finishing it.

If there is no motivation, everything seems painful: the math lesson becomes tedious and never-ending, daily homework turns into torture. The arsenal of tricks that parents use to get their children to study is great: they seduce their offspring with monetary rewards for good grades, threaten to be banned from watching television programs, beg, scold - and often become desperate. Because without internal motivation to complete tasks, children do not have enough energy, an internal “engine”. And his parents, unfortunately, cannot "start" by the effort of their will.

Motivation is not a constant value, it changes depending on the situation, mood, subject of study, but there is not a single child who could not be “interested” in school disciplines. Every person has powers through which he is able to learn, and it is very unfortunate that these powers are not always directed towards mathematics or geography. But everything can be changed.

The benefits of motivated learning are enormous: an internal stimulus increases interest and endurance, and enhances concentration. A student who has an internal incentive to learn, studies show, gets higher grades than children who study without desire. In addition, an interested child enjoys his work. This simplifies life for parents, who in this case do not have to constantly perform the functions of an “external stimulant”. Students who are intrinsically motivated use smarter learning strategies, they compare new information with what they already know, and they themselves check how they learned the new material. What they learn remains in their memory for a long time.

Where does the internal incentive come from to learn new things, if this requires a lot of effort? How to start this mechanism in a child who thinks that school is boring? In this part of the book, we will explain how motivation is formed and works, and what you can do to help your child start enjoying learning and improve school performance.

What is motivation?

The word "motivation" comes from the Latin verb "movere", to move. And indeed: a motivated person seems to be driven by something, he is persistent and focused on completing a task, easily achieves intellectual, sports and creative success.

Adaptation to learning usually takes a few months for children. The task of parents is to shorten this period so that the student begins to learn new knowledge faster, his attention is not scattered, and the rest regime is smoothly replaced by a work schedule. Of course, it is better to do all this not through drill and lectures, but by gradually adjusting your summer lifestyle. Start right now.

Time to go home

At first, schoolchildren are forced to drastically reduce the time spent on walks. The day before, they could walk for hours and choose what to do for themselves. On September 1, they sit down at a desk and should immediately join the training.

This does not mean that you will have to stop walking in August, but it is worth already now devote more time to activities for attention - reading, drawing, needlework- whatever you like best. You can invite your child to prepare crafts and gifts for classmates and teachers for the beginning of the school year.

Work mode

Getting a child back to school is a very difficult task, so it is hardly worth starting to put him to bed much earlier than usual, before the summer is over. But there are other ways to make this process easier.

Remember everything

Start reviewing what you have learned with tasks for the summer. A free retelling of an interesting book will help you “swing”, later you can look at more complex materials and pay attention to what is difficult (repeat the multiplication table, spelling, do several tasks in different disciplines).

Classes are best done in the morning, especially if studying is difficult for the child. In time, they can take no more than an hour a day - this is enough to refresh knowledge in memory in a free mode, but not overwork.

goodbye summer

The return to the regimen also includes a meal schedule that is close to the school routine. These are meals at the same time, mandatory breakfast and dinner a few hours before bedtime.

Not the last role is played by the positive and friendly atmosphere in the student's home. It is good if, together with the student, you choose school supplies, collect a portfolio and prepare elegant clothes. A few days on the eve of September 1 can be devoted to special family holidays - to get out together into nature, to the park, ride the rides, spend the summer and dream about success in the next academic year.