How to successfully cultivate children’s independent learning ability

Recently, I have gradually felt that I am unable to cope with the education of my children. When I think about it carefully, I should still work harder to cultivate my children\’s internal drive to learn. So I read several books in this area: \”Ignite Children\’s Motivation to Learn\”, \”Awakening Children\’s Intrinsic Drive\”, \”How to Cultivate Children\’s Autonomous Learning Ability\”, and I have recently been sorting out my reading notes and reflecting on them based on the actual situation of the children. How to awaken children\’s learning ability? 84 expansion training games to help your child find the secret to success PDF Our ideal child learning state is this: Cognitively, the child clearly understands the meaning and importance of learning, and actionally, the child can be proactive and high-quality , bravely complete the learning tasks. So, as a parent, how should we cultivate it? Teacher Zhao Zhou\’s \”How to Cultivate Children\’s Autonomous Learning Ability\” gives us detailed guidance on how to operate. Mei Shiying\’s \”Awakening Children\’s Intrinsic Drive\” is more based on the experience of her own two children and explains some practices. . \”Ignite Children\’s Motivation to Learn\” analyzes it from a theoretical level. By reading these books, I summarized the following: 1. The underlying logic of interest is: cultivate interest in learning. Only when children are interested in learning will they be willing to complete learning tasks instead of being forced to do it. Just make a difference. To be honest, when my children were young and in lower grades, I did a pretty good job in cultivating their interest in learning. Perhaps on the one hand, the knowledge at that time was relatively simple, the requirements and expectations were low, and the children were relatively more obedient when they were young, so it seemed good results. As the children grew up and entered senior grades, I felt that there had been some neglect in this regard. I always felt that the children were older, more capable, and had a certain understanding of learning, but I neglected to stimulate their interests. In fact, as age increases and the difficulty of learning increases, it becomes more difficult to stimulate children\’s interest in learning. It is even more necessary for us parents to study more on our own and care more about our children. (1) How to get children interested in learning? The book \”How to Cultivate Children\’s Autonomous Learning Ability\” (Note: Except for those marked, the quotations in this article are from this book), added to me the relevant knowledge of interest, that is: we must first Understand the development of interest, and its stages. 1. Several stages of interest (1) When children first come into contact with a skill, usually by watching a performance, children are easily attracted by the coolness and beauty of the performance. At this time, you asked him if he was interested, and he said he was. (2) So you enroll your child in a class and start learning new skills. Generally, introductory classes are not difficult, so he thought he would be able to perform soon. At this time, you asked him if he was interested, and he said he was interested. (3) After a few weeks, skill training needs to strengthen new neural connections or train new muscle memory, and the intensity of practice increases, so the pressure increases sharply. It will be painful, tiring, boring, and frustrating. At this time, he will tell you that he is no longer interested. In other words, the interest cultivated to cultivate the internal drive for learning does not refer to superficial interest, not the superficial interest in the first and second stages, but the ability to work hard for a certain content for a long time and to have the courage to overcome difficulties. The book says this: The key lies in this stage, which is the breakthrough of skills.A critical period for breaking down and deepening interest. If you can persevere in the past, it will be possible to deepen your love. Otherwise, no matter how many attempts you try, you will only be scratching the surface and it is impossible to find love. 2. Goals If you want to stick to a certain interest, you must have appropriate and clear goals. What inspired me in the book is: We must learn to distinguish between goals and desires. A goal that does not specify a completion time cannot be called a goal. It is more suitable to call it a \”good wish\”. To stimulate children\’s initiative in learning, start by setting a goal that conforms to the SMART principle. Then you must pay attention to communicating with the child about the goal to ensure that the final goal can make the child feel \”I choose\”, \”I can do it\”, \” I am useful”. (\”Ignite children\’s motivation to learn\”) The goals must comply with the smart principle, be quantifiable, have appropriate difficulty, and provide regular feedback. SMART Principles for Setting Goals SMART is the acronym for five English words, which refer to Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. ). A good goal must first be specific and clear, measurable, challenging but achievable, relevant to other goals, and achievable within a certain period of time. (\”Ignite children\’s motivation to learn\”) I reflected on it. When it comes to setting goals, I used to help my children set goals. Later, I let them set goals, but I didn\’t teach them the methods. So what I can do is: on the one hand, help the children clarify some goals and formulate some feasible plans. On the other hand, teach your children the smart principles of planning so that they can slowly learn to set appropriate goals on their own. 3. Let me give you an example: When children practice the piano, they often play it casually. After playing for enough time, the task is completed. Later I chatted with him and asked him: Why do you want to practice piano? What is the purpose of practicing piano? It is to learn a certain piece of music and improve your piano playing skills. Yes, that is to