As parents, we are always conscious of our kids and their knack to understand concepts and their performance in school.
This particular “knack” that kids have is what we call Learning Quotient(LQ). A person needs to have the ability to understand and retain information to perform well in school or even outside school.
Learning Quotient can consist of desire to learn, memorisation of techniques, association techniques, learning styles, exploring skills, focus, reflection skills.
We all know there is something called IQ- Intelligence Quotient. There is a fine line between LQ and IQ. IQ is a part of LQ, and it is a test of LQ.
If your child has issues concentrating and retaining information related to his study material, it doesn’t always indicate a significant health problem. Sometimes it is just as simple as “The material is boring, MOM!”
So how do you make it interesting? How do you train your children from an early age to concentrate and retain information?
You have to develop three fundamental skills, namely:
To teach these skills, you need to start with entertaining games and activities rather than academic material. Once you gain their interest in learning, you can build the rest over that.
Here are some activities you can do with your kids to help them:
This Maze game can be found in many activity books, mobile apps, and parks. The gameplay is simple: find the path to the exit.
It is one of the games played by kids all over the world. It helps children improve their analytical skills. For a young developing mind, it helps them distinguish a viable hiding spot from a bad one.
Set up Lego blocks of ascending numerical values across your child’s room. Next, set up a music system with your child’s favourite songs in a place nearby so that it is audible from the room. Dance to the songs with them, stop the music, scream a number, your child has to run to the number you said.
Puzzles are a good unsupervised activity as your child’s curiosity would keep them engaged with the game. They help in brain development as they build children’s spatial reasoning as well as hand-eye coordination.
This game can best be played in an open area such as a park or playground. You take out the flashcard, and your kid must then find the object mentioned on the flashcard. For example, if the word on the card is “Park Bench”, your child will have to locate one in his surroundings.
The game starts with the first person saying the phrase “I am shopping. I pick up a…” and add something after “a”. Then the next person repeats the whole sentence with what the first person said and adds their item to the list. This game goes on until someone messes up the order of the things in the sentence.
In this game, the first person starts team spirit life-skills any phrase like “I have a pet pig”, the next person has to say a word rhyming with the word “pig”, for example: “fig” or any word last said. This game goes on until someone repeats a word already said
Name, Place, Animals, Things (N-PAT). You need at least 3-4 players for this game. One of them needs to say the alphabet fast in their mind or out loud for 10 seconds when the clock rings. After 10 seconds, the player tells everyone the letter he landed on. Everyone (Including him) needs to find out a Name, Place, Animal, Thing within 20 seconds, and if anyone writes down the same thing for either of the headings, you will get a 5 point deduction each. Remember, the letter can be repeated but not the words.
Take a tray and pick up some items, and put them on the tray. Show it to the participants and take away the tray. Instruct the players to write down all of the items in the tray in the order they were arranged. The ones that get the maximum in the correct order win.
Players need to stay extremely quiet in this game. You need to give them instructions preceded by “Simon say”, for example: “Simon says, Jump up”, “Simon says, spot-run”, etc. When someone doesn’t pay attention to the instruction, they lose. So whoever stays till the end wins.
*NOTE: VAK is a learning style that some students find helpful. V stands for visual learners, A for Audio learners, and K is Kinesthetic learners. VAK is the standard way through which people learn, understand, and retain information/knowledge.*
There are a couple of things you must keep in mind while playing these games with your kids:
Remember always to be calm, and not all children respond the same way to teaching and learning techniques. Keep trying, be consistent, and patient. Do not constantly correct them. Let them discover their mistakes and rectify them on their own.
Sometimes bringing more participants can teach your kids life skills, like team spirit, sportsmanship, etc.
When you participate in the game, you can always create the required experience and teach your child how to react and not react, and you can help them out when they try to solve the activity.
Win or lose, always ask your child if they put their best foot forward and give them a pat-on-the-back. A simple pat-on-the-back goes a very long way.
Activities that help children exercise all their senses and skills are essential—experiencing doesn’t only equal learning. The child must reflect on his/her actions and understand why they reacted the way they did in the situation or how they could have done something better. Remember, learning does not imply academic learning. Learning life skills is very important as it is applicable in all instances.
Here are some books and shows:
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