Teaching strategies for parents, tutors and caregivers

Before books, teachers had to memorize information and pass it on orally.

Before the internet, a large part of the job of the teacher was to store vast amounts of information and pass it along to their students in a compelling and entertaining way. 

Now with billions of instructional videos and information at the tip of our fingers, the role of an effective teacher has changed. 

A teacher must support students in sifting through and prioritizing the vast amount of information available to them. They also had to develop techniques to support children in memorizing information that they could bring to their future professions. These professions have changed too as machines replace many of the roles that required memorization and hard skills. 

With this change in accessibility of information, a teacher’s role has also opened up. With less of a need to be a walking encyclopedia, an effective teacher can be someone with a high emotional intelligence, guiding children to be happy, whole and develop meaningful social relationships. And it also comes with a vital responsibility to help students develop a framework of values, sift through the information that’s available to them, figure out what’s true and what’s not and how it relates to their own framework of values.

While students do model themselves after others and it’s important to have bright, capable role models, teach them to express themselves eloquently, etc, these models are often readily available on youtube and perhaps more brilliant and eloquent than the role models they’d find in their community. 

When students are happy and well-adjusted, they tend to be more passionate about learning, confident in friendships and have better follow-through with projects. They have an awareness of how these projects impact others and an impulse to contribute good things to the community that supports them. 

They have more autonomy over their lives in general, able to achieve whatever they set their sights to (self-directed), plough through obstacles (grit) and be less susceptible to what others think of them, focusing on what’s important to their next goal as opposed to making moral judgements about themselves or trying to impress parents or peers (growth mindset)

Great teachers of yesterday had to be extremely bright, entertaining and able to memorize lots of information.

Great teachers today need to be compassionate, intuitive, patient and inspiring.

This opens up the field for many people to teach, including parents. 

Teaching materials

Generally, one of the first things parents worry about when they are taking a more active role in their child’s education is what curriculum to use.

Fortunately, with the new wave of modular learning, a huge variety of high quality teaching materials, learning apps and other materials have been developed to support any parent or caregiver teaching their child. They are aligned with state standards, have built-in assessments and easy-to-follow scripts for parents to use.

We’ve built a curriculum planner at Modulo to help families sift through the thousands of vetted, secular learning materials to find the right one for their child’s unique learning style. 

Teaching techniques

A lot of parents and caregivers are afraid that they’re not trained to teach their children well. To that, I reply, well if that’s true, you better start learning because you are teaching your child all the time. You encouraged them to walk to you when they were learning to walk, you teach them speech when you talk, you advise them on how to be a moral person. They also learn destructive lessons from you, for example, when you don’t take good care of yourself or mistreat your friend or partner. You might say that these are not academic skills, but what really separates them that much? When you demonstrate a growth mindset, grit or compassion, your child picks up on that and learns these skills too. If a child is learning math, reading or social studies, what they most need is gentle encouragement and persistence. These are the same tools you are using when you encouraged them to walk, learn a new word or make friends at the playground. 

Here are a few techniques that I can find helpful for getting started:

Learn with your child

As a young teacher, I did memorize a lot of teaching techniques, but twenty years down the road, I’ve abandoned most of them. This is because, while it takes more patience, I generally find that children learn much better when they are the ones directing their learning. If I explain a concept to them (especially one they are not curious about), they might master a test, but they’ll likely forget it the next day. If I am patient and let them problem solve, they will likely remember the information for life. If there is something they are struggling with, we will learn together and push through until we figure it out.  So the best teaching technique is to really learn with your child. As a grownup, you’ve likely developed ways you learn more information. It might be looking at youtube videos, googling, taking a walk and thinking about it. Model this way of learning with your child. In the process, you may also find out which techniques work best for them. 

Use different senses

When learning new information, it’s great to apply all five senses. For example, if a child is learning to count, you can read a book on counting with numbers (visual), you can count sheep to them as they fall asleep (auditory), you can bounce a ball with them and count (kinesthetic), you can eat peas with them (taste) or you can see how many different things you can smell in a garden. You might also try singing the numbers together. If your child is older, an example of this might be watching a youtube video, reading a book, listening to a podcast, cooking a recipe, making a gift around a certain theme. 

Project based learning

Creating a project together is a wonderful way for students to retain information and develop skills through a specific experience of setting a goal, overcoming obstacles and achieving results in a multi-sensory way. For example, if you are teaching European history, you might have your child put on a play about Marie Antoinette’s life.  

Experiential learning

Getting out in the world is by nature multi-sensory. You can learn about plants and flowers by going on a hike, learn about geography and history through traveling, discover marine biology by going to the aquarium. There are so many ways to learn by going out into the world and taking advantage of all the cultural and community resources your city has to offer. 

Child centered communication

As mentioned previously, nurturing a child’s social-emotional development is critical to effective learning. While this is a bigger topic, it starts with empathy - listening, making sure you understand what a child is trying to express and reflecting it back. It involves praising children’s efforts (I love how hard you’re trying) which they have control over vs their character (you are so smart) which they don’t have control over. 

Self-directed learning

Don’t underestimate your child’s ability to learn on their own. If you doubt this, look at how much they’ve already learned and mastered without your help (learning to walk, talk, make friends). It’s very important to give children large amounts of time where there learning is not directed, so they can discover what they’re curious about, how to find the information they want and discover passions and interests. Your child will likely change careers many times in their lifetime and their own ability to direct their own learning might be the most important skill they acquire, so give them time and space to develop this skill without interference. Don’t enable!

Inquiry-based learning

There are many types of inquiry-based learning, but it starts with simply giving children the benefit of the doubt when it comes to learning. When a child asks, why do birds fly, instead of jumping into a lecture on aerodynamics, consider asking them what they think about how it works. Engaging children in questioning is vital to raising lifelong learners who are engaged and curious about the world around them. 

Student as teacher

The best way to see if a child has truly mastered a skill is to see if they can teach it to you. Once I feel confident that a child understands an algebra concept, knows how to play chess or has a meaningful understanding of NYC architecture, I ask them to teach me about it. If I don’t understand a concept, I ask for clarification. They can also teach another child. This helps both with the child’s retention of information, lets them observe what being a good student looks like and also helps them see any gaps in their own understanding that might emerge from them trying to teach it.

Making connections

One of the ways that you as a parent or caregiver can be helpful to your child is that you understand the whole scope of their education. For example, if they were studying percents earlier that week and you go out to a restaurant and have to leave a tip, you can ask your child to calculate it. If you’re learning about Ancient Egypt and then a month later are learning geometry, you can connect the shapes lesson to ancient pyramids. Drawing connections helps students see how knowledge can be applied and deepens their understanding as well. 

I hope these teaching techniques are helpful to get you started with playing a bigger role in your child’s education. The important thing to remember is that what will help your child teh most is inspiring them and giving them confidence that they are capable beings who can teach themselves. Most teachers agree that they didn’t know anything about teaching until they had a few years of experience. It wasn’t their degree that empowered them to success, but being in a classroom and getting support from mentors and peers. Everyone has to start somewhere, so dive in, get to know your child’s learning style and ask for support when needed. 

Remember, that as a parent, there is no one who can put a fine lens to your child’s learning style better than you, so in that way, you are at a huge advantage in developing the perfect teaching strategies to suit their unique needs.