say, it is not just about playing the piano, but also paying attention to the quality of the piano practice in order to achieve the desired effect, or goal. (Here is a clear goal) So, what should be done better? (Here is the specific plan) You have passed the grading exam, what should you test first? First test the basic exercises, scales, arpeggios, etc. So, when you practice the piano yourself, you should practice this first. About 5-10 minutes. Next, practice the new piece you\’ve been practicing recently. About 15-25 minutes. There should also be a detailed arrangement for practicing new music. For example: After recently completing the Level 9 exam, I started preparing for the performance level. We plan to spend 8 months preparing, and we need to prepare a total of 4 pieces of music for the performance level. In other words, prepare one every 2 months. The Chopin etudes I play now have a total of 85 bars. On average, I only need to play one bar a day. Of course, this is just an expression of task quantification. To play well means to do it correctly: the hand shape is correct, the pitch, the length of the sound, the rhythm, the emoticons, the fingering, etc. must be correct. Finally, leave 5 minutes to play any song you like.In this way, children will not be so casual when practicing piano, and the time arrangement will be more reasonable. (2) How to stay focused? If we hope that children can stay focused for as long as possible, they can learn from (electronic) games with appropriate difficulty and close to the child\’s zone of proximal development, so that they can maintain a state of concentration, that is, achieve a state of flow and enter a state of selflessness. Then you must learn to decompose goals and break big goals into small goals to make the goals specific, easy, and feasible. 1. Decompose goals. The book gives a general principle: How to add challenges to a child\’s strengths to make him more excited. How to break down goals about a child\’s shortcomings so that he has a sense of control. For example, my child\’s shortcomings. ——How can the reading and writing goals be broken down into relatively simple and easy-to-implement goals, making them more controllable? My initial thoughts were: Reading: Read a reading comprehension article intensively every week. Writing: Write 100 words every day to practice writing. But it was not implemented well. So I came up with a new idea: parent-child reading, and making a reading note every week, hoping to achieve the purpose of training reading comprehension and writing at the same time. How to break down the target specifically? Find a reading list recommended by the textbook and agree to read xx pages every week (specifically, ensure that you read it x days a week and finish x pages). Set a time for parents and children to share their reading experiences and take reading notes. This integrates reading, thinking, expressing, taking reading notes, and writing. 2. Tools, study plan promotion form This is the study plan promotion form given in the book. (3) Feedback The so-called feedback, in layman’s terms, refers to the actions of checking, correcting, and correcting mistakes after completing the learning task. The book believes that appropriate feedback is conducive to maintaining interest. There are mainly 4 points in the book that inspired me. 1. Reward method For an appropriate goal, the best feedback is the sense of accomplishment of completing the goal. You should see pride in your child\’s eyes. If all you see is fatigue or a child’s desire for a reward, something is wrong with the goal or the feedback. Improper reward or punishment will affect children\’s motivation to learn. This is the \”motivation transfer\” brought about by rewards. What kind of feedback doesn’t lead to motivational shifts? Here are three ideas: The first idea is to ask yourself whether you must set a reward? In fact, completing some things is a reward in itself. The second idea is to make the reward after completing the goal the same as the goal itself. The third idea is to reward based on relationships (rather than physical objects). This inspires me more. I\’ve known before that inappropriate feedback can lead to motivational shifts. There is a well-known story about a group of children playing football. The old man gave money at first, but then stopped giving money, and the children stopped playing. Once upon a time, there was an old man who liked to bask in the sun quietly in his yard. However, a group of children playing football came to the open space outside his yard. The children\’s activities affected the old man\’s rest. The old man didn\’t like his afternoon time to be disturbed, but he would definitely not be able to drive away these children and would make him even more angry. How to do it? The old man thought of a way. He called these children and said to them, \”I like you to come here to play football. Usually I am the only one here.\”I\’m bored. Let\’s do this. I\’ll give you $1 every time you come to play football. \”The children were very happy after hearing this. They could play and get money. Is there anything better than this? After a while, the old man called the children over and said, \”Hey, I don\’t have much money anymore. I can only give you 50 cents from now on. \”Although the money has become less, the children feel that this is still a good deal, so they still come to play football. After a few days, the old man called the children over and said, \”Hey, I have run out of money. But I still very much hope that you can continue to come here to play football and accompany me. \”The children were not happy as soon as they heard this. They wanted to watch the performance for nothing without paying. No way! So the children never came to the old man to play football again. The old man could finally continue to enjoy his pleasant afternoon. Originally, playing football was a The value of something for children is happiness and entertainment, but the appearance of money from the elderly is equivalent to an excessive reward. It destroys the original value of