A new concept in how to help your child become a better learner.

Perhaps it is not such a new concept after all, but it certainly is one that needs reviewing and updating. It is a simple idea really, but it has been overlooked and ignored for so long that it needs reintroducing and being given more importance.

What it it? It is the idea that parents need to help their children learn how to learn.

What do I mean, learn how to learn? Surely children just learn and teachers help them learn?

Well, it doesn’t work quite like that.

Do you remember learning to drive a car? Before you went on the road you had to know where the brake was, how to turn the steering wheel, where the indicator switch was and how to use it. And that was just the beginning of what you needed to know, I hope that you had learned a lot more than that! You had to know how the car worked before you learned how to drive it on the road.

Well, I hope that you did. Imagine driving a car and not knowing how to stop it, or how to signal a turn or keep it going straight. Doesn’t sound like fun does it? You had to have certain skills BEFORE you could learn how to drive, how to handle the car once it was on the road.

Just like you learning how to drive, children need to learn how to learn. They need a set of skills they can call on and use when they want to learn something. These skills have various manes, I call them learning skills, others call them foundational skills or basic skills. But whatever they are called, unless your child has them he or she will struggle to learn.

Who helps children develop these skills?

Fortunately children are pretty bright and pick up many of these skills themselves from watching how you, and others, handle the world around them. But this can be a very hit and miss affair.

Do they learn them in school? They may do, but teachers spend most of their time helping children learn what is on the curriculum and may not even be aware of the learning to learn skills that children need. Children are often left to try and work out HOW to learn on their own and some do better than others.

So who helps them develop these learning skills? You guessed it, it is you, the parent, who is in the best position to help your child develop these vital learning skills. In fact you are probably helping your child develop them and you are not even aware of it. Every time your child watches you solve a problem, do something new, or learn something, he or she will also learn HOW you did it, and will try to do the same.

So, back to this NEW CONCEPT. If parents had a guaranteed way of helping their children develop these learning skills, rather than leaving it up to chance, do you think that children’s ability to learn and do well in school would increase?

I do, and I know of others that think the same.

The new concept in how parents can help children love learning, reach their learning potential, and succeed in school and in life is that parents need to help their children learn how to learn.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful!