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Lifelong learning is one of the most important things out there both for an individual’s ability to succeed on just about any given path, and also for their ability to lead a fruitful and fulfilling life.
As a general rule, the learning habits that are acquired in childhood will tend to have a significant influence on how people engage with learning throughout their lives. But, of course, there are also more immediate and direct reasons why it’s a good thing to get your child actively and positively engaged with their education from an early age.
Perhaps one of the best things that anyone can do in order to help a child adopt a more positive attitude to learning, in general, is to take steps to make the learning process more fun in and of itself.
Here are a handful of different ways that you might be able to make learning more fun for your kids.
Use well put together worksheets that your kids can feel accomplished for completing
Worksheets, if done right, can be an excellent source of motivation and a sense of accomplishment for your child, compared to many other forms of learning.
With an interesting and well constructed worksheet such as those offered by Studentreasures Publishing, your child can benefit from having a clear outline of what they need to tackle at any given moment, while additionally always being able to “see the finish line” as well.
Kids will naturally tend to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when they have completed a worksheet and can see the evidence of their progress right there in front of their eyes. It’s also straightforward to come up with ways to reward your kids for completing a set number of worksheets as well.
Help to nurture and encourage their natural interests
Every child will tend to have certain natural interests – things that they find fascinating, and they want to find out more about, without having to be told to by a teacher.
Unfortunately, these natural interests can be squashed or subverted by imposing too much structure, rigidity, and formality on the overall learning process. If your child is naturally fascinated by outer space, you should do what you can to nurture and encourage that interest by – for example – providing them with the resources to investigate more about the topic on their own time, in a way they are likely to enjoy and find natural.
Educational novels, picture books, encyclopedias, and so on, can all be very positive in this regard. And if your kids develop a set of positive associations with the learning process in one domain, there’s a good chance that this will carry over to a more general interest in learning.
Make sure they get a good grasp of the fundamentals
Perhaps one of the most important things you can do in order to ensure that your kids are able to enjoy the general learning process – and even to have fun with it – is to make sure that they get a good grasp of the fundamentals.
A lot of frustration in education comes about because the fundamentals, in any particular subject, weren’t properly grasped or understood – meaning that there is a constant confusing game of “catch up” that has to be played down the line.
On the other hand, if your child understands the fundamentals and basic concepts behind anything well, then the learning process will likely be more fascinating and less stressful and confusing as a whole.
There simply won’t be the same sense of wild desperation when it comes to trying to figure out what’s going on.
Look for ways to make the learning process more active and engaged
It’s always worth keeping in mind that, as human beings, we are meant to be active and engaged – both physically and otherwise – when it comes to navigating everyday life.
There’s good evidence that regular physical exercise actually makes us better at learning and incorporating information on the one hand, and many great writers and scientists over the ages have reported that some of their best insights have come to them when walking, or otherwise being physically active.
If the learning process for your child involves essentially sitting in a room and trying to memorise lists of facts by rote, it’s quite unlikely that they will find the process very fun.
Instead, look for ways to make the learning process more active and engaged – both physically, and also in terms of more practical exercises and experiments.
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