What do most parents do to help their kids with their homework?

• • I explain his lesson again.
  • I ask him to reread his lesson.
  • I tell him to copy a summary.
  • Highlight important words. 

However, all these methods are relatively ineffective and generally lead to superficial learning.

Indeed, researchers tell us that understanding and transferring learning requires explicit links:

• • with prior knowledge,
  • with concrete examples of different situations,
  • with other network elements,
  • etc.

That's why active methods are so much more effective!

Here are a few easy-to-follow tips to help you establish these explicit links for better learning:

1️⃣ Test yourself

Rather than rereading or listening, the idea is to recall without accessing the information, then check your answers at the end. This activity can take the form of free recall, or answering open or closed questions.

💡 In practice:

• • Hide part of the lesson, and try to reconstruct the missing part. In vocabulary or language: a table with 2 columns, words and their definitions, hiding the definitions column. For geography: a blank laminated map to practice locating countries, oceans, etc.
  • Answer questions In spelling, invent sentences containing homophones. In history: answer true/false questions posed by you.

2️⃣ Asking questions

It involves making comments, linking information and generating inferences.

💡 In practice:

In conjugation, we can ask you to justify the verb ending. For example: In the sentence "He looks at them", why is there no -s in regarde?

In mathematics, we can ask you to explain calculation strategies: "I know that double 15 is 30. So to make 3×15, I add another 15 and that makes 45."

3️⃣ Summarize 

Simple and highly effective, this activity consists in rephrasing the content in your own words and in abbreviated form.

💡 In practice:

In science, we can ask you to summarize the key points after watching a short documentary.

In history, the lesson can be summarized the day after it has been learned.

4️⃣ Compare

This involves examining similarities and/or differences according to given criteria.

💡 In practice:

For example, in English, you can ask to compare the use of the present tense with that of French.

5️⃣ Mindmaps  

The idea is to visually represent links: nodes represent concepts and arrows with verbs or keywords represent relationships between concepts.

💡 In practice:

This rich activity can be quite difficult. With kids who are not yet at ease, you can :

• • offer hole cards.
  • propose a list of concepts and links to be represented.
  • create the concept map together.

6️⃣ Argument

Arguing in defense of your answer requires you to make connections:

• • Evaluate the validity/plausibility of your answer
  • Establish links with previous knowledge to justify oneself
  • Compare your approach with others

💡 In practice:

Ask your child to explain his or her approach and express his or her degree of certainty:

"HOW did you find the answer, are you sure? WHY did you do it this way?"

Remember that learning how to work is just as important, if not more so, than acquiring the knowledge and skills themselves.

We hope these tips will help you support your kid in developing them!

The Soft Kids team 🌈