You have been teaching your homeschool student the topic in the best possible manner. The responses you received in class make you feel that the concept has been easily understood by your little homeschooler. Then you feel that the child is likely to be competent in what has been learnt and are thoroughly disappointed the next day when you ask a question based on the class and get only wrong answers. What went wrong, you ask yourself as you wonder how you could have improved the class. Here are some ways to help your homeschool student become more competent in learning.
Recall
Once you have taught the student something in the homeschool classroom, ask them to shut down the screen, close the books and recall what they have heard in class. Essentially have them tell you exactly what all they can recall from the topic taught and you will know just how much has actually been understood and retained by your homeschool student. Its a simple trick to fit information better into the brain. Recall works better than simply re-reading the text in the book.
Mini Testing
You may not be a fan of testing, but these small questions that you pepper your homeschool classroom with actually serve the purpose of driving the topic being taught even better into the minds of the student. They don’t have to be very elaborate questions, just thought provoking ones, which allow your child to assemble the material better in their brain. Bring out these questions in either oral of written form and have your child answer them. Informally test them to see how well they retrieve the material.
Making Mistakes
There is great value in making mistakes. Most adults feel bad if caught making a mistake, but if you consider the fact that after that one time they are never going to make the same mistake again, its worth having made it the first time. Which homeschool children, when you catch them making mistakes, instead of scolding them ask them to self correct their mistakes. As they go through the material and catch the mistake they made, their own understanding of the subject will increase.