playing football and causes children to think that the value of playing football has changed. In exchange for money. Once the reward of money disappears, the interest in playing football will also be weakened. This trick is cruel. Not only does it not let you play football, it also takes away your salary and directly deprives you of your interest! Then we How to do this without causing a shift in motivation? Think: Do we need to set rewards? Sometimes we don’t actually need to set rewards. Let the rewards and the goals themselves be of the same type. For example: If you can complete these Olympiad math questions independently as soon as possible, reward Next time you do one less question, or use a help card when you encounter a problem, or reward an interesting question, and you give a similar question to test parents. Focus on relationships, rather than using physical rewards. For example: you completed the learning task , just play games with you, or accompany you to do something you want to do. 2. When guiding your children, you must hold back and think about it first, otherwise you will not be able to cultivate your children\’s autonomy. Every time you When you feel that your child needs help or guidance, hold it back first and think about the impact of what you want to say on the child, and then think about what will happen if you don\’t say anything. After weighing it, decide whether to give feedback or let it go. Naturally. If you want to cultivate children\’s autonomy, you should try to extend the silent time and reduce forceful intervention. This also gave me great inspiration. Many of our parents will make such a mistake, that is, when they see that their children have problems with homework, they will I can\’t help but talk about him. Now I start to consciously control myself and hold back. What should I do if I can\’t help it? Don\’t look. Out of sight, out of mind. If you don\’t look at the process, you can look at the results and check the completion of the homework. You can also skip the inspection and just look at the teacher\’s corrections. At this time, let him analyze and correct his mistakes, and then check to see if he really understands. You can also do random checks on a regular basis. 3. Cultivate the child\’s growth style The thinking model that focuses too much on the correct rate of answering questions is a wrong direction, because the correct rate can be achieved by reducing the difficulty of the questions. If you want your children to truly learn, then don’t pay too much attention to the correct rate and emphasize the growth achieved through mistakes. . I usually do pretty well at this point, but I need to further strengthen it and remind myself not to have a subconscious reaction when my child gets a question wrong. How to say it specifically?Use the vocabulary template given in the reference book. (Awesome, I’ve even sorted it out for you on how to say it!) 4. Speech Reference Template I noticed you… Look at how obvious progress you have made in ××! I found that there are two obvious differences between your composition this time and last time: …Dad admires your efforts in XX. Although it is difficult to do this, you did not give up easily. I found that you really like to learn… If you change the way of doing it, how else can you do it? Would the results have been different? Your idea is right, and you can think about it at the same time… One thing about your idea is particularly innovative, which is… I like the method you tried very much, and I think I can try it in the future. One thing that is particularly helpful to me is…the three points you just mentioned are great. Another point, if there is any way it can be improved. I have also encountered particularly difficult things. What efforts did I make/what new methods did I try/what help did I seek… This requires us parents not to be too cautious when communicating with our children, especially when talking about learning. It\’s up to you, think about it before you say anything. 2. Persistence. Once you are interested, it is just the beginning. If you go deeper, you will have to face difficulties that constantly arise. You need to have the ability to learn to deal with difficulties, and have the perseverance not to give up easily. Therefore, the approach is: develop learning ability. Develop the habit of grit. (1) How to cultivate learning ability? The author divides learning ability into these three elements: memory, understanding, and test-taking ability. My children have fewer memory problems, and I pay more attention to the development of understanding. Because I think that cultivating understanding is cultivating thinking ability. The book on cultivating understanding gives clear and feasible methods: 1. Three questions: cause and effect, ask about differences when similar, and ask about similarities when different. This means asking children more of these types of questions when communicating about learning content. For example: What did you learn today? \”December Flower Song\”. Oh, I remember you learned an article called \”Song of Trees\” before. Are there any similarities between these two texts? They all write about plants and introduce the characteristics of different plants. What\’s the difference? One is to introduce trees and the other is to introduce flowers. \”Song of Flowers in December\” is written in the order of the months, but \”Song of Trees\” is not in this order. 2. The second thing to do is to think first and then ask others, and say it in your own words. The author summarized these two points very concisely and to the point. \”Think first before asking others.