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We are approaching the end of another school year.
Your child may be rocking it and getting great grades.
Or your child may be struggling with passing.
Luckily there is still time to get those grades up and help your child be confident in school.
But before you hire a tutor, listen to this episode or check out the show notes below with my guest who has years of experience tutoring kids and helping them achieve academic success.
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Interesting reason why you shouldn’t hire a tutor for your child
Tutoring should not be our first response. Nor should it be your last resort.
And here’s why. First of all, tutoring is costly.
Over time it can be a considerable financial burden on you.
Secondly, the truth is that there are things that we can teach our kids so that they do well in school without the need for a tutor.
The things that we need to teach our kids essential academic skills.
These are the necessary fundamental skills that kids need to have to do well in school.
And the downside is that our school systems are just not teaching our kids the academic skills they need to succeed in school.
Luckily, Rachael shows us what academic skills need and how to develop them in this episode.
5 Academic skills your child needs for success
The only difference between your child that is struggling in school and the child labeled as “smart” is the “smart” kid has already either learned the skills or they have inherent capabilities that help them to do well in school.
It’s not that the “smart” kid is smarter or they work harder.
Your kid may be just as quick and even more hard-working.
To elevate the stress that you are experiencing with your child’s progress in school and become the “smart” kid, your child needs to master several academic skills.
These academic skills are the essentials that Rachael teaches.
These academic skills are study skills, learning skills, organization, note-taking, and time management.
How to show your child at a young age to be organized
Surprisingly, you can start teaching your child these kids as young as preschool age.
Show your child organization by having specific papers organized in a folder.
Show your child, here’s how your folders keep organized. Here’s how you write down your assignments so that we don’t forget tasks.
Set up an after school schedule routine for doing homework.
So that way, when they have lots of homework when they’re older, they won’t fight homework.
How to determine Your child’s learning style
To determine your child’s learning style and to develop their learning skills, Rachael suggests using the VARK questionnaire.
You can find this questionnaire in her resource library.
Even if your child is very young, you can observe how they learn and determine which type of learning style they use most often.
So, what is VARK?
VARK is an acronym that stands for visual, auditory, read, and kinesthetic.
Visual
V is for visual.
This is learning through pictures, symbols, diagrams, charts, graphs, flow charts.
For young preschool-aged kids, you can tell if they are more visual learns if they love learning through picture books.
They may even ask you to go to certain parts of a book based on the picture that you didn’t even notice in the book.
Auditory
A is auditory.
Auditory learners learn through spoken word.
Auditory learning can be in a lecture, group discussion, chatting, and talking through things.
For the young children, you may notice that they love hearing you repeat stories or singing nursery rhymes.
Read/Write
R is for reading and writing.
So many people will mistake the read/write for visual.
Visual is different from read/write learners.
Visual learners prefer pictures, images, symbols.
Those were things that they remember when they’re trying to recall from memory.
However, read/write learners learn through words, letters, numbers.
Kinesthetic
The last learning style is kinesthetic.
Kinesthetic learning comes by doing or hands-on learning.
These types of learners learn through demonstrations, simulations, and videos.
By knowing your child’s learning style, you can quickly help your child with studying through their learning style so that they pick up information faster and retain the information so that they can do well when tested.
It’s essential to know your child’s primary and secondary learning style because some subjects don’t allow you to use your primary learning style during classroom learning.
How to help your child study
So here’s the difference between learning and studying.
Learning is the actual style that we just talked about. But studying is so much broader.
Instead of cramming the night before, use your child’s learning style to review the material being test every day for 15 minutes.
Repetition is the key to studying. Repetition is actually more important than the length of time you take for studying.
The best way to teach time management
So you have the learning styles and studying skills down, but how do you teach your child time management?
The simplest way to teach this, even with preschool-aged kids, is with a timer.
For example, if they’re sitting down to do homework, set a timer for 15 -20 minutes.
Depending upon their age, it doesn’t have to be that long.
If they’re a little bit older, consider for 25-30 minutes.
Tell your child, “You have an assignment that you need to get done. You need to have the assignment done before the timer goes off.”
Once they have completed their homework, they can take a 5-minute break. Then move on to the next assignment.
Your kids will see that they need to get the assignments done in a certain time and then they can go off and do whatever it is that they like.
For preschooled aged kids, you can use the same method by picking up toys.
Set a time for 5 minutes and tell your child to pick up and put away all of the toys before the timer goes off.
Rachael’s final words to parents
Learning doesn’t have to be as hard a school makes it right. School can take the fun out of learning.
And so the one thing I would love to leave you with is if we can teach our kids that learning is fun. I think it’s so much more important than grades.
I tell everyone learning is way more important than any grade your kiddo has …
I encourage you parents to focus on the learning and be proud of the learning. And let’s not focus so much on the grade.
About Rachael
Rachael is a tutor and academic mentor and has tutored for over 12 years.
She earned her undergraduate degree in two and a half years. And earned her graduate degree by age 22.
She is a homeschool mom of 2 and offers resources and experience to help parents learn how to help best their teen or child that is struggling in school.
To learn more about Rachael, visit her website, The Experience Graduate. Also, make sure to get access to her resource library.
Connect with her on Instagram and Facebook.
Links mentioned in this episode
Thank you to our sponsor
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Featured Mom Win
This week’s mom win comes from @kidsahoycrew
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Thanks, Adriane. You are so right. We learn in so many different ways. Know my child’s learning style has been essential in helping with homework and preventing meltdowns because they just don’t get it.
These are all amazing tips!! I love the tip on looking to see what kind of learner they are. So many schools have a one size all approach but God didn’t make us that way <3
Yes. Now that I am a parent I see that it takes more than just send your child to school. I am so happy the Rachael shared these skills that parents can teach their kids at home. I never knew what my learning style was until I was an adult. Now I am hoping to help my kids so they don’t have to wait until they’re an adult, like me, to learn their learning style and how to study effectively.
Absolutely. Nothing is worst when kids hate school and hate learning.
As an educator, I love that this is a holistic approach to helping parents understand how to help and support their child. As you mention, sometimes the child is simply struggling with organization skills or the fact that material is not being introduced or reviewed according to their learning style .
Thanks for sharing these tips! I agree that making sure that find enjoyment in the quest for knowledge is so important to encouraging them to become life long learners.