How to Make Learning Time Fun and Effective for Kids
Keeping students engaged while learning is important to keep their attention intact and conclude a lesson properly. The learning outcomes become much better if a child stays interested and fully engages in the process. However, making the child stay attentive during a class or a learning session can be tricky for parents and teachers. It might require one to think of new and effective strategies to keep a child interested in the lesson and have a fruitful learning time.
Through the help of various strategies, such as interesting games, narrative techniques, and storytelling, learning can be made more experiential and fun. Additionally, these activities may reinforce a certain concept well that may not require a child to go through the same chapter again and again. Hence, making learning time fun and interesting for children doesn't have to be tough. By implementing some effective strategies, parents can attain favorable outcomes.
Here are some effective ways to make a child more interested in learning and have a fruitful learning experience.
When a child enjoys a certain learning experience, they might stay engaged and proactive for a longer time. This is why it's important to ensure that your child laughs and smiles during the learning session. For that, you may integrate some funny anecdotes or jokes to keep it light. Additionally, you may also ask them some funny riddles to keep it interesting.
Letting your child exercise their choice may also be extremely beneficial for parents. Sometimes, making a study plan might become too rigid for the child to follow. Hence, parents and teachers can give the kids the opportunity to choose what they want to study on a particular day. Based on their choice, a particular lesson can be taught to the kid. This may make the child feel more involved and enhance their satisfaction level.
Many kids might enjoy playing games while learning. It's a great way to grab the child, as playing a game requires constant attention. As per Games: Making learning fun published in 2005, games may also make kids stay focused for longer. Also, including games may enhance the competitive spirit among kids so that they can perform better than others. All these factors and combinations may enhance the overall output and make the child stay engaged for a longer time. Some engaging games may include quizzes, puzzles, and subject-relevant riddles.
Giving rewards at the end of the process is also an extremely beneficial way of making the child stay engaged and enhancing their motivation level. As per The Influence of School’s Reward Systems on Students’ Development published in 2023, this may help the child achieve both long-term and short-term goals. The rewards may include giving a candy, winning badges, or just words of appreciation. In classrooms, teachers can make all the kids clap for a particular child who is attentive and listens carefully in the class.
Sometimes the child may get bored while studying in the same environment. Hence, to keep things interesting, parents and teachers switch off the learning space for the kids. As per Relationship between Educational Environments and the Creativity Learning Index in Children published in 2024, change of scenery might fascinate the child even more and make them interested in listening to the lesson. For example, if a particular lesson related to human anatomy is being taught, then the teacher might take the kids into the science lab.
Props are supporting objects that may enhance the learning experience of a particular concept. For example, if a teacher is explaining the Industrial Revolution to kids in the classroom, then she might show images and paintings from that era. The teacher might also get some relevant books from the library and talk about these books in relation to the chapter. Similarly, teachers may again bring relevant props from the science lab while explaining science concepts. All these objects help reinstate the theory written in the books. As per The Role of Props in Promoting Imagination during Toddlerhood published in 2022, props may also promote better imagination.
Sometimes switching rules can also be an interesting way of checking a child's conceptual clarity and enhancing their focus. To do this, one can simply ask the child to explain a particular chapter like a teacher. This may give the child a newfound responsibility of describing a particular chapter to several people. It may also encourage them to think more creatively and articulate the concept in the best way that they can.
It's also imperative for a child to keep taking breaks between learning lessons. This is important for the child to rest and then get back to learning with the best possible attention span. As per National Institutes of Health, continuously learning and studying may saturate the child, so they might not be able to concentrate for a longer time. All of this can be simply avoided by giving brief breaks to the child in between their study sessions.
These are some of the many strategies one can implement to make the child learn and focus better. Studying is not just about reading theory and cramming. It is an active process in which both the learner and the educator must be devoted to the process and focus on making the best out of the opportunity. By implementing these strategies, one may witness favourable changes in their child's academic performance.