How to prepare your child for success
IT can be frustrating to think what you can do to help your child succeed in school and later in life. Surely if you help them to memorise a lot of facts, you job is done, right? Actually, nowadays kids need to be more than just book smart. Employers are looking for people who are effective in decision-making, strategising and problem solving.
Higher order thinking skills (also known as HOTS) help children apply knowledge creatively in different situations and so developing these skills have more long-term benefits in our children’s lives than memorisation. HOTS consists of three vital skills: analysing, evaluating and creating. So what can you do to help develop your kids HOTS at home?
1. Use online journals to explore a topic
The first HOT skill that children need to develop is analysis, which means identifying patterns and organising ideas. Get them to choose a topic and search online journals to gather information about the topic. They can see how a topic is explained, and how ideas are compared. Hopefully, this will also lead them to think about the difference between fact and opinion. This takes them away from the regular classroom handouts and their thinking skills get a nudge which gives the child a sense of achievement.
Some good sites you can use are: https://www.ducksters.com/ https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles
2. Online lessons encourage in-depth thinking
The second step requires children to understand a concept properly, not just to repeat it but to evaluate it. Encourage your kids to talk about what they have learnt from a lesson. A lot of free online lessons are available on their website http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/.
3. Get them to make a video!
The final HOT skill is to create. So why not get them to create a video? It is fun and educational at the same time. Videos often help children to understand real-life situations and asking them to create their own videos can be inspiring as they see the purpose of learning a new skill.
The British Council approach to learning allows children to gain fluency in English and develop HOT skills by tackling real-life projects and tasks, through specially formulated lessons.