Teachers are finding ways to make classes more engaging and interacting, especially most students are still doing online class. This is one of the many things teachers do as they also cope up with the changes of education system in the new normal.
Children aged 4-8 can have attention spans that max out at 16 minutes. Unless you have a very attentive child, this isn’t a long time at all. For teachers, it means you face a constant struggle to keep young children engaged in lessons. Whether you’re working in a school or teaching your own child at home, you need to find ways to retain their focus for as long as possible.
You’ll be pleased to know there are solutions to tackle this, and here are some steps to take:
Make things colourful
Kids seem to respond well to colours, so use them in your lessons. You can get your hands on loads of colourful teaching resources that will attract their attention and make them intrigued. Even something simple like providing colourful book covers will help them stay focused on the lessons. Or, if you can implement colouring into your lesson plans, there’s a higher chance your kids will be concentrating on the task at hand. The brighter and more vibrant things are in the classroom, the more attentive kids tend to be.
Split lessons into chunks
If you know that a child is unlikely to be attentive for more than 15 minutes, does it make sense to try and teach them for longer than this? Instead, start splitting lessons into chunks where you provide kids with information for a few minutes, then set them fun tasks to do relating to the lesson. It’s a way of breaking things up, so the children don’t get bored too quickly. By constantly moving them onto different tasks and breaking up the lessons, they don’t have a chance to lose focus. You’re catering to their attention spans, meaning they always have something new to do before they get bored.
Drop down to their level
This is perhaps a tip that’s more targeted at parents teaching from home, simply because you don’t have prior experience teaching children. As such, you tend to teach them without thinking about what they understand. Kids respond best to things that they can relate to. This means you have to drop down to their level and use examples in your lessons that they will understand. For example, using characters from their favourite TV shows to help them understand certain topics. Or, when teaching maths, use examples like ‘if you have two sweets and I give you one more, how many sweets will you have?’ Stuff like this makes lessons more relatable for kids, and they stay engaged.
Use technology
Finally, you need to take advantage of all the technology available to you. In a simple sense, this can mean finding educational videos to show the kids – they respond better to videos and stay more focused than they do to school lessons! Another idea is to get the kids on computers or iPads; it feels like they’re enjoying play time, but they are actually learning.
You can keep kids engaged, it’s just a matter of figuring out how to appeal to them. The ideas above are helpful for teachers and parents alike, so give them a go!
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