Does your child struggle with homeschool activities and questions? Does he struggle to understand a paragraph or page in your study books and struggle with the questions that follow?
Read on to find out how to overcome this hurdle in your homeschool.
A lot of what your child does in your homeschool basically boils down to reading through some portion of text and then answering the questions that follow.
This means so much hinges on how well he understands what he reads. As you will see in a moment, you can help him overcome these struggles whilst boosting his self confidence at the same time.
But let’s take a quick look first at what NOT to do and why.
Non-Comprende in Your Homeschool
Has your child ever read through some text, completely misunderstood it, and then answered most of the following questions wrong? And then you were left trying to figure out when and where things went wrong?
If this sounds like a regular occurrence in your homeschool scene then you’ll have noticed that this can hurt his confidence.
It might help to first understand why this is happening. And the reason is simple…
It’s happening because he doesn’t understand parts of the text.
So he needs your help to understand it thoroughly before he’s ready to give the questions a go. This is what will adequately prepare him to face those upcoming questions.
Fortunately, this is also what will make him feel ready for questions and get him feeling confident.
To do this try…
Reading Together
Let’s take the example of a typical homeschool activity: reading an extract from a story.
Instead of leaving him to read silently alone try reading the extract together. Take time to explore the extract. Explain it to him as you go along. Talk about what the characters are doing and saying.
Stop reading to discuss why they are doing those actions. Talk about how the characters feel. Talk about the events and why they happened. Doing this brings the text to life for him.
In short, unravel the story with him. Ask him what he thinks about the characters and the events. Really take apart the story together and examine the extract. Take the time to go over it.
This is time saved cleaning up wrong answers later.
Exploring the breadth of the extract together helps him feel well prepared for the coming questions. This builds and boosts his confidence.
When you feel confident that he fully understands the extract then, and only then, move onto the questions.
Questions Within Homeschool Activities
Do the same with homeschool activity questions. Struggling with questions can also be traced to children misunderstanding the questions themselves, even if they understand the text just fine.
So, take the time to go over each question one at a time and ask your child what exactly they are asking. Listen out for misunderstandings and gently correct them on the spot.
Once they fully understand the text itself and the questions too, you have done everything you can to prepare them well and build up their confidence.
Hope this helps with your next homeschool activity.
Did you try this out? Let us know in the comments below. If you found this article helpful please subscribe.
Check out these popular articles: how to make maths fun for under 7’s and use this cheap method to teach kids how to read easily.