Written by Stéphanie Dodier, B.Ed. MA.

Is your child studying for hours and still not getting good grades? Are you wanting to assist your child in their learning but don’t know how?

Below are 5 evidence-based learning strategies can help you and your child become study allies.

Focus

Learning how to focus is of major importance and this skill can be learned from a very young age. Our working memory is used to understand concepts. However, it can only focus on a certain number of things at once. It is like a small parking lot with only 4 spaces (some have 5 or more but most have 4). If the TV is playing in the background, that background noise is occupying one parking spot. The phone rings, music is playing… and our parking lot is almost full. There isn’t a lot of attention left for your child to understand difficult concepts. Help your child understand the need to avoid distractions.

Retrieve, retrieve and retrieve

“The other day, I tried to go to my friend’s house, but I simply could not remember the route (although she’s lived there for the past 3 years). Why is that? Every time I had gone prior to this attempt, I passively listened to my GPS. I wasn’t making a conscious effort to retrieve anything while getting there nor after. Therefore, nothing was stored in memory to retrieve later. ”

Retrieval practice is one of the most effective learning techniques (but it is often the least used!). It forces the learner to retrieve the information in their heads. Here’s a common situation.

Flashcards and practice testing are good examples of retrieval practice. It is a little bit more difficult, but that is exactly why it works. Effortful learning leads to durable learning.

Spacing

Help your child organize their studying to benefit from the power of spacing. A study of two groups of kids learning French vocab words showed that the group who spaced their studying received much better grades on an unannounced test (75% vs. 55%)!! What a difference!

Each group studied the **same amount of time**, but one studied in a *smarter* way.

The power of metacognition

Students spend hours studying concepts … that they already know! Knowing what you know and what you don’t know is an excellent skill to develop. Practice testing/questions offers a way to realize this. It is also a good opportunity to celebrate mistakes which fosters a growth mindset.

Interleaving

Interleaving is very useful when doing practice questions. Instead of doing blocked practice the strategy needed is clear (often, it is stated in the title of the worksheet!), and interleaving entails choosing a few questions that are similar but require different strategies.

This allows discrimination of the subtle differences and similarities between problems (just like a test!).

If you are curious to learn more on the science of learning and find more concrete tips on how to help your child study, you can contact me for a FREE PDF document. We will also address issues such as how to help my child get unstuck, how to provide the right amount of help/support, and much more.

About the Author Stephanie Dodier

Women sitting on a couch with her legs crossed and hand over knees. There is a fluffy blanket beneath her. She looks professional.

Stephanie Dodier is a seasoned francophone secondary science teacher. She is very interested in finding ways to help her students learn hence her interest in neuroscience and the science of learning. Stephanie also has a master degree in education and is a sessional instructor at Simon Fraser University for future teacher candidates. She also works with parents, teachers, and organizations through her education consulting company CompetencED. Her mission is to communicate research-based educational practices to all education stakeholders because she values bridging the gap between academia and practice. Most importantly, she hopes that her passion for education transpires in the way she raises her two daughters.