Helping your child to learn

Michael Goves is an experienced teacher with two decades of senior teaching experience in both state and independent (private) schools. He is currently the CPLD and NPQ Lead at the River Learning Trust/ Oxfordshire Teaching School Hub and is expert on Cognitive Science and Learning. He is also a parent.

How was school? What did you do? What’s your homework? These are all reasonable, well meaning questions to ask as a parent, but the answers might not be what we’re after. Instead of a great chat about learning, with some anecdotes about friends thrown in, we might get something like, ‘ok’, ‘lessons’, and ‘a worksheet’.

As a parent and a teacher, my advice would be to keep questions about the social side of school and learning separate, at least to begin with. For the former, I go with ‘Did you enjoy your day?’, ‘Who did you play with?’, ‘What was the best thing about today?’. Followed by a request to ‘tell me more’…common sense, delivered in a caring, supportive way.

But being supportive and constructive to help with learning involves things that are more uncommon sense. Left to our own devices, whether children or adults, people usually choose/prefer the least helpful approaches to learning. Here’s some guidance - which would also be shared with students (and teachers) - about what to do vs what to avoid, with a brief description of why…

1. Doing doesn’t mean learning: it’s tempting to ask about what your child ‘did’, but actually we’re interested in what was ‘learnt’. I hear this too much in schools too. Students could ‘do’ lots of ‘work’ but learn very little. So, don’t focus on what they did; do ask about what they learnt. This matters because it shifts the thinking onto what lessons are really for - learning, not just doing.

2. The process matters most : too often students fixate on their score/mark and not on the process used to get it. This slows down progress. When presented with a mark and a comment to improve, students usually only focus on the mark, being less likely to make the improvements suggested. Worse, they use the mark to judge themselves. The mark doesn’t just become a judgement about that question/test, it becomes how good they are at that entire subject. This catastrophizing is bad, not true or fair. So, don’t focus on what score/grade/mark was given; do ask questions about the process. For example, ask, ‘How could/should you answer question 2?; or, ‘what steps do you follow to solve the problem in question 3?’; or, ‘What is question 4 asking?’. This matters because it’s essential to separate the person from the process. The process can be learnt/improved over time. Learning the answer to a question without knowing where it came from is not much use. This shows up to teachers as blank answers, or comments like, ‘I can’t do suggest or long answer questions’. And if there are blank faces or ‘I don’t know’ answers to these questions, this is where your child can start when asking their teacher for help, or to revisit in conversation at Parents’ Evening.

3. Learning takes time and effort: I do a lot of research in education and you can’t measure learning in a lesson, a day, even a week. Learning happens over weeks and terms because learning means making long term memories. Also, if it isn’t hard along the way, learning probably wasn’t happening. I explain to students that if questions are always answered correctly, they probably didn’t learn much (or anything) because nothing was new. Making mistakes is good, finding things hard (but just do-able) is good. So, don’t reinforce that you found something hard/impossible as so a reason to opt out; do celebrate that if it’s hard, it’s likely going to result in learning. This matters because the key will be using the right processes (being shown worked examples, models of how to answer questions, model answers).

4. Revising needs to be learnt: this is huge - brains try their best to save energy, not use it up - great revision can seem counterintuitive, for example, we need to forget a little and try hard to remember in order to strengthen memories. Some strategies teachers recommend avoiding include: re-reading, re-writing loads of notes, highlighting, copying answers/information from one place to another, busting out hours of work in one go (late at night). The thinking effort needed to do these things is low. Better strategies include: making flashcards (one fact per card - question on one side and answer on the other; a picture prompt can help); quizzing to recall answers from memory; quizzing to recall how to answer a question (not just the answer itself); summarising notes; practising questions in timed conditions; taking away the notes/model answers over time; working in short bursts (with short breaks); spacing out revision over time. So, what can you do to support? Help make flashcards; be a quizzing partner; set a timer for 30 mins of effort, and 10 mins of break; hear explanations of your child’s understanding (it doesn’t matter that you don’t know all the answers yourself); ask how you answer the questions they’re answering (again, it doesn’t matter that you don’t know it yourself - you’re helping reinforce the all important process). Finally, make a spaced revision timetable. For example, rather than spend 2 hours in one block the night before a test, plan out 4 x 30 min blocks in the 5 days before the test, leaving the night before completely free.

5. The environment matters: learning requires attention and multitasking is a myth. Practising and revising in a place free from distraction matters. Distractions divert brain power. So, don’t advise working on a bed (associated with relaxing/sleep); don’t have a TV on or music with words. Do turn notifications off; keep the reward of that box set until after the work is done; definitely prioritise at least 7 hours of sleep - this is the most important factor for learning and memory.

6. Research keeps updating: how you learnt a subject might not be how it’s advised to be learnt now. So, don’t enforce your way of answering questions because this may be counter-productive; do follow the methods being learnt in school (even if it means learning them too) and help your child to understand and use them. And watch out for myths. Being a visual/auditory/kinaesthetic learner for example is not supported by research. We have our preferences, but the truth is the more ways we use information (see it, hear it, do it) the better it is learnt.

I hope you found this helpful. Above all, I can assure you that what you say and do matters. A lot. A parent/carer is a child’s first and most important teacher. Don’t underestimate the influence you have. Be positive. Support the process and the outcome will happen.

Michael Goves