How to Help Your Child Study?

Reviewed and approved by the psychologist María Alejandra Castro Arbeláez.

Written by Zuleyvic Adriana Cuicas

Last update: 27 December, 2022

We all learn differently, that’s why it’s important to help your child study with effective techniques that stimulate their senses.

Helping your children with their homework won’t only help them study, it will also help them discover the ways they learn best and which techniques are the most effective for them.

Studying is a habit that should be cultivated every day in different ways, including through games. In order to help your child fall in love with the habit of studying, it’s important to think about everything, from the environment in which they will study to the tools that they’ll need.

In this article we’ll share with you a few strategies to help your child study more effectively.

Strategies to help your child study properly

1. Space to study. The child should have a suitable space to study. They should have a table and good lighting in their work space.
2. Help them concentrate. The child should study in a quiet environment which doesn’t have sources of distraction such as video games, cellphones and televisions.
3. Regulate their study time. For children under the age of 7 the optimum time for studying is between 45-50 minutes. During this stage it is difficult for them to concentrate, as parents you can stimulate their learning with different activities such as drawing conceptual maps or using mobile applications to get them to complete tasks. After age 7, children should be able to spend 1-2 hours studying daily.

Techniques to help your child study

Read with them

Teaching your child to love reading from a young age will provide them with numerous benefits. During early childhood education, experts recommend for parents to read stories to their children.

Reading stories to them from an early age familiarizes them with books and the act of reading. Once they start primary school, they’ll be able to read without difficulties. You can help your child develop comprehensive reading techniques which will allow them to retain the information that they read.

Reading can be accompanied by activities such as searching in the dictionary for words they don’t understand. They can also underline or summarize the data that they find to be the most important.

Makes summaries

After reading a topic and understanding it, it’s important to organize and synthesize ideas. A good way to organize and express the fundamental concepts that arise in our minds is to use summaries.

Many experts assure that summaries help children focus on what is really important.

If you teach your child how to make good summaries, you’ll be providing them with a tool they can use throughout their academic career.

The underline technique

If your child takes notes in class or prefers to summarize ideas in their own words before studying, it’s important for them to learn how to underline correctly.

Learning how to notice the main ideas of a text isn’t always an easy task. In order to teach them this technique help your child distinguish between what is relevant and what isn’t.

Keep in mind that, this technique is only usefully if your child is able to recognize which ideas are important.

Take notes

Writing down the main ideas of a certain topic requires a child to exercise their attention and put into practice their capacity to synthesize. Reading their own notes will help them remember what was taught and to memorize the most important points of each topic.

Taking notes also allows children to develop their imagination. They can create lists, titles for headings or classify topics according to their own criteria in order to make this method effective. This will make studying a light and simple task.

Prepare for exams

When your child tells you that they’re going to have an exam, make sure that they prepare in time. Maintain contact with their teachers in order to know when their evaluations will be carried out. Having this information is useful when it comes to helping children prepare.

If your child studies a little bit every day and reinforces their knowledge a few days before their exam, they will feel confident about their knowledge.

Help your child understand that when it comes to exams the first thing they should do is read the questions properly. Once they’ve done this, they can start off by answering the questions that they’re most confident about. Once they’re completely done with their exam, they should revise it before handing it in.