\” You should tell your children at ordinary times that when you encounter problems, you should think about them first before asking others, and don\’t ask them right away. When asking others, don\’t say: I don\’t know this question, mom, what do you think I should do? Instead, you should say: I xxxx don’t understand this question. I already know xxxx, but I’m still xxxx. Mom, can you help me? \”Speak again in your own words\” requires children not to read the questions directly, but to review and think about them on their own. The book provides a tool – making cognitive maps, but I think it is not very convenient to operate. Cultivate test-taking ability 1. Growth thinking guides children to view exams correctly, and uses growth thinking to guide children to gain something from every assignment and exam. Don\’t feel bad about making a mistake, but use it as an opportunity to check yourself and avoid making the same mistake next time. 2. According to the book on cultivating academic potential,, Academic masters generally have these two characteristics: they are good teachers. Review after the exam. I think we can guide children from these two aspects. Usually ask him to tell his parents more, and sum up the lessons learned in time after each exam. 3. The book also gives different methods and ideas for making wrong question papers for primary and secondary schools. In the specific subjects of Chinese, Mathematics and English, parents should pay attention to the key points and methods of tutoring. (2) How to cultivate the habit of perseverance? The book gives 7 tips. The first trick: Use your idol to ask him gently: Pretend you are Captain Buck/Fireman…what would you do? I am going to find an opportunity to talk about idols with my children. Tips for using this trick: ○ Try to reduce preaching as much as possible. It is best to wait for the children to tell themselves what they will do. ○ Pay attention to words and expressions. Sometimes, the child has realized it but is unwilling to say it, so don\’t force the child to say it. ○Pay attention to timing. Don\’t use this technique when your child is having an emotional meltdown. ○In turn, your child’s favorite characters will shape his or her character, so be careful about the shows you show your children. The second tip: Make good use of your father. The third tip: Delay gratification. Mobile phone apps, TV shows, video games, etc. will reduce children’s ability to delay gratification, because they are designed to provide people with instant gratification: whatever they want, they can get it right away. . The fourth tip: Positive emotions. As a child\’s learning coach, we should try our best to put this knowledge into action: children are not happy because they have good grades, but they maintain good grades because they are happy. This reminds me that I still need to pay more attention to my child\’s mental state and see if he is in a good mood. When you are in a good mood, you can do anything with energy. Effective ways to promote positive emotions in children: ○Intimate relationship between parents. ○Give your children unconditional love. ○Enough outdoor exercise. It is best for primary and secondary school students to spend 2 hours of outdoor exercise every day, but not less than 1 hour. ○Care about others and help others. Tip 5: Mantra We know that \”out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks\”, but the converse is also true: what the mouth often speaks will fill our heart. So, turn these words into mantras with your children: ○ \”What should you do if you fail? Try again.\” ○ \”As long as the method is correct, you can learn anything!\” ○ \”The brain is like a muscle, it will grow when exercised.\” ○ \”We like challenges!\” ○ \”Mistakes are good opportunities to learn.\” ○ \”It\’s not \’I can\’t do it, but \’I can\’t do it yet\’.\” From now on, I will try to keep these mantras on my lips . Tip Six: Mentoring and Helping Friends There is a basic principle in pedagogy that is often ignored: just because you know it doesn’t mean you can teach others. This is the first time for him to learn the four mixed operations. It is the first time for you to teach the four mixed operations. How do you know that it is because of him that he cannot learn it, rather than because you cannot teach it? Some things, people think are very simple, just because they understand not much. The seventh trick: Reasonable ratio. The correct way is to reasonably arrange exercise items and intensity just like training muscles, combine work and rest, and make a reasonable ratio between what you are interested in and what you have to do, with relaxation and relaxation. The method given in the book is \”taste deeply and stop\”. \”Tasting deeply\” means letting children choose \”difficult things\” that they are interested in, but they must commit to persisting for a period of time. (1 month for first grade, 1 month for second grade2 months, and so on) \”stop at any time\”, during the commitment period, you must not give up; when the time limit is up, you can choose to quit or continue. Learn the key points of stopping an agreement: ○Broken down goals – schedule recording and staged celebrations can reduce the feeling of \”nothing in sight\”. ○Process feedback – let the children know that they should do things they are not interested in, and they can learn from things that are not fun. Your not giving up is growth and breakthrough in itself. ○Reduce the difficulty – If the child remains enthusiastic, then priority should be given to serious investment and high-quality completion. If the child has lost enthusiasm, then he can just \”practice to the passing line\” until the time limit. ○New goals – After the expiration of the agreement, the child can choose to exit or enter the next round of learning. If you advance to the next round, you should set an \”aggressive\” goal and develop a corresponding deliberate practice plan. Cultivate perseverance and let children learn to view life as a marathon, and they will have the confidence to win in the face of difficulties. By cultivating children\’s interest in learning and breaking down the goals, each small step is the child\’s zone of recent development, thus ensuring the child\’s concentration. Temper children\’s perseverance so that they are not impatient, have the belief to win when facing difficulties, and can work hard for a long time. In this way, children should be able to learn much more smoothly, and naturally their learning autonomy and internal drive will be improved.