Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd Grade

 

Students at these grade levels need the guidance of their parents to develop and reinforce positive study habits. Students need to find a quiet place to work with a parent for support that is free of distractions (ie. cell phones, TVs, etc.) It is crucial to start early in the elementary years to develop positive study habits and build a foundation for future learning and successes.

 

GENERAL TIPS:

• Students of the kindergarten age tend to learn best when presented with tactile examples (i.e. learning about animals by studying the classroom pet hamster, or making a diagram of themselves to learn more about the functions of the human body)

• Visual tools are also very important to learning (i.e. to learn math, placing three cookies on the table in front of them, removing one, then asking how many cookies there are left on the table. If they answer right, you could even reward them with the removed cookie to reinforce the behavior!)

• Many scholars refer to a “sense of wonder” that is in many kindergarten-aged students. This sense of wonder allows kindergarteners to become absorbed in the puzzles that surround them. They attempt to figure out those puzzles by exploring, constructing explanations, and asking more questions.”

• Kindergarteners make sense of the world by physical, hands-on exploration and discovery (hence why the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, PA and the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ are such hits with those ages!)

 

CITATIONS:

1. http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/going-to-school/grade-by-grade/kindergarten/