4 Ways to help your child keep up with lessons in school

It’s easy for your child to fall behind in class. A few minutes of daydreaming here and there, nodding off after a heavy meal at lunch… and suddenly the teacher has moved on to a whole new topic altogether, causing them to miss every important detail that was said before. Repeat this scenario two, three more times and your child will soon become lost and confused about what they’re learning about.

Does this scenario concern you? Maybe it’s brought up some unhappy memories about your own schooling days. But keeping up with lessons at school can be very doable if we apply the right methods.

Here’s four quick tips that may prove helpful in keeping pace with lessons.

Learn how to learn with the Pomodoro technique

Our brain absorbs information in two different ways: Focused and Diffused. Focused learning happens when we actively try to solve problems, while Diffused learning occurs by allowing our brain to explore the problem in the background and find new approaches to it.

Using a school subject like Mathematics as an example, we typically rely on Focused learning to work out a particular method for calculating equations, but use Diffused learning to understand the concept behind such equations and explore alternate ways of solving it.

Both approaches have their advantages, but we only realise our brain’s full potential when we learn how to switch between both states of learning. One way of doing so is to utilise the Pomodoro technique, which comprises multiple cycles of Focused and Diffused learning.

The most basic form of the Pomodoro technique is as follows:

• Spend up to 20 minutes on focused studying, with no distractions whatsoever
• Take a 10 minute break to rest and let the mind wander
• Repeat the cycle at least 2 more times

The Pomodoro technique is great for periods of self-study, but it can also be adapted for use in the classroom. Suggest to your child that they ask their teacher to try out the Pomodoro technique for the whole class (their classmates would love getting breaks), or failing which, have them try to use it by themselves while lessons are ongoing. This technique becomes second nature the more one practises with it, so given enough time, your child might come to master it fully and be able to absorb more in class.

Practise active learning

Listening monotonously to lessons or lectures can induce fatigue and boredom, since one only needs to sit and stare ahead to ‘learn’ in this manner. But as we all know, our minds are much more likely to drift off that way!

To help them stay present and actively listen in class, your child can try performing some actions in response to the lessons, such as:

Opening the textbook syncing the reading material with the lesson Highlighting important sections in the textbook for further study Jotting down notes for further study that may seem significant in tests or exams Raising a hand and asking genuine questions related to the lesson at hand

Read in advance

An effective, yet often overlooked technique is to read the topics to be covered in school in advance. After all, with so much homework and revision to occupy themselves, who wants to study even more than they already should? But even achieving a basic understanding of tomorrow’s lesson is a good enough headstart for your child.

The key to this strategy is to make sure that the reading process is casual and relaxed. Not only is your child much more able to absorb new information when the reading material seems interesting and engaging, they will also be able to retain the knowledge gained, granting them a much better understanding of their lessons when their teachers finally cover the relevant topic in school.

Encouraging your child to read their textbooks before the topic is covered also makes for a great way to learn how to self-study, which is a highly beneficial life skill that will continue to pay dividends in the years ahead.

Take advantage of technology

We live in a time when technology has made learning possible anywhere and any time. With online learning, your child is able to study any topic they wish, at a pace perfectly suited to them. It goes without saying that this also empowers them to learn new topics that have yet to be covered in school as well.

Incidentally, Geniebook’s suite of online learning products makes self-learning a breeze, thanks to our AI-personalised worksheet generator, live online classes and student-teacher chat platform to clarify academic questions. With these tools, your child can easily keep up in class without getting bored or stressed out.

Interested in giving your child a head start? Click on the banner below to find out more about how Geniebook can help.