The TOAD guide to putting more vowels in your children’s report cards – straight from the experts.
TOAD spoke to Christine Tharian, associate centre director for the Sylvan Learning Center of Abu Dhabi. She tutors children from nursery to their final school year. Christine shared some insight into how to help children improve their performance in school:
How many hours should children be studying?
Two productive hours per day and every day. Practice makes perfect!
Is it possible for children to study too much?
Of course, children can get overwhelmed and require frequent breaks. A common struggle that children face is test anxiety and being overloaded with info will only make it worse and result in poor performance.
What is the most effective way to teach children?
With a lot of patience! Ensure there is a two-way interaction and provide visual aids and hands on materials. Be able to adjust to different learning styles.
What should parents know about helping their kids to do better in school?
Find out your child’s learning style and capabilities. Use your child’s interests as a tool in teaching your child at home.
What are the subjects that children struggle with the most?
Comprehension, which often leads to trouble with problem-solving. This usually translates into the child struggling in mathematics.
When should parents start worrying about their kids’ performance in school?
The earlier, the better. As soon as you notice lack of motivation, change in grades and low level of confidence address it right away. Fill in the gaps as soon as possible. It’s important to understand a child’s academic and emotional needs. Every child is different and needs to be taught differently.
Sylvan Learning Center is located in Mohamed Bin Zayed City, on 28th street near Mazyed Mall. They provide tutoring for children from pre-nursery to sixth form in subjects such as math, reading, writing and test preparation.
(02 650 8505).
Sometimes you need a different approach
For some students, poor grades aren’t a result of inadequate study habits or laziness; they can be a sign of cognitive weaknesses. The Dots and Links Centre in Al Wahda Commercial Tower assesses and trains students whose performance in school may be due to underlying concentration or memory issues. Razan Nabulsi, the director of Dots and Links points out that “If your child takes too long studying and struggles to do homework independently, these are signs of a cognitive weakness.”
Some other indicators that Razan points out are poor listening, difficulty in following conversation in a crowd, being easily distracted, mind-wandering, inability to keep things tidy, and impulsiveness. She recommends that parents set realistic expectations for their children and not to put too much pressure on them if they are not getting straight As.
If a child is struggling in school, Razan suggests that to start, parents should meet with the child’s teacher to pinpoint the areas of struggle and discuss the appropriate plan of action. Most of all, however, Razan says ‘It’s very important for parents to intervene when their child’s poor academic performance starts affecting his or her self esteem and motivation levels.’
For children who do experience cognitive struggles, most commonly this means that they have trouble with concentration and attention. Centres like Dots and Links use ‘brain training,’ which assesses in detail the areas that are problematic for the student and then creates a personalised programme of exercises designed to target those issues. Brain training can help students struggling at school, who might be suffering from dyslexia (reading and writing difficulties), dyscalculia (difficulties with math), ADD, ADHD and speech and language disorders.
You can have your child’s cognitive skills tested at the Dots and Links Skills Development Center, Al Wahda Commercial Tower-M03, Al Whadah (02 445 9994).
