Teaching our Kids When our kids go to school, what do they learn? They learn from two levels, one level is from the schools curricula, the other from their peers, but it's not so much what they learn, but how they Learn To Learn.

Do you know a student that is struggling in school? Children have a difficult time learning for many different reasons. Some scenarios are more complex than others and may even require the assistance of a professional. There is a reasonably straight-forward solution for some students. I am referring to students that are experiencing difficulties because they have never learned how to learn. What does it mean to Learn To Learn? It means learning to understand and use various systematic approaches to obtain and store knowledge. A student that has learned to learn will achieve greater success in school without experiencing the frustration that can result with a student that has not. It is possible that the struggling student has never had the opportunity to be introduced to learning systems. It could also be that the student has not had enough exposure to such systems. There many different learning systems that students should become familiar with and use. Two of the most powerful and useful tools that will help a student succeed in school are Phonics and Mnemonic devices.

Phonics is a learning system that teaches students to associate specific sounds with specific letters or combinations of letters. This allows them to combine multiple sounds together and pronounce words that they have not seen before. Phonics contributes greatly to success in reading. Reading skills are extremely important to the ability to learn any subject. Mnemonic devices are memory aids that assist in the recall of information. They are developed around the use of a technique called association. Association is the mental linking of things we want to learn with things we already know.

A student striving to memorize all the states on a map of the USA would benefit from the use of association. The student could observe the shape of a state and identify any characteristics of the shape that have some relation to the name of that state. For example, the state of Kansas has a shape that is fairly rectangular much like the view of an empty soda can that has been tossed to the ground. It also has one corner that does not conform to a rectangle shape. That corner could be thought of as the drinking hole on the soda can. These characteristics would allow the student to associate the visual shape of Kansas with the word "Can" as in soda can. Once the student is able to look at the shape on the map and recall the word "Can", recall of the state name "Kansas" becomes a significantly easier task.