How To Help Your Child Prepare For Exams
Be creative
Young children can get bored easily when studying. You can guide them to be creative and turn what they have learnt so far into a drawing or diagram. This will boost their memory skills.
Helping with revision plans
A plan is a great way to make sure children get all their revision work done. Help them to get organized by giving them a personal planner and checking the date of their examination. Make sure they stick to their revision plans as to avoid last minute revision.
Provide them a good place study
Studying environment is important too. Enough space and equipment in a well-lit area will provide them some motivation to study effectively.
Motivate your child
Don’t simply focus on results. Make sure you encourage effort and determination that of your child. This is not only crucial for their examination but also for building motivation for their future too. Be there and guide them when they are doing their homework.
It is a good idea to encourage them by asking them what they want from life. If they want a decent job in the future, guide them to look at people who have achieved that and help them to find out how the person got there. Tell them it is important for them to be successful in their education.
Basic needs
Your children health is one of the important aspects of their live that can have a huge impact in their performance at school. The best way to ensure their energy is stable and able to concentrate well is to have a full balanced meal. Breakfast is particularly important for fuel throughout the day and they may need to eat properly before settling down for their homework. Provide them with supplement too. While Iron is an important nutrient in children as Iron deficiency can lead to tiredness, Omega oil is important for their memory and concentration.
Good sleep and breaks or leisure time is crucial too for their physical and mental health. Make sure they have a good night sleep and probably daytime nap too. These will help them in enhancing their memory and attention in studying. Having breaks or leisure time help them to reduce stress or alternatively, listening to relaxing music as it has been shown that it decrease stress-related symptoms such as heart rate and blood pressure.
In Malaysian education system, classroom teachers often focus on teaching the actual subject matters in the syllabus of co-curriculum and students are left with revising on their own. Parents can help guide their older children or teenagers with these tips in studying;
Study techniques
Malaysian examination consists mainly on subjective and objective question and mostly student tend to revise by just reading chapter after chapter and highlighting the points. And some makes the extra effort but jotting down the points on a piece of paper. Parents can do this and that is one of the way how to help your child prepare for exams.
In my time, during the year of SPM examination we would have SPM camp and teachers would invite experts and give seminar on study techniques. But sometimes the school would only hold these camps towards the end of the year when the SPM exam is almost near. The seminar was great, they would teach student on various study techniques to improve our revision. But some of us wish we knew those techniques earlier so that we studied better.
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| Photo: Britishcouncil.hk |
In my time, in the early 90’s, internet is not available then so we was relying most on the teachers. Those days parents are also not much exposed to things like how to help your child prepare for exams. But nowadays with the advance of technology, we have all this knowledge we can get online easily. You as the parents can do some research on studying techniques especially for teenagers. Some of the techniques you can guide your children with;
1. Mind mapping – Mind map is a technique where you draw information instead of writing them in sentences. According to Wikipedia, mind maps are considered spider diagram where in the centre of the diagram is the main idea or concept and connected by several sub-ideas.
2. Flash cards – A simple study technique that has been proven to be one of the most effective ways to memorize. A set of flash cards contains information in either or both sides of the cards. Teenagers can write the question on one side and the answer on the other side and repeatedly test themselves.
3. ASTRO Tutor TV – Malaysia’s first revision channel for UPSR and SPM students. It is an exclusive channel where students can do revision interactively in front of a television. Astro Family Subscribers and school are offered free with these channels. Astro had even launched Tutor TV SPM and UPSR iBuddy, a mobile app for all android and IOS users.
Sometimes during examination, teenagers might experience failure or helplessness. So it is important for them to have the feeling that you as the parents are there with them to support emotionally. Exam can create tension and the best you can do as parent is provide them the positive energies surrounding them. That is basically how to help your child prepare for exams.