I’m so excited to share a guest post from Dominique Goh. As a teacher, blogger, and mom, she is well-qualified to give advice on motivating reluctant learners.

Learning and studying doesn’t come automatically to a child.  It is something
that has to be cultivated from a young age. Motivating your child is not an easy
task. This is especially so if you have a reluctant learner at home. It sometimes feels as if you are engaging in a losing battle as the child is mentally resistant to absorbing the new information that you are providing.

My middle child is a rather reluctant learner.  He would scowl and show his displeasure if he was told that it was time to do work. To make him more accepting to learning, here are some of the techniques that I implemented.

Focus on the child’s interest first: Doggie boy loves cars and trains. He has many different toy cars and trains in his toy box and I made used of this readily available resource to teach him his colors, counting , the concepts of big and small, singular and plural.

Break up the lesson into bite- sized pieces: Many young kids have a very limited attention span. If the activity on hand is rather long or has a few steps which one must get through, I would break it up into pieces. Each part of the activity would last no longer then 5 -10 minutes and the child will get a 5 minute rest in between so that he will be able to concentrate better. I find that it works better in the long run as the activity gets completed and both the child and the parent will not be so restless.

Take learning outdoors: Going on a field trip, or just out to the park does wonders in getting the child interested in his surroundings.  You can do some incidental learning by just stopping by the grocery shop and picking up some different fruits and vegetables which the child can identify and learn
about.

Dominique Goh is a Singaporean elementary school teacher, professional
blogger, website mentor, and mom to three. You can find her blogging about life,
kids, parenting, and her passions in cooking and photography at Dominique’s
Desk.  Find her at  http://dominiquegoh.com/