Learning skills children need to succeed.

I have written a couple of posts about children needing to learn how to learn if they are to become successful in school and in life. This post is about the skills children need to be able to learn.

I remember learning to bake. My mother baked once a week and it was a glorious time to be around the kitchen. Not only did I get my fill of all the wonderful smells but I also got the lick the bowl! As I grew older I was expected to help out and I remember sifting the flour and stirring the mixtures. I think the next step was breaking the eggs without getting any pieces of shell left in the dish – that was tricky! Gradually I learned the skills I needed to make a good cake (cherry cake was my favorite, and I liked dredging the cherries in flour so that they did not sink to the bottom of the cake).

Making a cherry cake demanded more than following a recipe. I had to know HOW to do the things that would make the recipe work. If I tried to follow a recipe without knowing how to do things I would end up with a cake but I doubt that it would be edible.

The skills of carefully breaking eggs, sifting flour, dredging cherries, choosing the right size cake pan were some of the skills I needed to be able to bake a cake; they were some of a set of skills that ensured that the cake was fit to eat. Just as I had to learn HOW to bake a cake children have to learn HOW to learn.

Children need a set of learning skills if they are going to learn. In fact they need three sets of learning skills.

The first set of learning skills children need are physical learning skills.

Children need to have developed enough control over their body to be able to use it to help them learn. This is often a developmental issue. Babies cannot focus their eyes for a few days after they are born, young children find it difficult to sit still for any length of time and small hands have problems holding a pencil. So, unless and until a child has developed some control over his body it is very difficult for him to use his body to help him learn.

I have found that one of the main reasons young children have difficulties learning is because of undiagnosed hearing problems, especially intermittent hearing loss. A child may have a cold or sinus infection that effects her hearing and she may not hear what is being said to her. Parents may pick up on this lack of hearing but in a classroom full of children it is very difficult for a teacher to be aware of changes in one child’s hearing.

The second set of learning skills children need are emotional learning skills. These relate to the attitude a child brings to the learning situation.

Children need to be confident about their ability to learn, to take responsibility for their own learning, to be curious, and motivated in order to learn well. Learning does not happen in isolation: children need to be able to cooperate with others and to share their knowledge and skills. These are all emotional skills that children need to develop in order to become good learners.

Children who lack self confidence may never even try to learn. I have worked with many children who found learning so difficult that they came to believe that they would never be able to learn anything. I had to spend time and energy convincing them otherwise, bolstering their self esteem, before they were ready to risk trying to learn once more.

The third set of learning skills children need are cognitive learning skills. These are the skills that enable children to think.

This set of learning skills includes being able to remember, to choose the right problem solving strategy, to understand and use language and to be able to visualize. These may be seen as higher level skills and these are the skills children need most when they are in class.

Michael was a wonderful boy who tried his best to learn. Unfortunately learning was very difficult for him. He would be able to read a book one day but be unable to reread it the next day. He became very frustrated and despondent as he seemed to be working hard and getting nowhere.

The problem was that Michael had a very poor short term memory. He could not remember things for more than a few hours. So each day was like a new beginning for him, he had to start again and relearn what he had forgotten. Michael did not have the cognitive skill of using his memory to help him learn.

Once I realized this I stopped trying to teach him to read and we played memory games to help him develop the learning skill he needed.

To recap – children need to learn how to learn. To be able to learn well children (and everyone!) need three sets of leaning skills. These learning skills relate to physical development (and brain development), emotional abilities, and cognitive abilities. Only when a person has developed all three sets of learning skills is he or she able to learn in an efficient and effective way.

Spatial skills are one of the cognitive learning skills people need to be able to learn. I have real problems with direction, which is one aspect of spatial ability. I often cannot find my car in a parking lot and, once I could not find it on the ferry when it was time to leave! The story of how I got off the ferry is for another time. I have developed some ways of handling my difficulties with left and right, I just need to remember to use them!

This has been a brief introduction to the learning skills children need to be able to learn. In future blog posts I will be describing these skills in greater detail. Meanwhile, what learning skills do you have that are weak or missing?